Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I am big. To Jurassic Park. It's a picture that got more and more. To the real world. Well, look at the painting, Kay. I'm not painting. You're not in Kansas anymore. What we do is life. Hey, call me Mr. Dearest. Well, it's not the men in your life that counts. It's the life in your men. Every dance with the devil flies away. What have you done to his eyes?
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.
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Chapter 2: What are the nine essential amino acids?
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. Now on to today's mnemonic.
Mnemonic.
And the mnemonic for the nine essential amino acids is My Hilltop TV. And with the my, that's spelt a little bit differently. It's M-I, and we take both of those letters. Hilltop is spelt normally, and we take all of the consonants. The two vowels are assisting. And TV, we take both of those letters.
So for this one, you picture yourself on a hilltop with a giant TV watching the latest animated movie on the nine amazing amino acids. So we'll get into it. For the my, we take the M for methionine and the I, isoleucine. Hilltop, we take the H for histidine, the I as a cysteine, the first L, leucine, and the second L, lysine.
Top, we take the T for tryptophan, the O as a cysteine, and the P, phenylalanine. And the TV, we take the T for threonine and the V, valine. And we'll just go over that one more time. So that's the mnemonic for the nine essential amino acids. And the mnemonic is MyHilltopTV. For the my, we take the M for methionine and the I, isoleucine.
Hilltop, we take the H for histidine, the I as a cysteine, the first L, leucine, and the second L, lysine. Top, we take the T for tryptophan, the L as a cysteine, and the P, phenylalanine. And the TV, we take the T for threonine, and the V for valine. Now on to... Five Fun Facts! And the first fact, fact number one. Amino acids are building blocks of proteins.
There are 20 standard amino acids out of which almost all proteins are made. And fact two. About 500 amino acids are known. Now amino acids make proteins as stated in fact one, but it is the amino acid sequence that leads to different shapes and functions of the protein. And fact three. Essential amino acids may also differ between species.
For example, ruminants such as cows obtain amino acids via microbes in the first two stomach chambers. And fact number four. An amino acid is an organic chemical. It consists of an A-carbon atom that is covalently bonded to four groups. And those four groups are a hydrogen atom, an amino group, a carboxyl group, and a variable R group.
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Chapter 3: Why are essential amino acids important for the body?
And the TV, we take the T for threonine and the V for valine. Now on to the answers for the three-question quiz. And the first question was, what are the three types of amino acids? And the three types of amino acids are essential, non-essential and conditional. And question two, there are nine essential amino acids the body can't make.
Without them, the body's cells would use their own proteins to obtain the missing amino acids. Is that true or false? And without the nine essential amino acids, the body's cells would use their own proteins to obtain the missing amino acids. So that's true. And this would eventually lead to the breakdown of muscles and organs.
And question three, one of the essential amino acids, histidine, plays an important role in what function? And your options were muscle metabolism, the regulation of energy, or immune function. And the essential amino acid, histidine, plays an important role in immune function.
And our first bonus question, what meat contains high levels of the essential amino acid tryptophan, which can make you sleepy and increase serotonin? And the meat that contains high levels of tryptophan is turkey. The tryptophan in the turkey is the sole precursor for serotonin production. And our last bonus question, what does the acronym BCAA stand for in terms of amino acids?
And the acronym BCAA stands for Branched Chain Amino Acid. They are essential amino acids that include leucine, isoleucine and valine. Now, just speaking of amino acids, very sadly, my uncle recently overdosed on protein powder. And it just happened to be on the last day of training right before his very first bodybuilding competition. As I said, very sad. What a way to go.
Now on to... Word of the Week. And this week's word of the week is... And that is spelt... And the meaning, according to dictionary.com, is... And our simple example today is the triggerfish, humuhumunukunukuwapuaha, contains all nine essential amino acids, along with all other fish, beef, poultry, eggs, dairy, soy, quinoa and buckwheat. Well, that takes us to the end of another episode.
Thanks for listening. If you'd like to join our mnemonic community, you can reach us at thenemonictreepodcast.com on the website. From there, you'll find links in the top right to Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Your feedback is much appreciated, so if you have the time, please rate and review the podcast on your chosen platform.
Any reviews read on the podcast will receive a small gift of appreciation. And also, if you'd like to suggest a topic or have any additional fun and interesting facts for today's episode, I'd love to hear them, so post them on Facebook and be sure to tag me. Again, if you have a suggestion of a mnemonic that you have created, send it to thenemonictree at gmail.com.
Every 10 weeks, we'll announce a winner for the mnemonic of the month, which may be used in future episodes. Until next time, remember as Socrates said, there is no learning without remembering. See you next time.
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