The story

The idea of lipotropes came from Charles Best in Toronto in the 1930s, the co-discoverer of insulin, who found that choline stopped fat building up in the livers of animals. Methionine and inositol were added to the list in the following years. L-carnitine's role as the fat shuttle into the mitochondria was worked out in the 1950s and 1960s. Russian clinicians use L-carnitine in heart and rehabilitation medicine to support energy in heart muscle, and Russian methionine cycle research has mapped how SAM supply ties fat export to methyl balance. US compounding pharmacies combined these nutrients into the Lipo-C injection used in weight-loss clinics today.