PURE Macarena Capsules

What's Behind PURE Macarena?

Around 20 years ago, Bruce Ames, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, and his research team fed old rats the well-known substances Acetyl-L-Carnitine and the powerful antioxidant α-Lipoic Acid. Ames enthusiastically reported the experimental results in a press release:

"With both preparations combined, these old rats stood up and danced the Macarena," said Ames, also a researcher at the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI). "The brain looks better, they are full of energy - everything we examined looks more like that of a young animal."

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In a PNAS article, Ames cited as the reason for this rejuvenation that the two chemicals restore the energy-producing organelles, the mitochondria, to proper working order. Ames calls the mitochondria the "weak link of ageing". There is increasing evidence that deterioration of mitochondrial health is an important cause of ageing. In his view, this deterioration is due to the increased accumulation of destructive free radicals (including by-products of normal metabolism) that inactivate enzymes and other important metabolic molecules.

The combination therapy aims to eliminate these radicals and increase the activity of a damaged enzyme, the carnitine acetyltransferase, which plays a key role in energy metabolism in the mitochondria. Acetyl-L-Carnitine is meant to protect this enzyme, and the elevated carnitine level allows the enzyme to function properly. α-Lipoic Acid, on the other hand, serves to break down oxygen radicals and thus protect the mitochondria from oxidation. (1) (2)

"We have significantly reversed the typical decline in overall activity in old rats, achieving the activity levels of middle-aged rats or young adults aged 7 to 10 months," said Hagen. "It's like putting a 75- to 80-year-old person back to middle age. We have only shown short-term effects, but these results provide us with the foundation for a long-term consideration of these matters".

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In a further study by Ames, old rats were again fed Acetyl-L-Carnitine and α-Lipoic Acid, but this time memory function was investigated. They found that the dietary supplement improved both spatial and temporal memory and reduced the amount of oxidative damage to RNA in the hippocampus of the brain, an area important for memory. In electron microscopic images of cells from the hippocampus, mitochondria from old rats that received supplementary nutrition showed less structural decline. (3)

(1) Liu, J., Killilea, D.W., and Ames, B.N. (2002) Age-associated Mitochondrial Oxidative Decay: Improvement of Carnitine Acetyltransferase Substrate Binding Affinity and Activity in Brain by Feeding Old Rats Acetyl-L-Carnitine and/or R-α-Lipoic Acid. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 99, 1876-1881

(2) Hagen, T.M., Liu, J., Lykkesfeldt, J., Wehr, C.M., Ingersoll, R.T., Vinarsky, V., Bartholomew, J.C., and Ames, B.N. (2002) Feeding Acetyl-L-Carnitine and Lipoic Acid to Old Rats Significantly Improves Metabolic Function while Decreasing Oxidative Stress. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 99, 1870-1875.

(3) Liu, J., Head, E., Gharib, A.M., Yuan, W., Ingersoll, R.T. Hagen, T.M., Cotman, C.W., and Ames, B.N. (2002) Memory Loss in Old Rats is Associated with Brain Mitochondrial Decay and RNA/DNA Oxidation: Partial Reversal by Feeding Acetyl-L-Carnitine and/or R-α-Lipoic Acid. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 99, 2356-2361.