What is L-Tyrosine? What are the Benefits?
L-Tyrosine is a non-essential amino acid and it’s produced by phenylalanine in your body. The phenylalanine in your body is converted to tyrosine, which is a major contributor when it comes to manufacturing neurotransmitters/hormones including dihydroxyphenylalanine, dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine.
L-Tyrosine has been getting quite a bit of attention in the supplement world and as powerful it is, it should be. The main reason is that it’s a precursor to neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine. When administering tyrosine you can accelerate catecholamine synthesis in the sympathoadrenal system. Now this all may seem a lot to take in and is probably a lot for people to understand because it’s all the scientific mumbo-jumbo. But ill do my best t break it down for you to show you what this supplement or ingredient can really do for your body.
The Effects
When taking L-tyrosine you can expect a few awesome effects:
- Relieves stress from your life’s unwanted situations
- Relieves depression, anxiety, burnout, and mental fatigue
- It will improve your workout intensity, prevent overtraining and increase recuperation. It has the ability to influence peripheral and your CNS levels of your neurotransmitters
- Improves alertness and can enhance your cognitive performance
- Increases lipolysis, maximizes body composition, and thermogenesis
- Treats the addiction to cocaine, caffeine, and or other drug addictions
- Also helps woman with premenstrual syndrome known as (PMS)
The Benefits
Since there hasn’t been to much research on these types of ingredients and the effects they have in mind boosters its hard to give you the absolute truth on whether this stuff really does what most say it does. I will break down the effectiveness, the possible effectives, the possibly ineffective, and the results with insufficient evidence on whether it can do all of these positive things from the human body.
Effective
- If you have PKU or Phenylketonuria you cant process the amino acid phenylalanine. This is the amino acid that produces tyrosine. Those who do have PKU have lower levels of tyrosine in their body. Its advised that if you take 6 g of tyrosine to every 100 g of protein you will be able to improve your levels of tyrosine in your body.
Possible Effects
- Improving mental ability. Early research suggested that if you take tyrosine 2 hours before a test it won’t improve your mood or your reaction speed to noises or visuals. However, it can improve the performance of the mind in stressful conditions like cold stress or stress caused by noises.
- Your memory. If you take tyrosine before a test your memory isn’t going to miraculously get better, but it does help memory under, again, stressful situations, or even multitasking
- Improves alertness when losing sleep. If you take 150mg of tyrosine and have lost sleep from the night before, its said that it will keep you awake and alert for 3 hours more than usual.
Possibly ineffective
- Tyrosine doesn’t seem to have any effect on those with ADD and will not improve symptoms
- ADHD is not effective in treating symptoms of attention deficit-hyperactive disorder in your childhood stages
- If you have depression then taking tyrosine will not improve any symptoms you may have from moderate depression
Not enough Evidence
- Weight loss
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Heart disease
- Erectile dysfunction
- Stress
- Narcolepsy
- High blood pressure
Now I’m not saying that tyrosine absolutely won’t help you with any of those things, I’m just saying that there isn’t enough evidence or scientific research done to prove or solidify the effects of tyrosine in those areas of the human body.
Dosages
L-tyrosine is taken by mouth and in most cases, the dosage is 150 mg/kg a day. This will improve alertness when not getting the sufficient amount of sleep.
Also for those with PKU taking 6 grams per 100 grams of protein. It is not recommended that you supplement additionally with free tyrosine or else you may experience unwanted side effects.
Side Effects
For the most part, Tyrosine is a safe product. When taken by mouth and following the right dosages you should have no problems. They say stick to that 150 mg a day and continue for no longer than 3 months at a time and you’ll be impressed. The only reported side effects would be nausea, fatigue, headaches, joint pain, and heartburn.
There still isn’t enough evidence to say that it’s safe for children, so if you were planning on giving it to your child please consult your doctor beforehand. If you are a woman that is pregnant or breastfeeding it’s recommended that you stay away from taking this product. Also if you have an overactive thyroid or have graves disease tyrosine can increase thyroxine levels, which would make those problems worse. So if you do have thyroid problems or graves disease you should steer clear of tyrosine.
Conclusion
L-tyrosine is a new and explosive product that’s getting a new light in the supplement world and it should. It helps fight fatigue and can really help you build neurotransmitters. Taking tyrosine by itself may not seem like a great product, but when combined with other ingredients it can be a real help when boosting your brain. I would recommend this product to anyone who wants to improve cognitive abilities and help fight hat fatigue you get when you’re running on low amounts of sleep. I hope this review was helpful and informative. Thanks for reading!
