Hi Jay, thanks for your comment. It appears there may be some therapeutic value but this appears to be speculative and awaits further corroboration by ongoing research. It may be worth discussing these findings with your doctors since pyruvate is so easily available on the free market. Best wishes.

The salient bit is at the bottom of the article at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567724907001171
Effect of pyruvate on mitochondrial diseases: We administered 5 g of sodium pyruvate to a 26-year-old female patient with CPEO carrying deleted mitochondrial DNA. At 30 min after the administration, pyruvate level was increased from 0.85 mg/dL to 1.16 mg/dL (normal range 0.30–0.90 mg/dL), lactate level was decreased from 21.8 mg/dL to 18.9 mg/dL (normal range 4.0–16.0 mg/dL), and the L/P ratio decreased from 25.65 to 16.29 (normal range <10). Assuming that the blood volume of the patient to be 3 L, the pyruvate level should increase by 5/3 g/L × (87/110) = 132 mg/dL. Therefore, it is probable that the administered pyruvate is taken up from the blood to tissues. The decreased L/P ratio suggests that intracellular redox state is improved and that ATP production by the glycolytic pathway is restored by administration of pyruvate. Although this is only a preliminary result of pyruvate administration to a patient with mitochondrial myopathy, we are going to organize a multi-institutional study on the effects of pyruvate to mitochondrial diseases.

My questions are, did any positive conclusions for pyruvate use result from this study, and if so, what doses of pyruvate were used?

In recent years I have gone back to Pyruvate, and still notice some effect, although the products now do not seem to be as potent. Two suggestions for maximum benefit….take it on a somewhat empty stomach, and take it two hours before working out.

Hi Alex,
Thanks for your comment. It is possible that there is something to the creatine-pyruvate mix, though because it is a combined supplement, it can be difficult to tease out which is the active component. In short, creatine has a relatively large evidence base to support its use while pyruvate, particularly the small doses sold to consumers, does not share the same luxury of research support. So in combining creatine and pyruvate, one has to wonder whether the results are due to the creatine and it’s just coincidence that pyruvate just happened to be “at the scene of the crime.” I would like to see more research into pyruvate, but for the most part there is very little interest in pursuing this given the limitations of the earlier research (or its limited applicability to the general population).

Cheers,
Bill

I have had some nice results from using a supplement called Creatine Pyruvate. I have used ordinary cratine in the past and bought a box recently remembering the proformance boost it gave me. I tried the Pyruvate version and I believe it worked even better than before. This of course may be due to a other factors than the Cr Pyruvate, but found this study that also claims this.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2276184/?rendertype=abstract

I am not sure if it is biased or not.

The dosage I used was between 5-10 grams an hour before my workout.

With regards
Alex

Thanks for your comment Paul. I don’t think pyruvate poses any major health risk given the miniscule doses they put in the supplements. The last studies which used the tiny doses given to consumers showed no effect. Also remember that pyruvate is sometimes mixed with other ingredients which may have an effect on the body (an herbal upper, etc). However, this is where the consumer needs to distinguish cause and effect from coincidence. To date, pyruvate manufacturers have been ignorning an inconvenient truth and they continue to sell the product based on both flimsy evidence and evidence which actually refutes their claims altogether. As long as there’s no body count, then I’m happy for people to blow their money on this product.