Carnitine

CAS Number: 541-15-1

SERIOUS
health hazard

MODERATE
health hazard

FEW OR NO
health hazards

0 79
80 89
90 100
92

Sources of exposure:

Personal care
Food
Medications

Skin care products, hair care products, dietary supplements, meat, dairy products, and certain pharmaceutical preparations containing levocarnitine

Description:

Carnitine is a naturally occurring compound involved in transporting fatty acids into mitochondria for energy metabolism. It contains a quaternary ammonium group and is found in animal-derived foods and human tissues. Carnitine is used in certain cosmetic and personal care products as a skin-conditioning ingredient and is also available in dietary supplements.

Health concerns:

Irritant

May cause skin, eye, or respiratory irritation.

References

  1. US Environmental Protection Agency. Cheminformatics Modules, Computational Toxicology and Exposure Informatics (CompTox).
  2. US National Library of Medicine. PubChem database.

HOW MILLION MARKER SCORES CHEMICALS

Million Marker's Ingredient Hazard Scoring uses multiple chemical databases and a science-backed scoring system to compute hazard scores for thousands of chemicals found in consumer products and listed on ingredient labels.

We identified key chemicals based on a database compiling dozens of authoritative sources, screening tools, and QSAR models.

Hazard scores within 11 different health categories (carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, reproductive toxicants, developmental toxicants, genotoxicity, neurotoxicity, organ system toxicity, immunotoxicity, respiratory toxicity, skin/eye/respiratory irritants, and ecotoxicity).

They are weighted based on several factors, including strength of evidence for adverse impacts in humans, severity, and potential contamination.

For more information on our scoring methodology visit this page.