Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Amino Acids build cells, repair damaged tissue, and are responsible for the production of important enzymes. The body uses 20 different amino acids to construct proteins. These twenty amino acids are broken down into essential and non-essential amino acids. Out of these twenty amino acids, their are eight that can not be created within the body, these are the essential amino acids, because they must be supplied from an outside source.
Each person's ability to break down protein into single amino acids differs. Factors such as diet, illness, stress, old age, and an inability to secrete digestive enzymes may result in a deficiency of one or more amino acids. The rate of protein formation and the production of new cells in inhibited when a one amino acid is missing. By supplementing your diet with pure amino acids, you are saving your body the necessary step of breaking down dietary protein to obtain these amino acids.
Amino acid supplementation is important because in order to achieve proper protein synthesis all of the required amino acids must be present in the body at the same time and in the right quantity. If even one of these amino acids is of low quantity within the body it becomes the limiting factor in the reaction. Therefore no more protein can be synthesized until quantities of the limiting amino acid increase.
For more information on amino acids.
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