Peter Pringle
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 Bt proteins were placed in an acid solution that mimicked human stomach fluids, where usually they broke down readily into harmless amino acids. Researchers concluded that there was no likelihood of the protein's staying around long enough to cause an allergic reaction in humans.
The stubborn Cry9c was different. It remained stable for more than an hour in the acid solution, behaving much like most known food allergens. The delay was long enough to give the body time to react. |
Patrick Holford
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 Amino acid-chelated minerals are bound to amino acids, examples of which are chromium picolinate and selenocysteine or zinc amino acid chelate. These are well absorbed, as are other "organic" compounds including citrates, gluconates, and aspartates. Inorganic compounds such as carbonates, sulfates, and oxides are less well absorbed.
For some minerals, the extra cost of amino acid-chelated minerals outweighs the advantage. For example, magnesium amino acid chelate is only twice as well absorbed as magnesium carbonate, an inexpensive source of magnesium. |
Earl L. Mindell, RPh, PhD with Virginia Hopkins, MA
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| You get enzymes, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and hundreds of other nutritional substances you need for a healthy, energetic body capable of handling stress and fighting off disease.
Go for the Whole Grains and Legumes
Grains such as wheat, corn, millet, barley, oats, quinoa, amaranth, and rice are not only delicious, they contain a wonderful potpourri of nutrients, as well as fiber. Get reacquainted with whole grains. Try oatmeal or a whole-grain cereal or bread for breakfast. For lunch, have a salad on a bed of brown rice or millet. |
Patrick Holford
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| Glutathione and cysteine
These are both powerful antioxidant amino acids. You will find them in many all-round antioxidant supplements. During a prolonged viral infection, they get depleted and it may be worth taking a supplement. The most usable forms are reduced glutathione or N-acetyl-cysteine.
Fighting infections 2 to 3 grams a day. Maintenance 1 gram a day.
Goldenseal
A natural antibacterial agent containing specific alkaloids that are particularly helpful for mucous membrane problems. |
David Hoffman, FNIMH, AHG
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 All organisms possess similar metabolic pathways for the synthesis and use of certain essential chemicals: sugars, amino acids, common fatty acids, nucleotides, and the polymers derived from them (including polysaccharides, proteins, lipids, RNA, and DNA). This is primary metabolism, and these compounds, which are essential for the survival and well-being of the organism, are primary metabolites. In plants, such compounds are responsible for the primary life processes of respiration, photosynthesis, growth, development, and other essential functions. |
Patrick Holford
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| Food then passes into the stomach, where large proteins are broken down into smaller groups of amino acids. The first step in protein digestion is carried out by hydrochloric acid released from the stomach wall, which is dependent on zinc. Hydrochloric acid production often declines in old age, as do zinc levels. The consequence is indigestion, particularly noticeable after high-protein meals, and the likelihood of developing food allergies because undigested large food molecules are more likely to stimulate allergic reactions in the small intestine. |
| Both the quality of the protein you eat, determined by the balance of these amino acids, and the quantities you eat are important.
The USDA recommends that we obtain 15 percent of our total calorie intake from protein, but gives little guidance as to the kind of protein. The average breast-fed baby receives just 1 percent of its total calories from protein and manages to double its birth weight in six months. This is because the protein from breast milk is of a very good quality and easily absorbed. |
Bradley J. Willcox, M.D., D. Craig Willcox, Ph.D., Makoto Suzuki, M.D.
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 And shiitake contains all eight essential amino acids in comparable proportions to soybeans, meat, milk, and eggs. This amazing mushroom also has been shown to lower blood cholesterol levels and high blood pressure in laboratory animals and shows promise as a hypoglycemic (lowers blood sugar) with antiviral, antifungal, and antitumor effects.9-11
How to use it. The shiitake mushroom has a smoky, outdoor flavor that's a terrific complement to Asian seasonings such as soy sauce, miso, and oyster sauce. It's also a great addition to pasta dishes. |
| If that includes a good variety of protein foods, we get plenty of the amino acids we need to rebuild our body's cells and tissues, and the kidney does a pretty good job of getting rid of the excess protein. If you're eating a wide range of healthy foods it is, in fact, difficult to eat more than about 20 percent of your diet as protein. You'd have to severely restrict carbs in order to do so.
PROTEIN AND WEIGHT CONTROL
You need to know four essential facts about protein in respect to weight control:
1. Protein helps with satiety.46 It dulls the appetite and makes you feel fuller. |
| Buckwheat is high in protein, contains all eight essential amino acids, and is rich in B vitamins (especially niacin), calcium, iron, phosphorus, and potassium. For people with gluten intolerance or wheat allergies, buckwheat is a good substitute, as it is gluten-free.
