Posted by Larry Hoover on August 19, 2007, at 16:52:54
In reply to Re: How do they measure serotonin., posted by sam123 on August 19, 2007, at 14:08:07
> Given the abundance of the 8 essential aminos in everyday food I do not see the point in buying amino
> supps.I would argue with respect to the abundance issue, given the need for vegans/vegetarians to mix and match to manage the absence of essential aminos in e.g. corn or rice.....but that's not really at issue here.
I think the assumption that dietary constituents are necessarily fully bioavailable is flawed. Just because a nutrient is swallowed, it does not imply that the nutrient will make it into the circulation. For example, digestion of protein can fail at many sites in the gut. And even if an amino makes it into the circulation, it must be pumped into tissue compartments. In the case of tryptophan, the precursor to serotonin, it not only is one of the rarer of all aminos on a weight-weight basis, it is also the one with the least affinity of six aminos competing for just one pump (LNAAT, the large neutral amino acid transporter), for access to the brain.
Ingesting a pure amino bypasses the whole issue of digestion. Moreover, relatively short term spikes in blood concentration can be created, which will influence the rates of transporters and enzymes in turn.
It's just a different method for influencing biochemical processes.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:776980
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070815/msgs/777116.html