The Doctor's Corner

QUESTION: Does beta-alanine work? 

ANSWER: Beta-alanine shares a mechanistic parallel to creatine in that it increases the concentration of a compound that affects anaerobic exercise performance and must be taken over a loading phase to achieve muscle saturation. Beta-alanine ingestion increases carnosine levels, and, thus, carnosine participates in the buffering of hydrogen ions, thereby changing the rate at which muscle acidity is reduced (acidosis). It would be expected to enhance stamina in exercises that consistently exceed the subject’s anaerobic or “ventilatory” threshold which would typically involve high intensity exercise lasting from 90 seconds to around 4 minutes in total duration. Indeed, there is supporting data for this notion. With respect to a bodybuilding training application, in particular, I’m aware of two published citations: One shows a positive ergogenic effect; the other shows no differences between experimental and control groups. Unfortunately, the two studies have several differences with respect to design, the most significant of which is that the positive study compared creatine and creatine + beta-alanine vs. a placebo, whereas the negative study compared beta-alanine alone vs. placebo. There were confounding variables such as training volume, rest intervals, yada yada, but the kicker is the lack of a beta-alanine only group in the positive trial. Ultimately, the marketplace will decide the reality, and, thus, I can’t predict the future sales growth of this compound.

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