How to use it. Buckwheat has a pleasing, delicately nutty taste. It can be used for a variety of baked products, including pancakes, muffins, bagels, cookies, and breads. |
| CHOOSE VEGETABLE PROTEIN OVER ANIMAL— AT LEAST SOME OF THE TIME
Animal protein and vegetable protein both break down into amino acids after digestion, but animal proteins give you some extras that you don't want. They have more methionine (which makes artery-clogging homocysteine) and more saturated fat (which packs a high CD punch), are devoid of healthy antioxidants, and are associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease and certain cancers.8 So while the amount of protein is important, the whole "protein package" has the greatest influence on your health. |
| Proteins are made of long chains of smaller building blocks, called amino acids, that determine the size, shape, and length of protein molecules. They also give protein molecules the odd ability to coil and uncoil like tiny cellular snakes, which is important for structural integrity when building cell walls and body tissues.
Experts aren't entirely sure of the exact amount of protein we need to eat; estimates have been revised often in recent years. |
Patrick Holford
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| Both proteins and fats can be broken down into amino acids and fatty acids by lactobacilli bacteria. The sugar in milk, lactose, is also broken down into glucose and galactose. This is especially helpful for those who are lactose-intolerant, lacking the digestive enzyme lactase that would normally do this. Probiotics also improve the absorption of calcium and other minerals; manufacture vitamins, primarily the vitamins K, B12, and folic acid; relieve constipation; and are important healers in a wide variety of digestive disorders. |
David Bodanis
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 Every living creature to-day-you, your dinner guests, cows, whales, daffodils and mites-has amino acids which polarize light in a leftward direction. By simple chance numerous proto-life forms must have started to develop in the earth's primitive ocean which were mirror images of that and polarized light in a rightward direction. The fact that no descendants of such creatures have been found, anywhere, shows that our ancestors, bacterial or otherwise, destroyed these newcomers before they could develop enough to fight back. |
Andrew Pengelly
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 A number of amino acids are known precursors of these glycosides. Amygdalin from the bitter almond is derived from the aromatic amino acid phenylalanine. Amygdalin is hydrolysed in the presence of the enzyme amygdalase and water, involving a two-stage process to produce glucose along with an aglycone made up of benzaldehyde (scent of bitter almonds) and odourless hydrocyanic acid.
Ogentiobiose
CN amygdalin
The occurrence of cyanogenic glycosides is widespread. Amygdalin and prunasin are very common among plants of the Rosaceae, particularly the Prunus genus. |
| Oxidation of glucose, fatty acids and amino acids results in formation of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), a high-energy molecule formed by catabolism (enzymic breakdown) of primary compounds. ATP is recycled to fuel anabolic (enzymic synthesis) reactions involving intermediate molecules on the pathways.
Whereas catabolism involves oxidation of starting molecules, biosynthesis or anabolism involves reduction reactions, hence the need for a reducing agent or hydrogen donor, which is usually NADP (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate). |
| These glycosides are formed by decarboxylation on amino acids such as tyrosine, phenylalanine and tryptophan (see Table 4.1).
,S-C6H11°5
R-CH,-C
\
N-O-SO3K+ glucosinolate structure
Sinigrin (potassium isothiocyanate), the glycoside from seeds of the black mustard (Brassica nigra), is hydrolysed on bruising or heating by the enzyme myrosinase to an unstable aglycone—allyl isothiocyanate. Depending on conditions other thiocyanates and highly toxic nitriles may be formed, the latter when plants are subjected to very hot water (> 45°C). |
| Amide functional groups are quite resistant to hydrolysis, and amide linkages between amino acids and peptides are essential to the stability of proteins. Acetaminophen, a well-known anti-inflammatory drug, is a simple amide formed from 4-hydroxy-phenylamine and acetic acid.
In alkamides, amines are combined with unsaturated fatty acids by amide linkages, forming unbranched chains with one or more double and/or triple bonds.
Alkamides are responsible for the sharp, burning or tingling taste associated with herbs and spices such as prickly ash bark (Zan-thoxylum spp. |
| Most alkaloids are derived at least partly from various amino acids as their direct precursors, while a few are derived from isoprene units (terpenoids).
The isolation of morphine by Seturner in 1806 led to the discovery of several more alkaloids over the next 15 years, including emetine, piperine, caffeine and quinine. The term alkaloid was first applied by Meissner, a German pharmacist, and originally referred to all plant alkalis. |
Mark Blumenthal
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 Johnston, 2000), although another review and survey suggests that only 16-18% of adult Americans regularly use dietary supplements (which includes not only herbs, but also vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc.) (Blendon et al., 2001).
