In the human body, carnitine acts as a regulator of lipid metabolism, facilitating the transfer of long-chain fatty acids from the cell cytosol to the inner mitochondrial membrane, where they are involved in the process of β-oxidation and become a source for the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate – ATP (J.L. Flanagan et al., 2010) . Biological activity has been established only for the levorotatory isomer - L-carnitine. Recent studies have confirmed that L-carnitine is also an antioxidant, having the ability to neutralize free oxygen radicals (J. Kolodziejczyk et al., 2011; G.S. Ribas et al., 2014). In addition, L-carnitine exhibits anti-inflammatory properties, reducing the activity of inflammatory cytokines (V. Savica et al., 2005; M. Duranay et al., 2006; A. Shakeri et al., 2009).
Prepared by Dmitry Molchanov