What Exactly Are Amino Acids? 

Isolated, singular amino acids are what your body uses to make 75% of your non-water and fat weight.

Your body uses acids and enzymes to break down the food you eat into basic nutrient classes that are absorbed by billions of villi in your small intestine. These six basic nutrient classes, critical to a healthy body, are vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, water and proteins (amino acids).

In nature your body digests proteins (from dairy, tofu, animal or any other sources) into isolated, singular amino acids. Freed of their peptide bonds (the links bonding amino acids together to form proteins) your body can absorb them.

Take the water and fat out of your body, and amino acids make up 75% of what's left. Everything from the neurochemicals that make your brain run, to the hormones and the protein your body uses to regulate and rebuild itself are created from singular, isolated amino acids.

Besides building cells and repairing tissue, they form antibodies to combat invading bacteria & viruses; they are part of the enzyme & hormonal system; they build nucleoproteins (RNA & DNA); they carry oxygen throughout the body and participate in muscle activity.

Unable to be stored in the body, essential amino acids must be supplied daily. Of the 22 amino acids commonly found in nature, 8-10 (essentials) must be supplied through a diet of high quality protein or through supplementation.

Who Should Take Amino Acid Supplements?

An imbalanced diet, stress, activity levels, and other factors can contribute to an unbalanced amino acid metabolism.

Your body can only make as much of a specific protein as allowed by the essential, isolated, singular amino acid component you have the least of. Each protein is made up of thousands of amino acids, in just the right combination.

If you have an unbalanced amino acid absorbtion or high amino acid demands due to stress or activity levels, you may not have the right aminos in the right combinations to make the proteins your body requires. It's like a bicycle mechanic with three wheels - he can only build one bicycle. This ceiling, called rate limiting, makes amino acid supplements important to anyone who may have unbalanced amino acids.

From vegetarians to drinkers, the stressed to the mentally fatigued, weight lifters to endurance athletes - for anyone who may not be getting a balanced diet in amino acids, supplements offer a powerful nutrition tool.

What Can You Expect? 

The results you experience from taking an amino acid supplement are going to be largely dependent upon your choosing the RIGHT combination of amino acids to meet the goals you have set. All the tissues comprising your hair, skin, nails and organs are made up of proteins, and therefore will be influenced by the amino acids you ingest.

In addition to the tissues, your digestive and regulatory enzymes, hormones, blood sugar, blood proteins and brain chemicals are also composed of amino acids. So, depending on the specific formula you choose, either to support muscle growth, fat regulation, brain stimulation, or dietary fortification, your expectations can be realized.

Quality and Value in Selecting Amino Acids 

Quality and Value in amino acids are determined by: Purity, Bioavailability, Hypo-Allergenicity, Specificity, and Cost.

Purity

The highest grade of purity in amino acid supplements is the USP Pharmaceutical Grade. Other grades are the Food grade and the Feed grade. Most amino acid products on the general market are food grade supplements.

Bioavailability

Bioavailability refers to the degree that a substance may be completely absorbed by the body under normal digestive circumstances. Many amino acid supplements are supplied in tablet form, held together by binders and fillers that inhibit digestion. Others contain protein fragments that must be broken down (metabolized) by the body before absorption and passage through the body. Singular amino acids are dissolved and absorbed completely by the body. No preliminary digestion is required.

Hypo-Allergenicity

Many amino acid supplements on the market use whole or partial proteins as amino acid sources. In addition, many use binders and flavoring agents. These can include: yeast, corn, wheat, soy, dairy, meat, sugar, salt and other flavoring agents. L-crystalline singular amino acids are 99%+ pure. They do not contain any of these potential allergic antigens.

Specificity

In order for your body to function properly it needs to create over 40,000 specific proteins from singular amino acids. However, your body can only make as much of these proteins as allowed by the essential amino acids. This ceiling, called rate limiting, makes balancing amino acid levels using food source proteins, predigested proteins, protein isolates or peptide bonded proteins even more difficult. The difficulty in balancing food source proteins means that just about anyone, from weight lifters to weekend jocks, vegetarians to drinkers, the stressed out to the hypoglycemic, can benefit from isolated-singular amino acids supplements formulated for their specific needs.

Cost

The real cost of amino acids is the relationship between the dollar amount spent on the amino acids to the effective catabolization of those amino acids into proteins for the body.

For example, an amino acid product may cost $.25 per capsule, but contain fillers and predigested amino acids that are rate limited due to absence of the proper proportion of an essential amino acid. The body may be able to effectively catabolize only 10% of the product. This product would have a real cost of $2.50 per capsule. That is to say, it would take 10 capsules to get the equivalent effectiveness of one capsule that was competely metabolized.

Another example, an amino acid product may cost $.50 per capsule, but be USP Pharmaceutical Grade (99+% pure) and contain a formula balanced with the proper amount of essential, isolated amino acids. The body may be able to effectively catabolize 100% of the product. This product would have a real cost of $.50 per capsule.

In comparing the cost of amino acids products, you must balance the per dosage cost against the purity, bioavailability and specificity.

Conclusion 

Isolated-singular amino acids play the key role in protein catabolism, and since your body's solids, excluding fat, are 75% protein, a critical role to overall health. A variety of lifestyles and conditions can indicate an imbalanced protein catabolism, and a need for amino acid supplements. "Pre-digested" or peptide-bonded amino acids must be further digested and may retain many allergic food source characteristics. Isolated-singular amino acids not only offer no digestion and no food source characteristics, but can be formulated to meet a variety of specific catabolic needs.

Information provided by: http://www.bodytrends.com