The Role of Carnitine Supplementation in Valproic Acid Therapy

Carnitine is a simple, vitamin-like compound that transports long-chain fatty acids into mitochondria. Despite its essential role in human nutrition and metabolism, carnitine engendered relatively little medical interest until the description in the 1970s of human disorders in which muscle or systemic levels of carnitine were markedly depressed and in which clinical improvement followed treatment with carnitine. Since then, carnitine has enjoyed a remarkable rise in popularity as an aid to everything from common muscle fatigue to treatment of specific inborn errors of metabolism. Nowhere has the popularity of carnitine been more evident than in the treatment of children taking valproic acid, which causes in some children a depression of free carnitine levels.