Safety and interaction data

This page reports what published papers state. It is not a safety assessment.

Carnosine by mouth

Trials of carnosine at 0.5 to 2 g a day for 8 weeks to 8 months in children and adults have reported adverse events at rates similar to placebo; the study pages state what each trial recorded (Chez 2002; Chengappa 2012; de Courten 2016; Houjeghani 2018). A dose-escalation study gave healthy volunteers up to 15 g a day for four weeks and reported on tolerability (Ali 2025). Long-term safety data in people are limited to these trials.

Beta-alanine

Paraesthesia (skin tingling) is the common side effect, at single doses above about 800 mg. A meta-analysis of 101 human and 50 animal studies found no adverse effect other than paraesthesia reported more often than with placebo, and no changes in blood markers of health (Dolan 2019). Whether a lifetime of use is safe has not been studied.

Zinc-L-carnosine

The Japanese prescribing information for polaprezinc lists its adverse reactions (PMDA). As a zinc source, its zinc content counts toward total zinc intake. Australia caps zinc from polaprezinc in listed medicines at 34 mg a day, and requires a warning statement on products supplying more than 25 mg of zinc a day (TGA Determination). EFSA did not establish the safety of zinc-L-carnosine as a novel food in 2022 (EFSA Journal 2022).

Interactions

No published interaction studies with medicines are held in this database. Suggest one through the contact page.

Pregnancy and children

The autism trials enrolled children aged 3 to 12 (Chez 2002; Hajizadeh-Zaker 2018) and one kidney trial enrolled children with type 1 diabetes (Elbarbary 2018). No trial in pregnancy is held in the database.