Amino Acid IV Therapy

Amino acids are crucial components of a healthy functioning body — they’re the building blocks for protein, while also working to help transport nutrients and bind tissues together.

In this post, we’ll walk you through the basics of amino acids – what they are, why your body needs them, and how amino acid IV therapy can help you live a healthier life.

Amino acids are included in many sports drinks such as Gatorade, Powerade, protein powders, and other healthy drink mixes. But amino acids are more than just an added drink ingredient—they are vital for proper muscle growth, maintaining tone and tissue strength, and providing energy for your body.

What are Amino Acids?

Researchers have grouped amino acids into three categories: essential, nonessential, and conditional. 

• Essential Amino Acids: These amino acids are the most important of the three. They cannot be made in the body, so they must be obtained through food or supplementation. Most people get a majority of these amino acids through their diet. The essential amino acids are histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine.
• Nonessential Amino Acids: Nonessential amino acids are produced by the body, but you can still get them from dietary sources and supplements, too. They include alanine, asparagine, aspartic acid, and glutamic acid.
• Conditional Amino Acids: These amino acids become most apparent under very particular conditions, like when the body is fighting off an illness or under stress. The conditional amino acids are arginine, cysteine, glutamine, tyrosine, glycine, ornithine, proline, and serine.

What Happens when we are Amino Acid Deficient?

Our body’s essential amino acids cannot be self-produced, meaning we need to obtain them through food and supplementation. But sometimes, our diet doesn’t quite do the job, and part of that has to do with how our bodies break down and assimilate the protein we eat. This concept is called “malabsorption.” Other conditions such as “maldigestion” and intestinal inflammation can cause our bodies to reject essential amino acids as well.

Amino acid deficiency can affect our body in a variety of ways. It can result in decreased immunity, fatigue, digestive problems, fertility issues, lowered mental alertness, depression, and many other mental health issues. Luckily, treatments such as amino acid IV therapy can help heal and resolve maldigestion and intestinal inflammation. 

What Do I Do If I’m Amino Acid Deficient?

The symptoms of amino acid deficiency – fatigue, digestive issues, and the like – are sometimes difficult to pinpoint.

You might not suspect that a lack of necessary amino acids is the cause of these symptoms, especially not at first. However, nutrient deficiencies in general occur when your body isn’t getting what it needs from food or supplements, and are common causes of symptoms that affect how you feel as a whole.

If you think that an amino acid deficiency might be in play, the best place to start is with a visit to your doctor. Only a healthcare professional has the knowledge, tools, and experience to accurately diagnose nutrient deficiencies.

How Diagnosing Amino Acid Deficiency Works

Diagnosing an amino acid deficiency usually starts with bloodwork. After careful analysis of your blood, your doctor will let you know whether your levels of essential amino acids are too low for optimal health.

If you are deficient in amino acids, your healthcare provider may recommend that you make changes to your diet and lifestyle, sometimes including the addition of amino acid supplementation, to help get your nutrient levels back on track.

Treating an Amino Acid Deficiency

Doctors often recommend supplements as a method of restoring amino acid levels when a patient has a deficiency. Supplementation is helpful when having trouble getting amino acids through diet alone, which can especially be the case for those with a plant-based diet.

Why Amino Acid IV Therapy?

A standard diet should supply your body with enough amino acids, but sometimes that isn’t enough. Consequently, your body cannot replenish the materials needed to build itself or repair damaged tissue—two processes required to keep you healthy. Amino acid IV treatment can help resolve this issue. IV’s, in general, are the most efficient way to transport nutrients to the body due to their high bioavailability. Oral supplements lose much of what they provide through digestion, so by the time the nutrients enter the bloodstream, they are much less abundant than when first consumed.

What is in Amino Acid IV Therapy

Amino Acid IV Therapy contains various amino acids that are important for bodily optimization:

• L-Glutamine 30mg: one of the most abundant amino acids in the body, helping promote energy and athletic performance, boosting metabolism, and healthy weight loss.
• L-Ornithine 50mg: helps relieve stress and improve sleep quality related to fatigue.
• L-Arginine 100mg: promotes improved circulation, strong immune responses, and helps kidneys secrete waste products.
• L-Lysine 50mg: helps reduce anxiety by blocking stress receptors and allows your body to hold on to calcium, vital for bone health.
• L-Citrulline 50mg: new ongoing research has shown that this amino acid may help with boosting immunity, exercise, and athletic performance, as well as reducing the risk for high blood pressure in young adults
• L-Carnitine 100mg/ml: a useful amino acid that helps prevent certain congenital conditions such as chest pain (angina) and swelling of the heart (myocarditis)—a recent side effect after COVID-19 infection.

Who benefits from amino acid IV Therapy?

No matter your body type or level of activity, keeping a steady supply of amino acids can provide optimal health. Those who find themselves regularly feeling exhausted from their daily routine should consider trying amino acid IV therapy. Amino acids, both directly and indirectly, affect how your body functions. For example, they may not now give you added energy, but they will help achieve maximum sleep quality and mitigate stress management, helping your body take on each day at full tilt.

Amino acid IV therapy is especially beneficial for high-level athletes. The combination of vitamins and amino acids can help enhance athletic performance and minimize muscle loss. L-Arginine and L-Lysine specifically work together to promote the building, healing, and repair of muscle tissue.

Conclusion

Your body needs amino acids to function optimally, and while they primarily serve as the structural components of protein, also work in many other parts of the body.

The amino acid tryptophan is converted to the hormones melatonin and serotonin, which are important for maintaining homeostasis in the body, while glutamic acid turns into glutamate, which helps the nervous system to transmit important signals.

When you book a treatment session with us, you can count on a comfortable, convenient, and rejuvenating experience that helps get your body the nutrients it needs to thrive.

To learn more and schedule your first IV therapy treatment, visit our services page.