By Dr. Jean-Francois Lesgards
Every hour of the day, hormones are hard at work sending messages throughout our bodies. Most hormones are synthesized by our body using amino acids which are the building blocks of proteins. Again, meeting your daily protein requirements (at least 1g/kg body weight) is essential for all aspects of our health and well-being.
Sleep quality, mood, stress responses are some of the issues regulated by hormones in our body. Two very important and specific hormones for these functions are serotonin and melatonin. Serotonin is the mood hormone that helps fight stress and anxiety. Melatonin is needed to achieve and maintain optimal sleep cycles. Fatigue and stress can lead to many other diseases and cause inflammatory reactions in the body. But they can easily be minimized with the proper protein intake so our bodies get the right amino acids needed to naturally create serotonin and melatonin.
So how can we ensure that our body is able to produce serotonin and melatonin? The key is the essential amino acid tryptophan. Tryptophan is the precursor to the formation of these two hormones but this amino acid is unfortunately less present than other amino acids in food proteins and moreover tryptophan can be denatured when heated. Fortunately, Protelicious Cold Filtered Whey Protein has a very high concentration of tryptophan compared to many protein sources and the cold processing preserves it from oxidation.