Orotic Acid

Not erotic, just orotic

Written By Jim Stoppani, PhD

Updated November 29, 2018

You may have noticed the ingredient orotic acid in a number of supplements.

If not, that's because you will genuinely only see some of its salts, such as creatine orotate, or tri-creatine orotate. This is simply creatine bound to orotic acid. If you've seen this version of creatine then you've probably wondered what orotate or orotic acid is.

Orotic acid was once thought to be a B vitamin and was actually given the moniker vitamin B13.

However, today we know that orotic acid is not an essential vitamin, but is produced in our intestines by the beneficial gut microflora that live there. But if it was an essential B vitamin that we needed to get in our diet, the good news is that orotic acid is present in milk. A liter of it contains anywhere from 20-100 mg of orotic acid.

Orotic acid functions in the body as a precursor of nucleic acids.

That basically means that it is needed to make DNA and RNA. So you can see why it was originally thought to be an essential nutrient. It still is essential for our bodies, but now we know that our bodies, or organisms that live in our bodies, routinely make it so that we do not need to get it in our diet.Â Â

Orotic acid is also important in the production of energy in muscle cells.

Orotic acid is important for the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the main energy currency of all cells. ATP is critical for muscle contractions and is what essentially fuels your workouts. Your muscles store some ATP. And that is what you use for energy during the first few reps of a set. After that your body has to quickly produce more ATP so your muscles can keep contracting to keep completing reps. This is where creatine comes in. In the muscles, creatine gets a high-energy phosphate ion attached to it. It donates this phosphate to make more ATP (remember that the "P" in ATP stands for phosphate). Orotic acid is not only important in the amount of ATP your muscles store, but it is also important in creatine's role to produce ATP. Orotic acid enhances the formation of creatine phosphate in muscle cells.

Orotic acid also increases carnosine levels in muscle.

As you may recall, beta-alanine combines with histidine in muscle cells to produce carnosine. And having higher carnosine levels in muscle has been shown to boost muscle strength, muscle endurance, and even muscle growth. So this is yet another way that orotic acid is important for energy and strength levels.

Now you can see why supplement scientists thought it would be a great idea to combine creatine with orotic acid.

But does orotic acid, or creatine orotate hold up in the lab and in the gym?!

Let's take a look:

Some older research, going back a few decades did show that supplementing with orotic acid could aid muscle endurance.

But these studies were limited – they were not published in highly accessible scientific journals. So there is not much to go on as far as scientific evidence to support supplementing with orotic acid to boost energy, strength, or muscle size.

Orotic acid has been proposed to increase the absorption of creatine, as well as other supplements.

However, there is no research to show that creatine orotate is absorbed any better than creatine monohydrate or any other form of creatine. The only research done on this area has been done with the mineral zinc. Both studies concluded that zinc orotate (zinc combined with orotic acid) was absorbed in a similar manner to other forms of zinc, including zinc sulphate, zinc asparate, zinc gluconate, zinc pantothenate, and zinc histidine. Since there is no research comparing creatine orotate uptake to other forms of creatine, and because the few studies showing zinc orotate was not absorbed any better than other forms of zinc, I would have to conclude that creatine orotate is likely not taken up any better than creatine monohydrate.

Jim's take-home points:

So is orotic acid a supplement that you need?

As of now, I would say no.

Your body should produce enough orotic acid on it's own. As an alternative, I might suggest that you take a probiotic, such as Soloray's Multidophilus , which provides the healthy bacteria Lactobaccilus acidophilus, Lactobaccilus bulgaricus, and Bifidobacterium bifidum. For the first two weeks take enough probiotic bacteria to provide 10 billion colony forming units (cfu) daily and then follow with 1–2 billion cfu daily for maintenance. This can help you keep enough of the beneficial bacteria in our gut to produce adequate amounts of orotic acid. And you should be supplementing with a probiotic anyway since they offer so many benefits, such as enhanced immune function, better gut health, can aid fat loss and even boost performance.

Is creatine oroate or tri-creatine orotate any better than other forms of creatine?

Since there is no data to suggest otherwise, I would have to say a big NO. Even though I am a scientist, I do not base these kinds of decisions solely on research studies. So I am not just saying this because there is no research to suggest that this form of creatine is better. If a supplement is gaining a lot of buzz in gyms for being very effective then I also listen to that. Back in the mid 90's before creatine had hundreds of studies supporting its effectiveness, scientists were saying that there was not enough evidence to support it. I was NOT one of those scientists. Even thought there were just a few studies on creaine back then I was arguing with the naysayer researchers that the evidence I saw in myself and in many of my clients and friends in the gym was all I needed to see to know that creatine is effective. Of course, today we now all agree that creatine is effective. But my point to that aside is that IF creatine orotate created a lot of buzz in gyms around the world, then we ALL would have heard about it. However, orotic acid came on the supplement scene a little over 5 years ago and was promised to be the next big thing. That's right around the time that forms of creatine orotate also started popping up. And five years later, no one is really talking about how amazing creatine orotate is or orotic acid is. And that would go the same for other supplements that are combined with orotic acid, such as glutamine orotate (tri-glutamine orotate) or arginine orotate (tri-arginine orotate), which are now being sold. Of course these forms are also not taken up by the body any worse than other forms. So they are effective: I'm just saying that there is not yet enough evidence to suggest that they are any better than other forms. Take a look at Con-Cret (creatine hydrochloride) on the other hand, which has a little research to back it up, but also a LOT of BUZZ to suggest that this form of creatine is more effective than other forms of creatine. If it works people will talk about it.

So my conclusion is that if you want to try creatine orotate, give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

As I always say, we all have different biochemistry and different supplements will work differently in different people. You won't know until you try it. But the safest bet for the money is creatine monohydrate. Research shows it works well. And if you want to spend a little more on a form of creatine that has been shown in the lab and in the gym to even outperform creatine monohydrate, then you should go with Con-Cret.

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