Optimizing Mental and Physical Health With Amino Acids

There are a number of ways to optimize physical and mental health but I believe the most important way is to understand biochemistry. Your body requires some amino acids to survive. Not only that but specific amounts of each to provide your body with the fuel it needs. Your brain is actually incapable of producing enough neurotransmitters on it's own, but it can synthesize amino acids into important neurotransmitters.

As such, I would make Amino Acids the primary focus if you are seeking to optimize your mental or physical health.

Below is the calculated daily suggested amount calculated based upon 165 pound male. Using a variety of sources that suggest either some multiplier by weight or some percentage or multiplier of the total suggested protein intake.

Note: If no amount is listed, it means I haven't been able to find the ideal amount or that the information is unknown or unavailable.

	amino acids	daily amount
1	L-Tryptophan	929.6	MG
2	L-Threonine	3585.6	MG
3	L-Isoleucine	3320	MG
4	L-Leucine	7304	MG
5	L-Lysine	6772.8	MG
6	L-Methionine	3320	MG
7	L-Cysteine	3320	MG
8	L-Phenylalanine	6241.6	MG
9	L-Tyrosine	6241.6	MG
10	L-Valine	4249.6	MG
11	L-Arginine		MG
12	L-Histidine	2390.4	MG
13	L-Alanine		MG
14	L-Aspartic acid		MG
15	L-Glutamic acid		MG
16	Glycine		MG
17	L-Proline		MG
18	L-Serine		MG

There are 23 amino acids. Some amino acids are essential to get from food. Others are "conditionally essential", and others still are non essential. I'm still doing research and I'm not a doctor or certified nutritionist so don't trust this research or follow it as advice directly (standard disclaimer applies).

So what I have done is looked at one theoretical day's worth of food consumption to see which amino acids I am likely deficient in. I used the data on nutritiondata.self.com where possible.
I looked at a breakfast of 3 eggs, snack of string cheese and trailmix, a cup of cottage cheese and 4 ounces of rotisserie chicken. A potential "typical" lunch didn't seem to have data on the specific amino acids at the time, and only "proteins" as a whole. I may on a given day have only 2 eggs, or 2 eggs and cereal or cereal and yogurt, but since I omitted some sides during meals and lunch it's a good enough to give me an idea.

Upon doing this I found some aminos I had more than I needed. For example, L-Isoleucine I had over 30% more than I needed for the day. Many others are around 100%. Even though I had more tryptophan than I needed, this may be misleading. Many people have tryptophan shortages, as it's one of the easiest to develop. On days when I don't have cottage cheese or eggs or chicken, I am probably short tryptophan so I may still be deficient in tryptophan and others on average.
However, some amino acids were deficient. I came up about 300 MG short of L-Threonine, 800 short of L-Methionine, and over 2000 short of L-Cysteine, L-Phenylalanine and L-Tyrosine. Some of that may be covered by the lunch, but probably not on average.
One possible approach is intentionally omitting a meal you would like to adjust in order to try to use that meal to target your greatest deficiencies.

L-Cysteine is actually the worst in terms of how deficient I am as a percentage of the recommended amount. While the total dosage is more deficient in L-Tyrosine, you need nearly twice as much Cysteine as you do L-Tyrosine, so it is more deficient on a percentage basis. Fortunately Cysteine is considered "non-essential" and your body can synthesize it if your body has enough Methionine. Unfortunately I am possibly also deficient in L-Methionine.

L-Tyrosine is very important. Although phenylalanine can synthesize L-Tyrosine, it seems I also have a shortage of Phenylalanine. So while certain amino acids may often support each other, if you are even slightly deficient in both, you should aim to correct it. If you have 120% of one and 80% of another it may not be a big deal.

Tyrosine can synthesize into L-Dopa. L-Dopa is a precursor to neurotransmitters like dopamine, norepinephrine (noradrenaline), and epinephrine. If your energy levels seem low overall; L-Tyrosine may be one of the most important amino acids to target.

Phenylalanine is in many ways interchangeable with L-Tyrosine and is useful to combine with Tryptophan in boosting mood (as well as energy.)

There are multiple ways to correct deficiencies. One is to simply look for foods rich in the targeted amino and look to mix them in your diet or switch other foods in for these. Another is to focus on removing foods lacking any of the targeted amino acids as replacing them with anything is better than zero. But as you swap out foods, you may end up deficient in other amino acids, not to mention we haven't covered vitamins and minerals and trace minerals yet.

So another solution is to simply add in supplements. Unfortunately your body may not absorb supplements as well as actual foods, and some amino acids run into potential problems if you have too much.

If I wanted to be thorough, I could construct 1 weeks worth of food and average them out for the day and correct the daily average shortages. Having "less than 100%" days followed by "more than 100%" days in a cycle may be perfectly fine.

For now I am content looking at potentially just adding supplements of L-Threonine, L-Methionine, and especially L-Cysteine, L-Phenylalanine and L-Tyrosine.