L-Citrulline or L-Arginine competes with L-Lysine

[DiverDown2]

I spoke with a lady at Tower Labs. and she told me to limit my L-Citrulline and L-Arginine, because they compete with the same pathways as L-Lysine.
Discussion and opinions appreciated.

[pamojja]

Most amino acids compete with similiar pathways. That's why it is recommended to take them without meals for better absorbtion. However, there is never a complete antagonism, otherwise we humans wouldn't have survived for that long on diet alone, which always comes in a mix of aminos competing. Taking therapeutic doses any antagonism maybe seen in vitro or animals is simply overridden with the higher amounts.

See for example here: https://examine.com/supplements/lysine/ ... s_arginine, https://examine.com/supplements/arginin ... ons_lysine

If still wanting to be cautious because of a theoretic antagonism, you could take the arginine at a different time than the lysine. Or just as to speculate that they would compete, you could speculate that because AAKG (arginine alpha ketoglutarate) or citrulline is metabolised very slowly to arginine in the body, the antagonism wouldn't be as much as with fast metabolized lysine taken at the same time.

[DiverDown2]

She told me a fellow in New Zealand was taking their product but got blockages, so they looked at his other supplements he took and saw where he was taking several Grams a day of L-Arginine, they advised him to stop the L-Arginine for 6 months and get checked again. This time his blockages were clearing.
I appreciate your reply

[pamojja]

Too many variables with such a single scetchy anecdote. What kind of 'blockage'? How was it diagnosed? What other health variables other than supplementation? - For example without extensive blood-testing I would never even mentioned increases of inflammation through silent infections causing massive increases of plaque growth, only to decrease after again. There are many more anectodes of people using argenine/procursors together with lysine, and decreased plaque. And there are of course individual needs caused by many more factors.

[ofonorow]

She told me a fellow in New Zealand was taking their product but got blockages, so they looked at his other supplements he took and saw where he was taking several Grams a day of L-Arginine, they advised him to stop the L-Arginine for 6 months and get checked again. This time his blockages were clearing.
I appreciate your reply

Thank you for the anecdote. We have tried to track down the nature of this "antagonism" over the years, and as pamoja points out, proteins often contain the lysine and arginine together.

In my humble opinion, while arginine may have beneficial properties (per Ignaro/USC) in the creation of Nitric Oxide (NO), lysine apparently has similar properties. I don't believe, from our experience, that high dose arginine/cirtuline is necessary or required to achieve the beneficial effects we see all the time from the basic therapy - vitamin C and lysine (w/proline).

We get both aminos together in the diet, but it may be that (speculating) that high doses of arginine tend to "crowd out" lysine in the diet. They may share the same intestinal tunnel or path from the gut into the blood stream. If this is the nature of the antagonism, then simply eating high arginine 4 hours plus or minus high lysine would eliminate the problem.

There may be more to it. The other way that arginine and lysine "antagonate"each other is that lysine inhibits viruses, while arginine apparently promotes virus activity. (The effect is noticeable w/r to cold sores. Arginine aggravates while Lysine inhibits. This finding by the Univ. of Chicago is why there are lysine tablets in every pharmacy.)

[DiverDown2]

thanks for the reply.
I do have another Question, When I talked with the lady at Tower about the L-Arginine and L-Citrulline, I asked her about taking Beet Root Extract as in Super Beets, and she said that substituting Beet Extract for L-Arginine or L-Citrulline to raise Nitric-Oxide would be better.
What is your opinion about this would it compete for the same pathways?

[pamojja]

No competition. However, with beet extracts one has to watch out for a response with blood glucose.