Research

Amino Acid Quick Finder L-Alanine Alpha Keto Glutaric Acid L-Arginine Pyroglutamate L-Arginine Base L-Asparagine L-Aspartic Acid Acetyl L-Carnitine CL L-Carnitine L-Carnosine Chondroitin Sulfate L-Citrulline Creatine Monohydrate L-Cysteine HCL Anhydrous N-Acetyl L-Cysteine L-Cystine GABA Glucosamine Sulfate L-Glutamic Acid Glutathione Tri-Peptide L-Glutamine Glycine L-Histidine 5-Hydroxy L-Tryptophan Inosine L-Isoleucine L-Leucine L-Lysine L-Methionine Organic Sulphur (MSM) L-Ornithine L-Phenyalanine DL-Phenylalanine (DLPA) L-Proline L-Serine Taurine L-Theanine (SunTheanine) *****NEW L-Threonine L-Tryptophan L-Tyrosine L-Valine

To understand how FAAs fit into the total picture, remember your body doesn’t use vitamins or minerals in isolation. Enzymes, hormones, body tissues, yes even bones, are formed from amino acids with vitamin and mineral hook-ups.

Without free amino acids to form the needed hook-ups, vitamins and minerals cannot do this job, even if they are digested and absorbed. For example: tyrosine (a free amino acid) combines. with’ iodine to form thyroxin. If a person doesn’t get iodine, thyroxin can’t be produced. But what happens if the person doesn’t have enough tyrosine? Obviously, the thyroid cannot make thyroxin. Thus, amino acids are necessary for the vitamins and minerals to do their proper job.

Free amino acids in the total nutritional picture has been obscured because:

1. The mistaken belief that adequate protein meant adequate FAA.
2. The emphasis upon vitamins and minerals.
3. Attempts to improve the absorption and timing of vitamins and minerals in an attempt to get better results.
4. Lack of knowledge about FAAs.

There is a fundamental difference between vitamins or minerals and amino acids. Vitamins and minerals are needed in small amounts. Amino acid complexes comprise one of the major categories of both the structural and chemical machinery of living things. In fact your body has about 20 times more amino acids than vitamins and about 4 times more amino acids than minerals.

Free amino acids are individual amino acids in crystalline form. Free amino acids are different from predigested protein or protein powder. In these products, the protein is still present in the form of connected amino acids.

A common misconception is that free amino acids are no problem if a person eats protein. Food protein, which is composed of long chains of individual amino acids coupled together, must be broken down into free or individual amino acids by enzymes, before it can be used to build body protein. Enzymes, which are made from individual amino acids, are responsible for the specific uncoupling between individual amino acids. Here is a circular problem: If you body lacks the free amino acids to make the necessary digestive enzymes, your body is unable to break down protein into the FAAs that it needs. Although you might eat the right food protein, that is no guarantee of its biological availability. It must be uncoupled into free amino acids before it can complete the food protein to amino acid to body protein cycle.

Amino acids are the building blocks of life itself, of protein. Proteins are one of the major categories of both the structure and the chemistry of living things. Amino acids may be linked together almost indefinitely to form more than 50,000 different proteins. A healthy body is continually breaking down proteins into individual amino acids, and assembling them :into amino acid complexes as needed. The primary function of amino acids is NOT to supply energy, but to furnish the essential material for duplication of genetic code, for cell division, and for forming muscles and connective tissue. Amino acids are involved in the metabolism of hormones, neurotransmitters and your enzyme system. In fact, any enzyme system or biochemical function that depended upon amino acids might be helped by supplementation with FAA.

Mental retardation, epilepsy, depression, manic, schizophrenia, headaches, ulcers, even anxiety, nervousness and irritability respond favorably to amino acids. Proper functioning of your brain and nervous system is dependent upon proper digestion of protein. Amino acids affect both psychological and physical health. Your nervous system is connected to every organ and every muscle in your body. Even your skin has an ample supply of nerves. Because your nervous system connects everything in your body to your brain, the brain has great power to influence both your health and behavior. Amino acids are essential to the ability of your brain to send and receive messages. Amino acids are needed for neurotransmitters to coordinate and to regulate these complex message and control systems, and they are essential to the healthy functioning and survival of nerve cells. Amino acids exert their most dramatic and measurable effect at the nerve synapse. Amino acids are either the neurotransmitter itself, or the precursor to the neurotransmission. Some neurotransmitters are excitatory in action, and some neurotransmitters are inhibiting in their action. However, unless all amino acids are present to work together, almost anything can go wrong with the message transmission and control exerted by the nervous system. More and more psychological problems, especially severe problems, seem to be related to body biochemistry. We suspect that senility and tumors, even Parkinson’s disease and other brain problems will respond favorably to amino acid therapies.

