Carnosine is a potent antioxidant nutrient that is highly concentrated in your brain, heart, and muscles. Numerous studies over the years have demonstrated a high level of protection to your brain, including reduction in the formation of damage that leads to cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s plaques. A new study demonstrates the ability of carnosine to protect against excitotoxic brain cell death, further highlighting the importance of this nutrient to the health of your brain.

Excitotoxic insults to your brain are the major wear and tear that cause brain drain and cognitive decline. On the one hand your nerves have to get excited, otherwise you would be like a dead battery. On the other hand, multiple irritants ranging from environmental chemicals, internally-produced chemicals (like homocysteine), infectious toxins, and stress in general can cause nerves to inappropriately hyper-excite. The results in an inflammatory chain reaction with high levels of free radical damage.

This study showed that carnosine could protect nerve cells from excitotoxic damage caused by high levels of homocysteine (a common health issue). Furthermore, this was a very high level of protection, guarding against cell death.

This study adds to the impressive science on carnosine as a valuable stress management and brain protecting nutrient. For example, Italian researchers recently reviewed how carnosine offers protection to your brain against a wide variety of neurological disorders that occur in aging. These researchers concluded, “Beneficial effects on most of the common biochemical events that characterize neurological disorders make carnosine a very promising molecule among all the endogenous compounds in the treatment and/or prevention of oxidative driven diseases.” The bottom line is that if your brain is in distress canosine seems to excel at helping you out.



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