Carnosine is a dipeptide composed of histidine and its rate-limiting precursor beta-alanine. It is highly abundant in the human skeletal muscle, yet its concentration shows substantial heterogeneity. A sizable part of the interindividual variability can be explained by dietary beta-alanine intake. Long-term dietary patterns such as vegetarianism show a decreased carnosine content (Everaert et al. 2011; PMID: 20865290). In contrast, oral supplementation with beta-alanine, as popular in athletes, induces an elevation in carnosine content. This is known to improve high-intensity exercise performance, but also has shown promise in improving health-related conditions such as sarcopenia, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and neurodegenerative disorders (Spaas et al. 2021; PMID: 34740381). This is likely related to carnosine’s roles in pH regulation, contraction facilitation, antiglycation and antioxidation (Boldyrev et al. 2013; PMID: 24137022).
Habitual dietary beta-alanine intake may be an important determinant of carnosine-related health outcomes. Interestingly, beta-alanine, and thus carnosine, are exclusively obtained through animal-derived products such as meat and fish, but contents vastly differ between species (e.g. very high in poultry). It remains unclear whether differences in dietary beta-alanine intake are sufficient to influence health outcomes and to what extent. Therefore, we aim to quantify daily beta-alanine intake within the UK Biobank cohort based on the available food frequency questionnaires. We have developed an assessment tool to accurately quantify dietary beta-alanine intake based on literature review and own biochemical analyses of commercial food products.
We hypothesize that lower habitual beta-alanine intake is associated with diminished health-related phenotypes. Furthermore, we will examine if higher portions of beta-alanine may be protective against the development of musculoskeletal, cardiometabolic and neurological disease