The Discovery Of Amino Acids

The discovery of amino acids began in France in 1806, when chemists Louis Nicolas Vauquelin and Pierre Jean Robiquet separated a compound from asparagus (later Known as asparagine), the first amino acid was discovered. And this discovery immediately aroused the scientific community’s interest in the entire life component, and prompted people to search for other amino acids.

In the following decades, chemists discovered cystine (1810) and monomeric cysteine ​​(1884) in kidney stones. In 1820, chemists extracted leucine (one of the most important amino acids) and glycine from muscle tissue. Because of this discovery in muscle, leucine, along with valine and isoleucine, is considered an amino acid essential for muscle protein synthesis. By 1935, all 20 common amino acids were discovered and classified, which prompted the biochemist and nutritionist William Cumming Rose (William Cumming Rose) to successfully determine the minimum daily amino acid requirements. Since then, amino acids have become the focus of the fast-growing fitness industry.

The importance of amino acids

Amino acid broadly refers to an organic compound that contains both a basic amino group and an acidic carboxyl group, and refers to the structural unit that constitutes a protein. In the biological world, the amino acids that constitute natural proteins have their specific structural characteristics.

In short, amino acids are essential to human life. When we only focus on muscle hypertrophy, strength gain, exercise regulation, and aerobic exercise and recovery, we can see the benefits of amino acids. In the past few decades, biochemists have been able to accurately classify the structure and proportion of compounds in the human body, including 60% water, 20% protein (amino acids), 15% fat and 5% carbohydrates and others substance. The requirement of essential amino acids for adults is about 20% to 37% of the requirement of protein.

The prospects of amino acids

In the future, researchers will continue to uncover the mysteries of these life components to determine that they are involved in all processes related to the human body.