Those flare-ups are usually life-long and can be demoralizing. One idea that may help you to reduce the outbreaks and severity:
Eat foods with a high lysine/arginine ratio. Foods high in the amino acid arginine can promote herpes virus replication, while foods high in the amino acid lysine can inhibit it.
Some good food choices:
milk, cheese, eggs, fish, lentils, beans, sweet potatoes....
Does anyone know what to mix high-dose #arginine powder with, to make a palatable drink? (By "high-dose", I mean 7.5 grams twice a day, for a total daily dose of 15 grams.)
High-dose arginine appears to have certain health benefits I'd like to take advantage of. It also has a guanidino group in its side chain, which makes it decidedly alkaline. As to how it tastes and smells, note that the name "guanidino" is derived from "guano". If you're familiar with the aroma of the antidiabetic drug metformin, that will give you an idea of what we're up against; metformin is a "biguanide".
I tried mixing arginine with Ocean Spray cranberry-raspberry-lemonade cocktail. I thought that ought to provide sufficient acidity. I underestimated the opponent. Upon mixing, the cocktail's cheerful rose-red color changed instantly to deep purple. Purple like Welch's grape juice. Some of the cocktail's fruit pigments must be acid-base indicators. The taste was tolerable, but no more than that. The guanidino group: winner and still champion.
I intend to continue experimenting on my own, but if anyone knows a good solution to this problem, I'd be appreciative.
Self experiment: Leucine and arginine vs my blood sugar levels
I’ve been working on getting my blood sugar levels down. With mixed results. So I figured that I would look into what my body needs to make insulin. That’s where I found out about leucine and arginine.
Working on the idea that leucine and arginine are the two food things that are well-known stimulators of insulin release, I figured I’d try to eat more foods high in them. I found a paper that suggested that leucine was the hero of the two. I found a random post (a sure sign of quality) that suggested that both may result in higher energy levels during high-intensity training.
From my uneducated reading of stuff, it seems leucine is not made by the body, whereas arginine is. Arginine is, I am told, made by your body from citrulline. In turn, citrulline comes from melons, squashes, cucumbers, and pumpkins.
I had Chat GPT start a table of foods high in leucine and arginine, which I have added to because it missed some. I’m fairly sure this table is accurate but no experts were consulted in its construction.
FoodLeucine (g)Arginine (g)Combined (g)Whey protein (as loved by body builders)8.6 to 1218 or 2.1, depending on who you ask10.7 to 30Pumpkin / squash seeds (roasted)2.56.08.5Peanuts (roasted)2.23.75.9Parmesan cheese3.42.55.9Beef (lean cuts)2.62.04.6Chicken breast2.51.84.3Turkey breast2.02.04.0Tuna (lean fish)2.01.53.5Pork loin2.01.43.4Eggs (whole)1.12.03.1Firm tofu (soy)1.52.33.0Soybeans (roasted)2.10.93.0Spirulina (dried algae)1.21.62.8Cottage cheese (low-fat)1.31.02.3Lentils (cooked)1.11.02.1Chickpeas (cooked)1.10.92.0Broad beans (fava, cooked)1.00.91.9Almonds1.50.41.9Cashews1.30.51.8Milk (whole)0.30.10.4Rice (white, cooked)0.30.20.5My takeaway from this is – eat more salads with meat and dairy. Keep the cucumber in there because it tastes okay and might help.
I will report back when I have some data on how that worked out for me.
#arginine #bloodSugar #citrulline #healthyEating #leucine #protein
Nghiên cứu mới phát hiện tế bào ung thư vú lợi dụng arginine để tái lập trình tế bào miễn dịch, mở ra hướng đi cho các liệu pháp điều trị ung thư sáng tạo.
#DeepSea corals are home to previously unknown #bacteria with extremely small genomes https://phys.org/news/2024-11-deep-sea-corals-home-previously.html paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53855-5 #genomics
"the bacteria are the dominant #symbionts of these #corals and live in a gelatinous layer of tissue that forms part of their immune system and transports nutrients... These bacteria don't even carry genes for obtaining energy from carbohydrates... their only source of energy is the amino acid #arginine, provided by the #coral."
A German-American research team has discovered two highly unusual bacterial species in the tissue of two deep-sea corals from the Gulf of Mexico. These previously unknown coral symbionts have an extremely reduced genome and lack the ability to obtain energy from carbohydrates, the team reports in an article published in the journal Nature Communications.
Exogenous #arginine promotes coproduction of #biomass and #astaxanthin in #Haematococcus pluvialis.
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-exogenous-arginine-coproduction-biomass-astaxanthin.html
Researchers led by Prof. Huang Qing from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have shown that arginine supplementation can improve the growth and astaxanthin production of Haematococcus pluvialis (H. pluvialis).
Background Nutrient limitations often lead to metabolic stress during cancer initiation and progression. To combat this stress, the enzyme heme oxygenase 1 (HMOX1, commonly known as HO-1) is thought to play a key role as an antioxidant. However, there is a discrepancy between the level of HO-1 mRNA and its protein, particularly in cells under stress. O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) modification of proteins (O-GlcNAcylation) is a recently discovered cellular signaling mechanism that rivals phosphorylation in many proteins, including eukaryote translation initiation factors (eIFs). The mechanism by which eIF2α O-GlcNAcylation regulates translation of HO-1 during extracellular arginine shortage (ArgS) remains unclear. Methods We used mass spectrometry to study the relationship between O-GlcNAcylation and Arg availability in breast cancer BT-549 cells. We validated eIF2α O-GlcNAcylation through site-specific mutagenesis and azido sugar N-azidoacetylglucosamine-tetraacylated labeling. We then evaluated the effect of eIF2α O-GlcNAcylation on cell recovery, migration, accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and metabolic labeling during protein synthesis under different Arg conditions. Results Our research identified eIF2α, eIF2β, and eIF2γ, as key O-GlcNAcylation targets in the absence of Arg. We found that O-GlcNAcylation of eIF2α plays a crucial role in regulating antioxidant defense by suppressing the translation of the enzyme HO-1 during Arg limitation. Our study showed that O-GlcNAcylation of eIF2α at specific sites suppresses HO-1 translation despite high levels of HMOX1 transcription. We also found that eliminating eIF2α O-GlcNAcylation through site-specific mutagenesis improves cell recovery, migration, and reduces ROS accumulation by restoring HO-1 translation. However, the level of the metabolic stress effector ATF4 is not affected by eIF2α O-GlcNAcylation under these conditions. Conclusions Overall, this study provides new insights into how ArgS fine-tunes the control of translation initiation and antioxidant defense through eIF2α O-GlcNAcylation, which has potential biological and clinical implications.
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