“Betaine?”Here!trimethylglycine (TMG)
Hasn’t appeared in a scanned product yet.
In personal care
A small molecule derived from the amino acid glycine, found naturally in beets, grains, and some seafood. The cosmetic form is usually produced from sugar beet processing byproducts.
Why it’s used
Used as a humectant and conditioning agent to help skin and hair hold moisture and feel smoother, and sometimes to reduce the irritation potential of surfactant blends.
What the evidence says
We haven’t found a source for this one that you can open and check, so we’re not summarizing the evidence.
Look it up yourself
We would rather point you at the shelf than summarize something you can’t check. These are the same places we search:
- PubChem — what the substance is, chemically — names, synonyms and structure
- PubMed — every paper indexed by the US National Library of Medicine that names it
These are starting points, not our findings — we haven’t run them for you. A substance whose name is also an ordinary word (“Heart”, “Alanine”, “Water”) will return papers that are not about the ingredient at all.
No claims graded here yet.
As a supplement
Talk to your doctor or pharmacist.
Roll Call does not check drug interactions or assess personal safety.
A compound related to choline metabolism, found naturally in foods such as beets, spinach, and whole grains, and manufactured for use in supplements.
Why it’s used
Taken to support homocysteine metabolism, and sometimes used for exercise performance or body composition.
What the evidence is for
exercise performance and body-composition measures in small trials.
What the evidence says
NIH ODS material on choline discusses betaine's role in homocysteine metabolism. High-dose betaine is also used as a prescription treatment for a rare inherited metabolic disorder under medical supervision, which is a different use case from general supplementation. Evidence for exercise-performance or body-composition benefits from supplemental betaine is suggestive but rests on a limited number of small trials.
Dose studied
2.5–6 g — doses used in exercise-performance and body-composition trials.
Context
Exercise-related trials have generally used doses of roughly 2.5 to 6 grams per day for several weeks; the medically supervised use for the rare metabolic disorder involves much higher, individually managed doses not comparable to supplement-label amounts.
Rumors
Exercise performance and body-composition measures in small trials.
Not gradedhealth and safety evidence
Sources cited — no verdict reached.
What was measured is not yet noted.
- Choline - Health Professional Fact Sheet (Regulatory) · Funding not checked