What Are Peptides?

Today we are talking peptides and amino acids. 

-What are peptides?

There is a lot of buzz about peptides and what they can do for your skin, joints, muscles, and overall health. But, what exactly are they?

Your body makes peptides. They are found in every cell and tissue. Think of peptides as nothing more than short chains of amino acids. Well what’s an amino acid?

–Amino acids are molecules that combine to form proteins in your body. 

It’s important to remember that peptides and proteins are not the same. Peptides are tiny messengers that deliver instructions to your cells to perform certain processes. They are like a key. And each and every function within our body requires a key to take place. So peptides are this key that has a specific job. 

When proteins are digested or broken down, amino acids are left. The human body uses amino acids to help the body to do things like:

• Break down food
• Build muscles and grow
• Repair tissues
• Make hormones and brain chemicals 
• Cell building
• Boosting the immune system 

Amino acids can also be used as a source of energy by the body.

*There are 20 amino acids that combine to make protein found in the  body and they are classified into two groups:

• Essential amino acids
• Nonessential amino acids

ESSENTIAL AMINO ACIDS

• Essential amino acids can’t be made by the body. So they have to come from somewhere… We get these amino acids from our food.
• There are 9 essential amino acids. 

NONESSENTIAL AMINO ACIDS

The name is very misleading because we DO need these amino acids. They perform ESSENTIAL roles, but since they’re made by your body, they’re not an essential part of your diet. 

The easiest way to think of this is that you still can get nonessential amino acids from food. You just don’t need to worry about getting enough of these amino acids, since your body will make the amino acids and fill in any gaps not met by your diet. 

There are 11 Nonessential amino acids. 

You can find more information at pepties.com.  That’s peptides without the D. Where we are tying all the peptide information together. 

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