BETA-ALANINE & THE SCIENCE

Ah, beta-alanine. Some hate it, some love it. But all we want to know is, why is it in my pre-workout in the first place? Great question. Let's explore starting with what beta-alanine is.

What is it?

Beta-alanine is a non-essential amino acid meaning our body can produce as much of it as needed (under normal conditions). It's also found in our diet in foods like poultry and other meats. It looks likes this:

What does it do?

Beta-alanine plays many roles, but the one we're interested in today is its role in exercise, or, its 'ergogenic' effect. The mechanism of action we care about is its function as the rate limiting step in the production of carnosine in the muscle. What the hell is carnosine: a cytoplasmic dipeptide (B-Alanyl-L-Histidine) that acts as an intracellular proton buffer (helps from the pH getting too low ((which happens when we get too many H+ in the cell)). So many confusing words there. Essentially, carnosine is made up of two amino acids

1. Beta-Alanine
2. L-Histidine

So, Beta-Alanine + L-Histine = Carnosine

The part of about buffering acid can get a little confusing too. For those who are unfamiliar, acids have a low pH, which actually means a high concentration of protons (H+). Bases have a high pH, or low concentration of protons (H+). But we'll save acids and bases for another time. What does this have to do with supplements?

When we exercise our body can't produce energy fast enough via oxidative phosphorylation. So we begin yielding most of our energy via glycolysis. This begins producing the byproduct lactic acid. Lactic acid gets broken down into lactate and H+. The accumulation of the H+ begins to drop the pH of the muscle cell. This is that "burn" that you feel when you are working out. That burn signals we're creating energy imbalance in the muscle which is good for adaptation, but not for performance. Carnosine helps to buffer the lactic acid to keep the muscle from losing function via the emergency shut-off we have that prevents damage to the muscle from low pH. I made a quick graphic to make this easier to understand.

So why supplement B-Alanine? Why is it so special when carnosine is the thing that buffers the H+ in muscle? Well, for starters, if we supplement caronsine, it will be broken down into it's amino acid components by carnosinase (B-Alanine + L-Histidine), which is prevalent in the body. Also, beta-alanine is the rate limiting factor in the production of carnosine meaning it's the thing we're most likely to run out of. Imagine you're going to make some sort of baked good and you realize you don't have any eggs and now your day is ruined because you can't bake that cake you found on Pinterest. Beta-alanine is the eggs—your body is just trying to bake some carnosine.

Does it work?

As always, the question you should be asking yourself at this point: now that we've identified a well-defined mechanism of action, does it actually work in the applied setting? Well, we see two types of individuals in the studies that assess the efficacy of beta-alanine supplementation on performance:

1. Trained individuals
2. Untrained individuals
3. Vegetarians

To come clean, I don't feel like sifting through each one of the studies to showcase the different effects based on the different populations studied. There's a lot of them... Beta-alanine has a large body of research to it which is a great thing (not much on long-term supplementation). I will just provide a quick synopsis of the studies as they relate to impact on exercise:

Those who are trained and eat meat experience very little change in performance from supplementing beta-alanine as their bodies are adapted to buffering acid in the muscle cell and they are consuming plenty of beta-alanine and carnosine to continue building up the intramuscular pools.

Those who are untrained and those who are vegetarian report and show a fairly significant increase in performance. This is due to the lack of adaptation in untrained individuals and low pools of carnosine in the muscle, and for vegetarians it's the overall lower available free amino acid pool, especially in skeletal muscle.

Surprise, surprise—it comes down to the individual and lifestyle factors...

So how should I supplement?

Though the jury is still out on this, the recommended way to supplement is daily supplementation of 4 to 6 g for at least four weeks. How do you know if you've taken too large a dose? Does your face tingle? Then you've taken too large a dose. The tingling that results from B-alanine is called paraesthesia. They believe the linkage to paraesthesia is via the activation of G-protein couple receptors, specifically Mrg-D. To get rid of this, adjust the dose, consume it with a meal. You don't need to consume around your workout as we're attempting to build the pools of carnosine in the muscle which to date have no limit. Consuming right before a workout hasn't been shown in any literature to be a superior means of supplementing. If you like having an itchy face, do you.

Final thoughts

Beta-Alanine supplementation is fairly straight forward. For those getting started in the gym it can help kickstart a successful journey by staving off some of that new gym goer hurt that you experience. The untrained individual will experience the best perceived benefits. However, as I mentioned earlier, it's very important to note that our bodies respond to the burning fatigue and lactic acid build up by learning to buffer the pH more efficiently. Consistent training is the best way to maximize training efforts. You cannot out supplement a poor training regimen. Train hard, recover harder, be smart about your food and supplement choices.

~ Bonde

References

1. DUNNETT, M., & HARRIS, R. C. (1999). Influence of oral ß-alanine and L-histidine supplementation on the carnosine content of thegluteus medius. Equine Veterinary Journal, 31(S30), 499–504. doi:10.1111/j.2042-3306.1999.tb05273.x 
2. Harris RC, Jones GA, Kim HJ, Kim CK, Price KA, Wise JA. Changes in muscle carnosine of subjects with 4 weeks of supplementation with a controlled relase formulation of beta-alanine (CarnoSyn), and for 6 weeks post (Abstract) FASEB J. 2009;23:599.4.
3. Harris, R. C., Tallon, M. J., Dunnett, M., Boobis, L., Coakley, J., Kim, H. J., … Wise, J. A. (2006). The absorption of orally supplied β-alanine and its effect on muscle carnosine synthesis in human vastus lateralis. Amino Acids, 30(3), 279–289. doi:10.1007/s00726-006-0299-9  twitch)
4. Sale C, Saunders B, Harris RC. Effect of beta-alanine supplementation on muscle carnosine concentrations and exercise performance. Amino Acids. 2010;39(2):321–33. doi: 10.1007/s00726-009-0443-4
5. Stellingwerff T, Anwander H, Egger A, Buehler T, Kreis R, Decombaz J, et al. Effect of two beta-alanine dosing protocols on muscle carnosine synthesis and washout. Amino Acids. 2012;42(6):2461–72. doi: 10.1007/s00726-011-1054-4.
6. Stellingwerff T, Decombaz J, Harris RC, Boesch C. Optimizing human in vivo dosing and delivery of beta-alanine supplements for muscle carnosine synthesis. Amino Acids. 2012;43(1):57–65. doi: 10.1007/s00726-012-1245-7
7. Trexler ET, Smith-Ryan AE, Stout JR, Hoffman JR, Wilborn CD, Sale C, Kreider RB, Jäger R, Earnest CP, Bannock L, Campbell B, Kalman D, Ziegenfuss TN, Antonio J. International society of sports nutrition position stand: Beta-Alanine. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2015 Jul 15;12:30. doi: 10.1186/s12970-015-0090-y. PMID: 26175657; PMCID: PMC4501114.