24 replies to this topic

[OneScrewLoose]

With or w/o food? Morning, night? If you take it, do you do anything special?

[hamishm00]

I usually go:

Morning, without food and on an empty stomach.

I've also switched to Alcar Arginate caps.

I'm convinced that ALCAR powder + water = disaster for tooth enamel - anyone got any science to back this up/refute it? i.e. the PH of say 1 gram of alcar in 350ml of water?

[shaggy]

No problem with my teeth, although my ALCAR is encapsulated.

Take 500mg am and pm with food, as is the case with my other supplements. Never seen a strong enough reason to change this routine on the supplements I take.

[pycnogenol]

With or w/o food? Morning, night? If you take it, do you do anything special?

I take 500 mg of encapsulated ALCAR early in the morning without any food.

[mwasnidge]

I take one LEF Arginate in the morning on empty stomach. I avoid taking it later because it intereferd with sleep the one time I did. Personally, I'll be going with regular ALCAR next time...the LEF Arginate is expensive.

[hamishm00]

I take 2.5 grams of jarrow alcar arginate in the morning.

[tlm884]

I cap my own ALCAR from Nutraplanet in 00 Caps. I don't take ALA with it.

[OneScrewLoose]

Does taking ALCAR with food ruin it's effectiveness?

[OneScrewLoose]

bump. I really want to know the answer to the food thing cause it's bothering me on an empty stomach.

[whiskey]

Does taking ALCAR with food ruin it's effectiveness?

I've been wondering the same. I read somewhere that when taking meds to empty stomach you need to be 1hr without eating after taking the medication or supplement.

Edited by whiskey, 22 March 2010 - 11:07 AM.

[chrono]

hamish: do you notice any subjective difference between the arginate and regular forms?

I take 500mg first thing (at least 30 min before light breakfast), and then again mid-day to mid-afternoon. I've noticed that when I take it shortly before or with lunch, I usually feel like it doesn't work. So I try to take it either an hour or two before or after any kind of heavy-ish meal, depending on how heavy it is.

[Blue]

LEF should at least be ashamed. Preferably sued for false advertising.

"Studies show that it stimulates the growth of neurites in the brain by 19.5%, which is almost four times better than acetyl-L-carnitine."
http://www.lef.org/V...e-Arginate.html

The source is one cell study on rat cancer cells from the adrenal glands.
http://www.springerl...870878331ng1j8/

Note that there is no evidence that this substance does what alcar has been shown to do in thousands of studies including a very large number of human placebo-controlled ones.

[winston]

Could we get anyone elses subjective experience on the with or without food question?

[niner]

I take ALCAR before a light breakfast and before a (usually heavy) dinner. I certainly don't wait an hour until I eat. I might wait 5 or 10 minutes in the morning, but usually eat right after taking it with dinner. I don't have a careful comparison of fed vs fasting dosing, but noticed a significant bump in energy when I started taking ALCAR, which has always been under this dosing protocol, more or less. You might try looking into the literature to see if you can find a pharmacokinetic study that addresses the question.

[chrono]

I take 500mg first thing (at least 30 min before light breakfast), and then again mid-day to mid-afternoon. I've noticed that when I take it shortly before or with lunch, I usually feel like it doesn't work. So I try to take it either an hour or two before or after any kind of heavy-ish meal, depending on how heavy it is.

Perhaps I should qualify this response. When I say I feel like it doesn't work, I'm referring to effects along the axes of mental clarity, focus, etc. There is a pronounced absence of these, which is very noticeable when I'm writing or doing research, for instance. As far as more general systemic energy is concerned, I'm less able to say, as that isn't what I'm looking for.


Did a little reading over at M&M, particularly this thread. Doesn't seem to be much solid data specifically about ALCAR, with most recommendations based on carnitine or the general fact that ALCAR is a peptide.

My observation makes sense if the effects I'm looking for are based more upon peak plasma concentration. I suppose there's still a chance that bioavailability might be higher with food, with the effects dispersed over time.

[hamishm00]

hamish: do you notice any subjective difference between the arginate and regular forms?

Short answer: No.

[DaveM]

I read in another thread that it was best to get ALCAR digested as fast as possible and food will slow the absorption which could be detrimental rather than helpful to your health.

[full_circle]

i'd like to point out that some ppl should not take alcar at all. reason being, alcar mimics acetylcholine and either stimulate the receptors (in low does) or sometimes numb them (in high dose).
rule of thumb: if you suffer depression, avoid alcar.

Edited by full_circle, 26 March 2010 - 11:46 PM.

[niner]

i'd like to point out that some ppl should not take alcar at all. reason being, alcar mimics acetylcholine and either stimulate the receptors (in low does) or sometimes numb them (in high dose).
rule of thumb: if you suffer depression, avoid alcar.

This doesn't sound right. What is the evidence for it?

[full_circle]

i'm not sure about the nature of your post.. are you saying that you did not know alcar competes with acetylcholine for the receptor..? or are you just somehow in a not-so-good mood now?

[OneScrewLoose]

i'm not sure about the nature of your post.. are you saying that you did not know alcar competes with acetylcholine for the receptor..? or are you just somehow in a not-so-good mood now?

The f***? What's his mood got to do with anything? You made a claim, now you got to prove it. Links plz.

[niner]

i'm not sure about the nature of your post.. are you saying that you did not know alcar competes with acetylcholine for the receptor..? or are you just somehow in a not-so-good mood now?

I'm in a mood for evidence rather than accepting random claims on the internet as though they are factual. Are you saying that alcar acts as an inhibitor at cholinergic sites? It might be an agonist, and it provides acetyl groups for the synthesis of acetylcholine, and enhances cholinergic activity through acetylcholine release... So I think you might have it wrong. What really seems wrong is your claim that it's contra-indicated in the case of depression.

[full_circle]

well, frankly you need more knowledge on this. what more can i say? (this is not biochem 301, is it?) sorry.

[OneScrewLoose]

You're an idiot.

[clathrategun]

Why it's usually wrong that people with depression should avoid ALCAR:

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/23382250

 

"L-acetylcarnitine causes rapid antidepressant effects through the epigenetic induction of mGlu2 receptors."

 

Both too much and too little acetylcholine can cause depression and it could be good to feel this out using the substance as a tester:

 

http://bbrfoundation...-narsad-grantee

 

http://www.psyweb.co...cal/physiol.jsp

 

What ALCAR does, simplified: 

 

ALCAR increases brain glucose metabolism and utilization of serum fatty acids by breaking down into carnitine, and increases endogenous acetylcholine synthesis by lending acetyl groups. Source for that: Wikipedia.

 

To answer the actual question:

 

The best way to take ALCAR is on an empty stomach. Source: experience of many users on various forums and personally.

 

 

I'm just going to take a quick potshot here and mention that I don't really understand how  somebody could just waste their time being an unhelpful and factually incorrect dick on forums, especially if they actually have useful knowledge. What a ridiculous existence..

 

E: I know that this thread is old. This common complaint on forums has become invalid due to even old threads being often the first result on google for some given topic.

Edited by clathrategun, 26 July 2014 - 07:12 PM.