Sargenor was introduced in the early 1970s for the treatment of asthenia and excessive fatigue, or to combat sleeping and memory deficits. Arginyl aspartate is a relatively common ingredient in medicinal products (not only Sargenor) indicated to treat exhaustion during stress, endurance sports, or in the elderly. Mechanistically, the product helped to regulate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and to eliminate steroids from urine.
The product has been tested to decrease the fatigue on intense physical exercising (for athletes). The combination of L-arginine and L-aspartate seems to induce synergistic metabolic effects, with L-arginine reducing lactic acid production via inhibition of glycolysis and L-aspartate favoring fatty acid oxidation. But in another study, there was no robust evidence that the product could effectively increase the muscular fatigue tolerance in trained healthy individuals submitted to an exhaustion protocol in an ergometric bicycle. L-arginine (including the aspartate salt) is commonly sold as a health supplement claiming to improve vascular health and treat erectile dysfunction in men.
Sargenor to improve muscle performance… The image was very evocative and strong. Note also the gold image (hard to reproduce here), but possibly evocating the economic success of the product… The drug was very popular at one time.
