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From: dyer@spdcc.UUCP (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Unipro nutitional suppliments
Message-ID: <34@spdcc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Mar-86 01:55:40 EST
Article-I.D.: spdcc.34
Posted: Tue Mar 11 01:55:40 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Mar-86 21:51:06 EST
References: <335@hropus.UUCP>
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Lines: 58
Keywords: creatine, dimethyl glycine
Summary: literature search

I performed a quick literature search on Beth Israel's PaperChase
service on Compuserve this evening, just to see what these compounds
really were.

> The first bit of evidence was another suppliment containing
> N,N-dimethyl glycine.  Couldn't find it in my Merck Index but
> did find two dimethylated amino acid derivatives that are psych-
> active N,N-dimethyl trypamaine (DMT on the street) and N,N-dimethyl
> tyrosine (never heard of it as a street drug).  DMT, for those who
> never heard of it, is a short acting (45 -120 minute) hallucinogen.
> The tyromine derivative was decribed as sympathomimetic.
> 
> Now realise that these two drugs differ from the glycine derivative
> in two respects: 1) They are aromatic and 2) They are decarboxalated.
> But I'm still suspicious because those who use them (I wouldn't because
> it would defeat the purpose of the antihypertensive I take) report
> a *very* "speedy" effect.
  
N,N-dimethyl glycine wouldn't be expected to be a hallucinogen or
sympathomimetic.  It is usually found in quack nostrums under the
slightly more respectable-sounding name, "pangamic acid", a vitamoid.

The scanty literature I can find on it indicates a few things:
It probably, like its trimethylated counterpart, betaine, participates
as a methyl donor in tetrahydrofolate methylation reactions.  There
was some evidence in animals that it had anticonvulsant properties,
but tests in human subjects with epilepsy came up negative.  I saw an
intriguing abstract reporting that it seemed to demonstrate immunoadjuvant
properties in a single study of its use in infections disease.  Finally,
there was a caution that it, when taken with dietary nitrates and nitrites,
may be mutagenic.  Not a whole lot to go on; it sounds to me like one of
those chemicals in search of a disease: I'm surprised that it can be sold
as a supplement.

Doing a search on "creatine" means that you slog through reams of
references on creatine kinases and muscle damage, including cardiac
damage--certain CPK levels in the blood increase after exertion, and
especially after a heart attack.  The sole reference on creatine
itself and fatigue came from a study of people with intermittent
claudication, a vascular disease: creatine phosphate seemed to improve
such people's exercise tolerance (i.e., they could walk longer without
pain.)  Whether this is a property of its ordinary biochemical role
or a pharmacological drug effect, I don't know.  I would be conservative
about extrapolating this to normal healthy people.

Your suspicions about placebo effects are quite valid in a situation
like this.  The capacity for a single person to be fooled and misjudge
the efficacy of such a nostrum is almost infinite, especially if the
drug effect, if any, is weak, which is a fair assumption here.  The
problem with the "pop biochemistry" market which churns out these 
"nutritional supplements" is that they are usually based on very
preliminary results reported in the scientific literature, which might
never be duplicated, or might have no validity being extrapolated from
in vitro reactions to human physiology.
-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@harvard.HARVARD.EDU
{bbncca,bbnccv,harvard}!spdcc!dyer