Questions about Amino Acids

[Consider]

I have been taking magnesium and L-tryptophan, is it necessary to take b6 and taurine for them to absorb better? I am taking magnesium also for a kidney disease called Gitelman Syndrome.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Not for magnesium. This one is all about the form of magnesium as they all have different bioavailability and this is about the form which you are using.

One such form is magnesium taurate (magnesium combined with taurine) but it's not the most bioavailable form. Taurine alone has been suggested for anxiety but the problem with it is that it is used in abundance all around the body for many things so you have to work towards a level that shows it working. An added thing to look for in magnesium taurate is the %'s. Some are largely taurine and magnesium volume is very poor, so they are not much use.

I'm not so sure about the B6 side, I would have to check that.

L-tryptophan is more of a problem when consumed with higher protein meals. The reason is that certain aminos are fighting for uptake and they win and take the l-tryptophan with them, so they never make it to the brain. Getting l-tryptophan to the brain is all about adding carbs (which reverses the uptake win) or taking it alone in a supplement which avoids that.

As far as I know, B6 is needed to assist 5-HTP in converting to Serotonin. But you still need l-tryptophan as a precursor for the Serotonin. 5-HTP is made from l-tryptophan. To convert l-tryptophan to 5-HTP means adding Tetrahydrobiopterin. I can't see any link to B6 in there at all, so the B6 element is just for the 5-HTP to converted to Serotonin which requires Aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase too.

---------- Post added at 07:20 ---------- Previous post was at 06:47 ----------

Sorry, just noticed you are on magnesium glycinate. Adding taurine to that might alter it's bioavailability and I seem to recall taurine is worse than glycine.

I've got some useful links to other threads on forums talking about that so I'll post them later.

Have you looked at the % of "elemental" magnesium in your supplement? That's the max dose you are getting of actual magnesium. People don't always realise this and there can be slight variances between manufacturers. Many don't even print it on the bottle and beware that some manufacturers will write 500mg elemental magnesium when the magnesium glycinate is actually 500mg - this is physically impossible since magnesium is one element of the supplement, not all of it.