Effects of Acute Administration of Carnitine on Energy Utilization in Trained Rats

Journal of Exercise Nutrition & Biochemistry 1998;2(2):15-24.

Abstract

I
t is well known that carnitine enhances using of fatty acids during the last stage of endurance exercise. But effects of acute carnitine administration were not well documented. At this point of view, we ingested carnitine in trained rat to increasing of fatty acids utilization during endurance exercise performance. Forty-eight male sprague-dawley rats performed treadmill exercise at 28m/min/30min for 5days of week during 4wks. At the end of experiment all rats, except sedentary group(sed, n=12), were ingested 250㎎/㎏ of carnitine using round-ended needle directly into the mouth. They were killed at pre(pre-exercise group), 1hr(1hour exercise group), and 2hr(2hours exercise group) exercise and were followed by sed rats. Serum glucose, TG, FFA, and glycerol concentrations were analyzed and liver, soleus, and gastrocnemius white muscle glycogen contents were determined. Serum FFA and glycerol were increased but glucose was decreased as following exercise. liver and muscle glycogen were not changed. In conclusion, even though serum FFA and glycerol increased, glycogen-sparing effect in muscle and liver was not occurred. We thought that further research and discuss will be needed to solve this problem.