Amino Acids

Amino acids and proteins are the building blocks of life. The human body uses amino acids to make proteins, which in turn helps the body:

• Break Down Food
• Grow
• Repair Body Tissue
• Perform Other Body Functions

On top of that amino acids can be used as a source of energy for the body. As you can imagine there are a ton of amino acids. These acids are classified into three groups; Essential Amino Acids, Non-Essential Amino Acids, Conditional Amino Acids

The essential amino acids cannot be made in the body and therefore must come from food or supplements.

The nine essential amino acids include: histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine.

Non-essential amino acids can be made in the body, so we typically don’t need to get it from outside sources. These include: alanine, arginine, asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine, glutamic acid, glutamine, glycine, proline, serine, and tyrosine.

Finally, we have conditional amino acids. The amino acids are not considered essential, except in times of illness and stress.

These can include: arginine, cysteine, glutamine, tyrosine, glycine, ornithine, proline, and serine.