Arginine is a precursor to the potent vasodilator nitric oxide (NO), a compound which primarily dilates blood vessels and improves blood flow. This therefore has implications for cardiovascular health and sports performance.
Data presented at this week’s Experimental Biology 2016 annual meeting in San Diego and published in The FASEB Journal indicated that Nitrosigine led to significantly increased plasma arginine levels for up to six hours post-dose, whereas Arginine HCl supplementation did so for only one hour.
The study included 20 healthy men assigned to receive 500 mg per day of arginine as either arginine silicate or arginine hydrochloride for 14 days. This was followed by a seven day ‘washout’ period and then the men were crossed over to the other arginine form for another 14 days.
“Nitrosigine supplementation significantly increased plasma arginine levels at multiple time points from baseline at 1, 1.5, 2, 3 and 6 hours (p<0.05), while plasma arginine levels in the Arginine HCl group only increased at 1 hour (p<0.05),” said James Komorowski, VP of Scientific & Regulatory Affairs of Nutrition 21 and lead author on the paper. “These results continue to enhance our knowledge of the positive effects of Nitrosigine in humans.”
Results also showed that Nitrosigine supplementation resulted in a greater than 70% increase in plasma arginine levels compared to Arginine HCl and a lower standard deviation than that seen with Arginine HCl, supporting Nitrosigine as a more bioavailable, long-lasting and less variable, source of arginine, said Komorowski.
Bill Levi, VP of Strategy & Business Development at Nutrition 21, said the study provided additional clinical evidence further supporting the significant long-lasting bioavailable benefits of Nitrosigine.
“Leading sports nutrition companies continue to recognize the unique value of our ingredient Nitrosigine, and formulate it into their workout products,” he said. “Nitrosigine has been shown to enhance performance to give sport nutrition products a competitive edge. Consumers should look for the Nitrosigine logo on workout products to get more out of their fitness training. We anticipate continued high market interest with robust customer sales.”
Nitrosigine has FDA New Dietary Ingredient (NDI) notification status, and has self-affirmed Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) status at the level of 1,500 mg per day for use in nutritional bars and beverages.
The study was funded by Nutrition 21.
Source: The FASEB Journal
Volume 30, Number 1, Supplement 690.17
“A Pharmacokinetic Evaluation of the Duration of Effect of Inositol-Stabilized Arginine Silicate and Arginine Hydrochloride in Healthy Adult Males”
Authors: J. Komorowski, S. Perez Ojalvo