>From:    MARY <[log in to unmask]>
>Yesterday my Junior was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy.... The vet said...
>to try carnitine on Jr.
>Thank you for any and all replies.
 
Carnitine is an amino acid present naturally in meat, especially liver and
muscle, and is important in fatty acid metabolism and energy production.
It's used a lot by bodybuilders who feel it helps build muscle mass.  I
don't see how it could hurt Junior, since some of it is (hopefully) present
in his normal diet anyway, and it could be of some help if his heart muscle
needs an extra energy boost.  A quick scan of the PubMed database of
medical journal articles suggests that carnitine deficiency is sometimes
a cause of congestive heart disease, and that administration of carnitine
(100 mg/kg intravenous) to rats with induced congestive heart failure
improved their heart function.  If you want to check PubMed yourself, it's
at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed.  The abstracts tend to be pretty
technical if you're not familiar with the field, and PubMed just lists
what's been published, without reviewing the articles for quality, but for
a quick look at new therapies it could be informative.  It takes Boolean
search criteria too, so you could put in "carnitine AND heart" to get the
articles of interest.
 
Best of luck with Junior.
 
Eric A. Schwartz
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[Posted in FML issue 2927]