Amino acids are all around us. They’re produced in outer space and rain down upon the Earth in meteorites. They can even be made by a combination of lightning and volcanic activity. Along with RNA, amino acids co-evolved to help form life on this planet as we know it.

So it comes as no surprise that aminos are an essential part of proper nutrition and core bodily activities and contribute to optimal muscle function and performance. Many people are amino acid-deficient without knowing it, which can sabotage they’re fitness and recovery efforts.

The Role of Amino Acids in the Body

Proteins are integral to the body working at all, and correctly, helping trigger communication functions required for health and survival, like insulin, hemoglobin, collagen, elastin and more. Proteins are made up of amino acids. Without amino acids, your body couldn’t work correctly, and so many functions would be blocked, including immune health, hormone production and cell-to-cell communication.

While these proteins are critical to health and well-being, humans do not produce certain amino acids. There are 22 total amino acids, 14 of which can be made by the body when getting sufficient amounts of the 8 essential amino acids. The body produces alanine, asparagine, aspartate, cysteine, glutamic acid, glutamine, glycine, proline, serine and tyrosine. Histidine and arginine can only be made by the body when the essential 8 are present. The remaining eight amino acids are thus essential to consume through meals and supplements: isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan and valine.

Your Body’s Natural Prioritization Process

It is particularly crucial for athletes to maintain optimal consumption of essential amino acids, as this is integral to the body’s muscle repair and building processes. However, while you may begin boosting your amino acids intake to help target a specific part of your body, like an injury for which you are looking to speed up recovery, there is no guarantee that the amino acids you are taking in will aid in this specific repair.

While amino acids are absorbed into the body through central systems, your body will naturally prioritize its needs and use the amino acids where the body believes they are needed, overall.

In other words, if you start taking an amino acid supplement to build muscle, but your digestive system is in need of repair, the supplement will be primarily diverted to fix your gut before you see desired results in muscle gain. In fact, for a variety of reasons the digestive process is not perfect. Aging, stress (both physical and emotional), gastrointestinal imbalances, unhealthy dietary choices and the use of medications all get in the way of the body’s ability to enzymatically metabolize and process foods and render their essential amino acids bioavailable.

Essential amino acids that we get from foods (meat, eggs, beans and nuts) have to first be digested before they’re available to muscles, tissues and cells. Since BodyHealth’s PerfectAmino™ provides a (vegetable-based) trove of all eight essential amino acids in their pure and elemental form, no digestion is required.

In fact, PerfectAmino contains an optimal balance of essential amino acids and is used almost perfectly by the body with virtually zero nitrogen waste, ensuring 99% of the supplement will be used to nourish and repair cells.