Amino Acid Derivatives and Related Compounds
The Compounds (14)
5-HTP
5-HTP — short for 5-hydroxytryptophan — is a compound your body makes as a natural stepping-stone toward one of the brain's most important chemical messengers, serotonin.
Read the deep dive →BAIBA
BAIBA (beta-aminoisobutyric acid) is a small non-protein amino acid your body makes from two sources — the amino acid valine and thymine, one of the building blocks of DNA —…
Read the deep dive →Beta Alanine
Beta-alanine is one of the few sports-nutrition supplements with genuine, repeatable science behind it — though the real-world payoff is modest and very specific.
Read the deep dive →Carnitine
Carnitine is a small compound your body makes on its own and also gets from food, especially red meat.
Read the deep dive →Citrulline
Citrulline is an unusual amino acid: your body makes it and uses it, but it is never actually built into your proteins.
Read the deep dive →Collagen
Collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body, accounting for approximately 30 percent of total protein content.
Read the deep dive →Creatine
Creatine is one of the most extensively researched and consistently validated supplements in the history of nutritional science.
Read the deep dive →D-Serine
D-Serine is the mirror-image form of the common amino acid serine.
Read the deep dive →GABA
GABA — gamma-aminobutyric acid — is the main "calm-down" signal in your brain.
Read the deep dive →Glucosamine
An amino sugar your body makes from glucose, glutamine and ATP. What the trials found, and what the research shows for people with high blood sugar.
Read the deep dive →L-Theanine
L-theanine is a non-protein amino acid found almost exclusively in the leaves of Camellia sinensis (green tea, black tea, white tea) and in a single edible mushroom species (Boletus badius).…
Read the deep dive →Ornithine
Ornithine is one of the quiet workhorses of human metabolism — an amino acid you have never eaten in a protein and never will, yet one your body relies on…
Read the deep dive →SAM-e
SAM-e (pronounced "sammy," short for S-adenosylmethionine) is a molecule your body makes on its own, around the clock, from the amino acid methionine and the cellular energy carrier ATP.
Read the deep dive →Hyaluronic Acid
The body’s water-holding molecule in skin, joints and eyes, built from glucuronic acid and glucosamine. What the research shows for skin, joints, eyes and wounds.
Read the deep dive →Compounds sold alongside amino acids that are not proteinogenic amino acids: metabolites (5-HTP from tryptophan, SAM-e from methionine), non-protein amino acids (beta-alanine, citrulline, ornithine, GABA, L-theanine), a D-enantiomer, and four that are not amino acids at all — creatine, a guanidino compound; collagen, which is a protein made of amino acids; glucosamine, an amino sugar; and hyaluronic acid, a long sugar chain built partly from glucosamine. Grouping them by what they are is the only honest option; the essential / non-essential split does not apply to any of them.