1905 L-Carnitine was first found in muscle extracts by Gulewitch and Krimberg and was so named from the Latin caro, carnis (meaning flesh or meat). 1927 The chemical structure of L-Carnitine was confirmed. 1935 Strack published his first article about L-Carnitine and initiated decades of investigations into the physiological functions of L-Carnitine. 1947 Fraenkel conducted research for as yet undiscovered B-vitamins. 1952 Fraenkel worked on nutritional requirements of mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) and found they require L-Carnitine as an essential growth factor in addition to folic acid and the other known B vitamins. Fraenkel isolated L-Carnitine from liver extract and gave it the name 'vitamin BT'. 1958 Fritz found that L-Carnitine increased the rate at which cells (mitochondria) burned fat. This established L-Carnitine's fundamental role in fat oxidation. 1970's Intensive research on the functions of L-Carnitine. 1980's L-Carnitine became commercially available. 1983 Lonza patented its unique method for production of L-Carnitine. There was a long time period between discovery and common usage of L-Carnitine. For many decades, only small amounts of L-Carnitine, extracted from meat were available for research purposes. Only dedicated research made L-Carnitine available in commercial quantities in the 1980's. 1993 Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) - an independent expert committee of scientists evaluated the GRAS status of L-Carnitine as a dietary supplement. They concluded that L-Carnitine and its freely ionizable salts such as L-Carnitine L-Tartrate and L-Carnitine Magnesium Citrate can be safely ingested by adults at 20 mg/kg/day (1200 mg for a 60 kg person) for a broad range of uses. 1994 Lonza invested into its unique L-Carnitine production process and acquired Lonza Biotech in Kourim (Czech Republic). 2000 Lonza's plants have been inspected and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the national authorities for production of pharmaceuticals. 2001 At 'Experimental Biology 2001', Müller reported that oral L-Carnitine supplementation improves long chain fatty acid oxidation as measured by 13CO2 exhalation in healthy subjects. 2002 Kraemer publishes breakthrough research on L-Carnitine L-Tartrate in weekend warriors. 2004 Wutzke confirms the initial findings obtained by Müller by using a different, improved approach. Also in his study, oral L-Carnipure® L-Carnitine L-Tartrate supplementation increased long chain fatty acid oxidation in slightly overweight adults. 2005 L-Carnitine marks the 100th anniversary of its original discovery in skeletal muscle extracts this year.