L - LYSINE

Lysine is an essential amino acid in that it is required for human nutrition and is not produced by the human body. Lysine has been called the most indispensable amino acid, because it is in such short supply in cereals and grains, more that any other amino acid.

The lack of lysine limits our ability to make use of other amino acids in these foods, vegetarians especially are often deficient in lysine.

Lysine is needed for proper growth and bone development in children; it helps calcium absorption and maintains a proper nitrogen balance in adults.  Lysine aids in the production of antibodies, hormones, and enzymes, and works with vitamin C to help collagen formation and tissue repair.  Since it helps to build muscle protein, it is good for those recovering from surgery and sports injuries.  It also lowers high serum triglyceride levels.

Lysine is useful in the symptomatic treatment of cold sores, fever blisters, and herpes viruses, some researchers theorize that lysine exhibits anti-viral qualities because it causes a breakdown in the protective sheath of the virus.  Herpes affects 50 to 75% of adults, and possibly the same percentage in children.  Herpes is caused by a virus that remains in the body in a dormant state until the immune system is weakened by stress such as colds, sunburn or overtiredness.  Some people find eating a diet low in lysine foods cause a nutritional imbalance that favours growth of the herpes virus.  A key factor in the suppression of herpes virus is the amino acid ratio of lysine and arginine, the greater the balance of lysine to arginine the better the suppression.  There may be a genetic factor also, but the nutritional factor is certain.

One successful program recommends that people with active sores take two 500 mg. capsules three to four times per day until the infection has cleared, inactive herpes can be controlled with just one 500 mg. capsule daily, after L-lysine loading program, as above.

Research at UCLA School of Medicine and at Kaiser-Permanente Medical Centre in Oakland, CA. has shown that the causative agent in many cranial nerve syndromes, including migraine headache, acute vestibular neuronitis, Bell's Palsy, MS, ALS (Lou Gehrig's), Parkinson's, Epilepsy and Meniere's disease, is a herpes simplex virus, this research goes back as far as 1952, and more active throughout the 70's.  The possibility exists that a yet unknown virus or pathogenic mechanism may cause the primary disease.

When a patient recovers from a  herpes attack, the virus subsides to latency in the cranial and spinal ganglia (nerve center), where it is protected from circulating antibodies.  Because herpes reactivation and replication begins in the ganglion cells, the virus then passes down the axons to induce the formation of the herpetic vesicle in the skin or mucous membranes, this means every time a person has a cold sore on his lip, the base of his brain is inflamed.  Herpes simplex may be considered a disease of the nerves, and not of the skin!