An earlier report estimated that 70 million Americans are using herbal supplements (Wasik, 1999). An often-cited study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) (Eisenberg etai, 1998) estimated that 46% of Americans saw an alternative practitioner in 1997, up from 36% in 1990, and spent $27.2 billion in 1998 on alternative care practitioners. |
| IVHD] and their degradation products [baldrinal and derivatives]), amino acids (argi-nine, GABA, glutamine, tyrosine), and alkaloids (Upton, 1999; Bruneton, 1999; Leung and Foster, 1996). The iridoids are chemically unstable and degrade in moisture, heat (above 40°C), or acidity (pH<3) to baldrinal and isopropylbaldrinal (Bruneton, 1999) and, therefore, are not found in most commercial preparations (Blumenthal etal., 1998). |
David Hoffman, FNIMH, AHG
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| ISOQUINOLINE ALKALOIDS
This is the largest group of alkaloids, derived from the amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine. Isoquinoline alkaloids characteristically contain a phenylethylamine structure in an isoquinoline ring system. They are common in the Magnoliaceae, Ranunculaceae, Papaveraceae, Fumariaceae, Cactaceae, Fabaceae, and Rutaceae families. Many isoquinolines are found in Papaveraceae, especially in the genera Papaver, Chelidonium, and Sanguinaria}6
Fig. 8.16. |
David Bodanis
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| The food welling up from cracks in the skin is not our usual lunchtime fare, not ham and cheese or pastrami on rye—those are substances the bacteria here have to miss-but rather more suitable stuff; some salt water from the sweat pores, nitrogen compounds conveniently mixed in with it like a vitamin seltzer, and wherever there's a hair follicle some oily face grease will be plopping up too, grease just loaded with the amino acids bacteria need. |
David Hoffman, FNIMH, AHG
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| The nitrogen-containing secondary products, such as alkaloids, are biosynthesized primarily from amino acids.
A couple of fascinating unanswered questions arise here. How many secondary plant metabolites are there, and how many can occur in a single plant? New molecules are being isolated and characterized at a rate of about 3,000 per year, and the best estimate of the total number known appears to be 80,000 to 100,000 isolated compounds of determined structure. |
David Bodanis
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| It's also likely that the lightning bolts you notice during a storm are zapping some of the nutrient broth on the ground where it hits into amino acids and other precursors of life. Unfortunately little is likely to come out of that creational endeavor, for the first fungi or bacteria recolonizing the charred region later will gobble up that new substance, and so destroy the chance of our ever seeing what new life forms may have grown out of it. There are an estimated 1,800 lightning storms in action on our planet at every moment, so this happens a lot. |
| That perspiration is nutritious: sweat on your finger contains potassium, sodium, zinc, glucose, vitamin C, riboflavin, and over a dozen amino acids. In this landscape the salmonella reproduce-either splitting in half, or gushing into each other long strands of DNA-containing protoplasm through holes in their body.
Yet in that setting of propagation and eating, all is not without its dark side. The fingertips that inadvertently sweep up the salmonella while hurrying around the kitchen are such a satisfying terrain that lots of other minute one-celled organisms have ended up on it over time. |
Brenda Davis and Tom Barnard
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 Once in our tissues, the essential amino acids from plant and animal foods are virtually identical.
Mono and Polyunsaturated Fat
Let's face it; fat gets a lot of bad press. We blame all sorts of health problems on fat—and with good reason. As you know, excessive amounts of saturated fats and trans fatty acids contribute to disease. It is little wonder some people end up becoming fat phobic, shunning not only visible fat like margarine and oil, but products with added fat and foods that are naturally high in fat. The flaw in this logic is that not all fat is damaging to health. |
Kevin Trudeau
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 In 1993 the FDA tried to classify certain minerals and amino acids as prescription drugs. Again, a public outcry caused Congress to act. Recently the FDA has been going after companies that sell natural remedies via the Internet. It claims these companies are selling "drugs" without a license.
In the book The Assault on Medical Freedom, secret documents from the medical industry have been exposed proving the FDA, the pharmaceutical industry, the AMA, and even insurance companies are working together to discredit natural medicine. |
Brenda Davis and Tom Barnard
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| Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI): 5 mg/kg body weight
Cautions: Not recommended for use during pregnancy and lactation
Aspartame (Equal, Nutrasweet)
Composition: Two amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalanine, joined by methanol Sweetness vs. Sugar (Sucrose): 200 times sweeter than sugar Properties: Not heat stable and no aftertaste
Food Uses: Used in tabletop sweeteners, cold breakfast cereal, gelatins, puddings, chewing gum, and carbonated beverages. Carbonated beverages account for 70% of its use. |
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