This amino acid is crucial for nerve and muscle cell health and development, because it prevents the accumulation of advanced glycation end-products (AGE's), free radicals, and excitotoxins that can wreak havoc on both muscle and nerve cells. AGE's accelerate aging with all its degenerative symptoms. Carnosine comes only from meat and is not available in a vegan diet. Its deficiency causes cross-linking from
glycosalation, which accelerates aging. Skin wrinkles are a sign of glycation on the outside, representative of the aging that is going on internally. AGE's and excitotoxins are two of the main culprits in neuro-degenerate conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Those of us who are on extreme exercise regimens will also benefit from the protection provided by carnosine, as naturally occurring free-radicals are created during both physical and mental exertion. This product provides important protection for central nervous system's day-to-day maintenance as well as in the case of injury or inflammation of the central nervous system.
To get the equivalent of the 1/8 tsp. daily dose of carnosine from flesh, one would have to eat one steak 3 times daily. This is the only vegan source of this critically important anti-aging nutrient. It supports post-natal jing and chi. I recommend Quantum Research Labs Carnosine product.
So, the thing with carnosine, actually I don't-- I have my own thing, it's a little different. But carnosine is a very unique thing. What we know about carnosine, it's what we call a "dipeptide", is it has some very major positive effects, which is, of course, what we're interested in. I initially became interested in carnosine in the treatment of diabetes because carnosine, one of its powerful effects is anti-glycation.
Gly what? Glycation, so let me just explain that. What that means is when sugar unnaturally combines with protein or fatty acids and disrupts the structure. When gyclation happens you get 50 times more free radicals and you start to get complexes that build up in the arteries, in the eyes, in the kidneys and in the nerves that decrease their function and are the main cause of the chronic degenerative problems of diabetes.
Please be clear the diabetes has accelerated aging, so it applies to everybody. It just works slowly in diabetes. So I was interested in that because carnosine has the ability to undo the glycosylation and return proteins to their normal shape and function. Very worthwhile because we can actually reverse the glycation process. In diabetes you have a thing called "A1C".
Anybody know what that is? A1C, raise your hand if you know what it is. Okay, so some people know. What it means, it's a measure of a glycosylation of the body by measuring the amount of sugar that's unnaturally linked to hemoglobin. And if you have a glycosylate of 5.8 or higher, it means you're more likely have diabetes. But it's really a measure simply of that, so in diabetes, you have extra sugar, you're gonna get the extra fusing of sugar with protein and fats, which disrupts the function, causes free radicals, causes oxidization, and ultimately causes these compounds to be dysfunctional in toxic build-up in the body. Carnosine helps reverse that, which is pretty significant. So glycosylation is one problem.
Oxidization is another, which is really about free radicals. It also protects about combining what we call carbonyls, which are high in diabetes, which are aldehydes, like in candida you have a lot of aldehydes, so that's another thing it does. It also protects against cross-linking of protein. What's that look like? It's called "wrinkles". Okay? So cross-linking, the proteins cross-link, but it affects your brain as well, because the neural fibers in your brain start to cross-link and shut down your pathways. So not only does it impair brain function, but it also is associated with Alzheimer's process. Low levels of carnosine have also been associated with increased Alzheimer's.
It also binds zinc and copper, which, again, protects against Alzheimer's because the beta amyloid, which is part of the Alzheimer's process, requires zinc. So it binds up the zinc so that process can't happen so easily.
So we're looking at a series of things that are quite significant with the carnosine. So it's antioxidant, not its major role but it's an antioxidant, the anti-glycosylation, anti-carbonization, anti cross-linking... It improves circulation, improves heart and mental functioning. It protects against cross-linking, it protects against mitochondrial degeneration, which of course is associated with aging and also senility and also building up, again, of free radicals. So they're all kind of overlapping.
So these are very, very important effects of the carnosine. Now in the sum of it, it's a major anti-aging effect. Now they haven't really been able to prove much in humans yet, but it's been proven in mice as well as different insects that it has an anti-aging effect compared to normal is like a 67% improvement. Now what's interesting is with age between 10 and 70 the carnosine decreases by 63%.
I also wanna make a interesting point is that how do you get carnosine, what's it from? Meat. So we have an interesting question here: What to do? Because the carnosine levels that are highest are in the heart and in the brain and in the muscles. Carnosine has been linked mildly to improved athletic performance as well. I don't think that's that important. Mostly it's anti-aging is the key. So what you see if you eat a seven-ounce piece of steak, that's a lot, I guess that's pretty big, right? One cow. One cow, practically, yeah. You will get about 250 milligrams of carnosine, which will last about five and half hours in your body. There's an enzyme called carnosinase which tends to break down the carnosine and mimic its positive effects in the body. So for about five hours, your one helping of steak will help. Five and a half hours.
What does that say for vegetarians? Well, you're not eating meat. Now you got a problem. But do you really have a problem? Not really. First of all, meat eaters have a problem because they are only getting-- How many steak meals are you going to eat a day? One at the most, right? So you're only getting five hours, five and a half hours out of 24.
So the researchers have found that about 1,000 milligrams of carnosine will basically overwhelm the carnosinase to the point where the carnosine can have its effect on the body, which I mentioned six major areas. Which is overall anti-aging, anti-diabetic, anti-degenerative disease. Okay, big picture, okay? So, still, if you're vegetarian you're gonna have less, right?
Because the body is making carnosine a little bit on its own too. So it turns out that we now are able to get a vegan source of carnosine from bacteria. And that is what we have. We offer a vegan source. A quarter of a teaspoon, that's very little, will give you a thousand milligrams a day. So we're actually doing way better than meat eaters. So I recommend the carnosine as a big player here as an anti-aging, anti-chronic disease, anti-Alzheimer's, cardio-protective... Actually-- What? Memory. We're gonna, yeah. We haven't quite-- You know, with Alzheimer's, but it does include cognition and memory as well because all those are compromised when the brain is oxidized or you have glycation end products going on in the system. So it will help memory, cognition. Alzheimer's, of course, is the extreme of that. And so it is actually quite potent.
I don't have all of what I just shared with you in that because everything's always being updated, everything's out of date the minute you put it down. And I'll go "This was done three days ago, "It's already out of date". But it's the way it is. There's no way to be constantly updated. So we have to see that carnosine is very important.
