Peter Jans

Hello and welcome to this episode of the podcast, The Mnemonic Memory, where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our tree of knowledge.

I'm Jan, Janemonic Man, and today's Mnemonic Rewind is on those nine essential amino acids that cannot be synthesized by the body and therefore must come from the food we eat.

These amino acids are histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan and valine.

Together they support a plethora of bodily functions and processes, which include protein synthesis, muscle repair and growth, enzyme and hormone production, immune function, neurotransmitter balance, metabolism, and overall growth.

Enjoy.

And today's episode delves into a bit of science and even a little bit of organic chemistry and is on the nine essential amino acids.

They are essential because our body does not produce them as opposed to non-essential where the body can produce the particular amino acid.

Along with essential and non-essential, there are also conditional amino acids, which are not essential except in times of illness and stress.

As you no doubt would have heard, the amino acids are the building blocks of life and are critical to many processes in the body, such as building proteins, hormones and neurotransmitters.

So with no further ado, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.

An essential amino acid or indispensable amino acid is an amino acid that cannot be synthesized from scratch by the organism fast enough to supply its demand and must therefore come from the diet.

Of the 21 amino acids common to all life forms, the nine amino acids humans cannot synthesize are valine, isoleucine, leucine, methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, threonine, histidine, and lysine.

Six other amino acids are considered conditionally essential in the human diet, meaning that synthesis can be limited under special pathophysiological conditions such as prematurity in an infant or individuals in severe catabolic distress.

These six are arginine, cysteine, glycine, glutamine, proline and tyrosine.

Six amino acids are non-essential in humans, meaning they can be synthesised in sufficient quantities in the body.

These six are alanine, aspartic acid, asparagine, glutamic acid, serine and selenocysteine.

Pyrolysine, which is proteinogenic only in certain microorganisms, is not used by and therefore non-essential for most organisms, including humans.

The limiting amino acid is the essential amino acid which is furthest from meeting nutritional requirements.

The concept is important when determining the selection, number and amount of foods to consume.

Because even when total protein and all other essential amino acids are satisfied, if the limiting amino acid is not satisfied, then the meal is considered to be nutritionally limited by that amino acid.