Philosophical Vegan Forum

I've recently replied to a non-vegan youtuber on one of my videos and he brought up the argument that vegans need to supplement like crazy in order to be healthy. I responded at length regarding his list of nutrients, but one has stood out to me: Carnosine.

Anyone familiar with this molecule and the research behind it? Vegans are low in it, and I can't find any real source of information (trustworthy) that would indicate that vegans ought to supplement with beta-Alanine.

Any information that you have would be helpful.

http://altmedicine.about.com/od/herbsup ... nosine.htm

"Carnosine is a substance produced naturally by the body. Classified as a dipeptide (a compound made up of two linked amino acid molecules), carnosine is highly concentrated in muscle tissue and in the brain. A synthetic form of carnosine is sold in supplement form and touted as a natural remedy for a host of health conditions."


http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnosine

"In humans, postprandial blood plasma levels of carnosine is zero within several hours of red meat consumption, inferring that carnosine is rapidly metabolized considering the slow digestion of animal protein.[26] This denotes a significantly short-lived impact when carnosine is taken in the form of a dietary supplement, though the latent cascade of effects from supplementing carnosine may still prove beneficial." So meat eater or otherwise your not getting enougth of this, other sites I have lost track of said you would need 3, 7 ounce, steaks a day. This is massively above recommended levels from any ditery professional ever.

TheVeganAtheist wrote:I've recently replied to a non-vegan youtuber on one of my videos and he brought up the argument that vegans need to supplement like crazy in order to be healthy. I responded at length regarding his list of nutrients, but one has stood out to me: Carnosine.

What a childish attempt from that youtuber. He just tries to dismiss veganism because you'd have to take some supplements.
You can check on the thread 'Can we make a supplement?', the only necessary ones are B12 and Vitamin D3 (the latter one is not a supplement only vegans should take).
All the rest, you can have with a healthy diet.
Carnosine is NOT necessary as a supplement for vegans. It might increase your athletic performances, but it's not needed http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/carnosine
However, even if you want to take it, there's vegan carnosine http://www.nowfoods.com/Beta-Alanine-500g-17-6oz.htm
And if you want to increase yout athletic performances, even if you eat meat you want to take supplements such as taurine and carnosine.

Outside of a controversial treatment for cataracts and even more controversial treatments for Autism, I haven't seen or read of any evidence for real unique benefit from Carnosine (unlike Creatine, where there is a little bit of real clinical evidence - it's still not really necessary, though, and there are vegan body builders who don't use it).

It's an antioxidant, among hundreds and thousands of antioxidative compounds found in any number of plants, animals, fungi, bacterium, etc.
It's probably harmless, but at the moment there's no good reason to think it's particularly helpful either (at least, not more helpful than any other antioxidant in existence- and vegetarian diets are much higher in antioxidants in general- particularly antioxidants that are longer lived in the body and not metabolized instantly).

As a chemical, It's just one of many compounds from any number of plants and animals, which when isolated may be said to have potential health benefits.
It is by no means thought to be necessary. Anybody who says it is it making stuff up to support their bad behavior.

wikipedia wrote:A vegetarian (especially vegan) diet is deficient in adequate carnosine, compared to levels found in a standard diet.[10]

Can somebody fix that please?

A vegetarian diet is not deficient in carnosine, and it doesn't have inadequate levels, because there is no RDI for carnosine.

That's like saying non-trichophagics are deficient in adequate levels of dietary hair compared to trichophagics.

Hell, for all we know, eating hair may turn out to be an amazing cancer treatment - better eat up just in case, right?
No.

That's what evidence is for - to tell us when something is known to be useful or not.

If evidence turns up in the future that Carnosine is very beneficial, then I'll take it. Until then, it's probably a waste of time and money.

Wikipedia should say:

A vegetarian (especially vegan) diet is much lower in carnosine, compared to levels found in a standard diet.[10] However, since there is no RDI established for carnosine, it is impossible to say how much (if any) is actually beneficial in the diet.