Posted by bluedog on December 5, 2002, at 9:10:00
In reply to Re: Supplement plan - d-,l-phenylalanine??, posted by Larry Hoover on December 5, 2002, at 8:29:54
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> Natural phenylalanine is all l-. When you come across the d-,l- designation, that means it's man-made. Nature makes her biochemicals with enzymes, where the three-dimensional structure is always pre-determined. We make our chemicals in open vats, where three-dimensional structures are not controllable. Even if we wanted all l-phenylalanine, our product will always be a mixture of d- and l-, termed a racemic mixture. You can separate them out by physical means, if necessary.
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> For a lot of nutrients, taking a racemate (i.e. d-,l-)provides only about 50% of the desired substance, because half won't be able to fit into our enzymes to be converted to other uses. This is one of the rare cases where that's a good thing, because the unnatural isomer can still be put to good use in the synthesis of PEA.
So just to be absolutely clear is my following summary of your advice correct?l-phenylalanine is probably going to be more beneficial to my mood than l-tyrosine but d-,l-phenylalanine is the preferable form of phenylalanine to supplement with because the synthetic isomer can be used by the body to synthesise the feel good chemical PEA.
I therefore assume that the natural l-phenylalanine is not able to be utilised by the body to synthesise PEA? Is it healthy to put an unnatural molecule into your body or is a molecule simply a molecule (whether natural or synthetic) and the body is smart enough to be able to deal with it without any adverse side effects? In other words would this create a pharmaceutical drug effect in my body rather than a natural food effect?
I suppose the analogy I would draw would be to Vitamin E supplements. Whereas dl-alpha tocopheral and d-alpha tocopheral are both beneficial to the body, the natural d isomer form is more readily useable by the body and nutritionists recommend that you look for the natural form in your supplements. Are you saying that in the case of phenylalanine that the opposite is the case and the dl form is actually the more beneficial supplement to take?
I hope you can make some sort of sense of my questions.
Thanks Larry
bluedog
poster:bluedog
thread:129993
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021203/msgs/130619.html