Talk:Trimethylglycine

Betaine hydrochloride
I'm not really happy with the sentence "should not be confused with ...hydrochloride" - well, "confused" it is still the same organic compound - the only difference is, that it's the protonated form forming a salt with chloride. It's a bit like saying you should not confuse acetic acid with acetate or fatty acids with soap :) Iridos 23:00, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

betaine HCl as a digestive aid?
I've seen this wikipedia article and many people claim that betaine HCl is a digestive aid, by lowering stomach pH. Where are the actual studies on this? From my searches, I haven't found one yet that confirms this hypothesis. Also, isn't HCl in the stmoach needed to dissociate betaine HCl if it were to have effects on stomach pH? I would be glad to hear from any of you who know more about this. Gludwiczak 05:24, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that the FDA has never looked at betaine HCL? I find that difficult to believe at minimum.  There's just too many brands being sold by too many health food stores for me to believe that it doesn't work as a digestive aid. It absolutely works for me, but of course that info is anecdotal.Rmckim (talk) 06:56, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Current law for dietary supplements is that a manufacturer can make a supplement (complying with good manufacturing practices and confirming safety via review of literature) and then sell it. Unlike drugs, no prior FDA review or approval needed. FDA can act to stop sale if the claims are that a supplement treats, cures or prevents a disease. So, the fact that multiple companies are selling a product has no connection to whether the U.S. FDA has reviewed or approved the science. In fact, a supplement may work - as demonstrated in published, placebo-controlled human trials - and the sellers are still prohibited from stating that it works. All that is allowed is general wording along the lines of "Helps maintain a healthy digestive system," or "Helps maintain healthy homocysteine levels."David notMD (talk) 13:20, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Unclear sentence
Confusion results from too many 'nots' in the sentence: "If it were not for his work, homocysteine would not have been thought harmful and so supplements to lower homocysteine would not have been thought necessary."

This Article has been altered by a nutritional company
As someone who has a Ph.D in Betaine, and BHMT, I believe this article was edited strongly by some nutritional company. There is no difference between Betaine HCl or free Betaine - there's a chloride counterion on one of them! I edited the page to reflect this. Also there were a number of spurious claims in the 'benefits' section. I have removed them.

I am of the firm belief that the 'methylation and cancer' bit should be removed. I added a cautionary sentence, but there is NOTHING to connect betaine and methylation of DNA - absolutely nothing. I may remove this tomorrow. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.187.34.100 (talk) 15:35, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Similarly the only reference I can find relating betaine and autism is, which did not measure clinical end-points and therefore could not show any relief of symptoms. A single source does not a treatment make. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:04, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

No studies?
This line needs revision: "Many scientific papers have been written speculating on other potential uses for this substance, but _none_have_been_proven_in_clinical_trials or approved by the FDA."

There are at least two clinical trials showing it's successful use in the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Please see http://www.aafp.org/afp/2006/0601/p1961.html#afp20060601p1961-b26 and b27. I hope that some one with more access to the source studies and who better knows how to link the appropriate sources will add this information. Given it's low side effects, and relatively easy access over the counter, it should be more known. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.93.158.67 (talk) 16:42, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, what are the sources for the content in foods? This paper (and others) reported similar numbers for Spinach, for example, but numbers for wheat bran about 4x higher than what's on the chart. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12730414/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.116.101 (talk) 17:20, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Side Effects
I think I would mention a few side effects in the article. Something like this: "Most side effects from betaine aren't dangerous and include diarrhea, stomach upset, and nausea. Those suffering from kidney disease should not take the supplement, because when taken with folic acid and vitamin B6, it can increase total cholesterol levels. This also is an important concern for people who are overweight or obese and they should take betaine only under the supervision of a knowledgeable health care provider." A nice article to be placed in the External Links section: http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/betaine-000287.htm Please let me know what you think. Thank you. Healthycare (talk) 13:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Replaced the no-details Univ Maryland ref with clinical trials report Olthof2005.David notMD (talk) 22:08, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Edits of Aug 2010
I removed this section, since it appeared highly specialized: "Glycine betaine has been shown to be a specific attractant to some fish species. Since palatability is one of the most important factors to decide the feeding preference of fish, the use of squid extract enhanced feed (a betaine-containing substance), the amount of feed consumed and the growth rate as a result was increased. " The main application is in animal feeds, but an earlier version used strong language (factory farm slant), which may be true but seems pejorative. Another potentially problematic area of the article is the inclusion of speculative applications to autism, depression, alcoholism, each of which is supported by what appear to be narrow citations. --Smokefoot (talk) 23:38, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Reference to BHMT incorrect here
This section seems to incorrectly refer to the major pathway for methionine as BHMT, whereas BHMT is the minor pathway and Methionine Synthase (dependent on MTHFR for the folate cycle) is the major pathway: "Betaine is thus involved in the synthesis of many biologically important molecules, and may be even more important in situations where the major pathway for the regeneration of methionine from homocysteine has been compromised by genetic polymorphisms such as mutations in the BHMT gene. " — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.248.33.194 (talk) 03:24, 21 September 2018 (UTC)