Amino acids, often referred to as the building blocks of proteins, are compounds that play many critical roles in your body. Amino acids are essentially the staff of life. They are needed for vital processes like the building of proteins and synthesis of hormones and neurotransmitters. They are categorized as essential, conditionally essential or nonessential depending on several factors. In addition to their structural role in proteins, amino acids can be utilized as energy substrates during periods of fasting or starvation. Amino acids are able to provide a carbon skeleton for either glucose production or synthesize ketone bodies, or both.
Exclusively gluconeogenic amino acids:
arginine histidine methionine (+ cysteine) threonine valine
Strictly ketogenic:
leucine lysine
Both gluconeogenic and ketogenic:
isoleucine phenylalanine (+ tyrosine) thryptophan
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