The research literature shows various amino acids have been used in the treatment of brain hemorrhages, high blood pressure, liver diseases such as hepatic coma, hyperammonemia and liver cirrhosis, for ammonia detoxification and liver protection, to increase spermatogenes, to detoxify phenols, various aromatic compounds, to promote erythropoiesis, leucopoiesis, wound .healing, and hemotopoiesis, prostrate problems, tuberculosis, bronchitis, emphysema, skin diseases, muscular dystrophy, for hypochlorhydsia, peptic ulcers, alcoholism, anemia, pellagra, and Basedow’s disease.

Sulfurcontaining amino acids are part of the enxmes that chelate with heavy metal ions.

Many researchers also suspect that many degenerative problems, such as arthritis and strokes, and such wide ranging health problems as allergies, asthma, heart attacks, and high blood pressure could be related to the balance of amino acids. Some health professionals suspect that stress is largely responsible for most diseases and health problems. Amino acids are vital to your body’s ability to respond to stress and to the proper functioning of your immune system.

Perhaps one of the most exciting new frontiers in understanding both the regaining and maintenance of health, both mental and physical, will come from detailed knowledge of the interactions and formulations of amino acids.

There are many problems relating to the digestion of protein. When a person consumes protein, a variety of complex responses and biochemical reactions are required to break the protein into its component amino acids. Unless all are performed perfectly, the breakdown is incomplete. The beginning action is the tearing of protein by the teeth, This enables small bits or pieces to find their way into the digestive tract. Chemical reactions, such as enzyme actions, take place only on the surface of the piece. Chewing protein thoroughly ensures more surface area for such reactions

In the stomach, protein is acted upon by hydrochloric acid (HCL) and enzymes (pepsin) which primarily attack the collagen. Upon leaving the stomach, protein is only about 15% digested, As a person grows older, they may secrete little or no HCL. By the age of 60, about 30% of the population no longer secretes stomach acid.

Once protein reaches the small intestine, digestive enzymes are required to break down protein into amino acids; otherwise, putrefaction, by intestinal bacteria, of the protein occurs and the by-product can be pseudoneurotransmitters or toxins.

Enzymes require the proper acidity (pH) to function, and unless the body secretes the right fluids (stomach acid or digestive juices) the enzymes cannot do their job. But, in addition to having the correct pH, your body must have the right free amino acids to form the digestive enzymes. A vicious circle. Without the correct FAA to form the digestive enzymes, you cannot complete the breakdown of protein into the individual FAA which are needed to make the enzymes.

MOST PEOPLE ARE UNAWARE THAT WHEN PROTEIN ENTERS THE SMALL INTESTINE IT TAKES A SPECIFIC ENZYME TO UNCOUPLE THE LINKAGE BETWEEN TWO SPECIFIC AMINO ACIDS.

This is a KEY concept for doctors, patients, and laymen to understand about the necessity for free amino acids. In other words, in the intestine each type of amino acid uncoupling requires its specific enzyme!

While it is generally understood that adults require at least eight amino acids (called the essential amino acids), which are used as a source for the other amino acids, two conditions are necessary for this. The body must have the right amino acids to produce the enzyme involved to make the conversion, and the precursor amino acid used in the conversion must also be present at the same time.

With all of the complex processes described above, it is relatively easy to understand how almost EVERYONE could probably profit to some degree from taking free amino acids.

The importance of free amino acids has not been well understood because of the emphasis upon vitamins and minerals and trying to improve the delivery and because it was mistakenly assumed that adequate protein intake automatically meant adequate amino acids.

The primary function of amino acids (protein) is not to supply energy, but to furnish the essential components for living tissue, Along with vitamins and minerals, amino acids are essential for cell division, duplicating the genetic code, forming muscles and connective tissues, and making enzymes, hormones, and neurotransmitters and furnishing the basic material for your immune system. If a necessary amino acid is missing, your body cannot do its job properly regardless of your vitamin and mineral intake.

Before your body can use food protein, it must uncouple or break down the protein into the amino acids. Inadequate hydrochloric acid (HCL) or the inability to make enzymes interferes with the digestion of food protein into amino acids which we use to build body proteins. If just one essential amino acid is missing, even temporarily, protein synthesis will fall to a very low level or stop altogether. The result is that all amino acids are reduced in the same proportion as the amino acid that is low or missing.

There is a major difference between amino acids existing in a free state and amino acids existing in long polypeptide chains in protein and predigested protein as generally found in health food stores.

Unlike vitamins and minerals, which are required in only small amounts, amino acids are needed in relatively large amounts on a daily basis.

The utilization of amino acids in the proper functioning of the biochemistry of the body is so fundamental that it is hard to overestimate the importance of amino acids for both physical and mental functions. You eat protein but your body only uses amino acids.