L-lysine and L-arginine reduces anxiety and basal cortisol levels

Biomed Res. 2007 Apr;28(2):85-90.
Oral treatment with L-lysine and L-arginine reduces anxiety and basal cortisol levels in healthy humans.Smriga M, Ando T, Akutsu M, Furukawa Y, Miwa K, Morinaga Y.
Institute of Life Sciences, Ajimoto Co. Inc, 1-1 Suzuki-cho, 210-8681 Kawasaki-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Japan. miro_smriga@ehq.ajinomoto.com

Dietary supplementation with an essential amino acid L-lysine has been shown to reduce chronic anxiety in humans with low dietary intake of L-lysine. A combination of L-lysine and L-arginine has been documented to normalize hormonal stress responses in humans with high trait anxiety. The present study was carried out in one hundred eight healthy Japanese adults. The aim of study was to find out whether a week-long oral treatment with L-lysine (2.64 g per day) and L-arginine (2.64 g per day) reduces trait and stress-induced state anxiety and basal levels of stress hormones. We confirmed that, without regard to gender, the amino acid treatment significantly reduced both trait anxiety and state anxiety induced by cognitive stress battery. In addition, we found that the treatment with L-lysine and L-arginine decreased the basal levels of salivary cortisol and chromogranin-A (a salivary marker of the sympatho-adrenal system) in male subjects. These results of this double-blind, placebo controlled and randomized study confirm the previous findings in humans and animals and point to a combination of L-lysine and L-arginine as a potentially useful dietary intervention in otherwise healthy humans with high subjective levels of mental stress and anxiety.
PMID: 17510493 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

http://www.mindandmuscle.net/forum/index.p...ysine&st=30

edony - Very interesting info!

Here's the full study for a closer look.

http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/biomedres/28/2/85/_pdf

An interesting thing about this combination of Lysine and Arginine as it's been documented that it increases growth hormone release by a factor of 10 over arginine alone.

hi CS,
how many mg of l-lysine and l-arginine should we take a day? this is GREAT for HGH!

I've also seen studies where the addition of ornithine and glycine also increased the rate of growth hormone release.

as someone with high trait anxiety, ill have to give this a try.

i'm thinking to use this one for cortisol reduce

http://www.ebay.com/itm/L-Arginine-Pyroglutamate-Lysine-Powder-150-Grams-Pure-/330522754602?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf4b0fe2a

arginine pyroglutamate, is it ok?

Steve_Gr wrote:i'm thinking to use this one for cortisol reduce

http://www.ebay.com/itm/L-Arginine-Pyroglutamate-Lysine-Powder-150-Grams-Pure-/330522754602?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf4b0fe2a

arginine pyroglutamate, is it ok?

This is the type of arginine cs used to recommend. I'm sure you're fine.

I'll try high dose arginine on an empty stomach and see how my anxiety responds.

Steve_Gr wrote:i'm thinking to use this one for cortisol reduce

http://www.ebay.com/itm/L-Arginine-Pyroglutamate-Lysine-Powder-150-Grams-Pure-/330522754602?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf4b0fe2a

arginine pyroglutamate, is it ok?

This is the type of arginine cs used to recommend. I'm sure you're fine.

I'll try high dose arginine on an empty stomach and see how my anxiety responds.