Leucine

Abbreviated as L. It is classified as an essential amino acid. Again, if you do not remember, essential amino acids are acids that the body cannot produce fast enough on its own and must be supplemented via diet in order to survive. Leucine is an amino acid, an organic compound, that is used in the synthesis of different proteins by the body. In short, if you do not have leucine, it won’t be long before you aren’t going anywhere. 

It will take longer for your muscles to recover and or grow. Additionally, it appears that leucine does play some sort of role in the regulation of blood sugar. Signs of leucine deficiency include but are not limited to loss of appetite and some degree of muscle atrophy. Of course, you probably want to see a doctor about that. 

Some foods that are high in leucine include, but are not limited to, the following: chicken, soybeans, eggs, legumes, bresaola, asiago cheese and more. However, there are some issues with tracking the amount of leucine present in foods. One common issue, at least according to a paper on the use of leucine in treating patients with sarcopenia, is that databases are not always clear about the average amount of leucine present in various foods. This actually gets at another point: leucine content in food can be considered during therapeutic treatments involving targeted diets for the treatment of a few disorders, such as sarcopenia. 

To be clear, and I cannot emphasize this enough, diets are not the key to treating every single disease or even most of them. That is not remotely close to what I am pointing out. What I am pointing out is that targeted diets can be used as a component in a therapeutic treatment of various diseases and disorders. There has been some relatively promising research into the use of high leucine supplementation in order to prevent high fat diet obesity and to prevent hyperglycemia; however, this has been limited to animal models so far. There has been more research as well into the role leucine plays with regards to homeostasis and how high leucine diets and leucine supplementation can play into this. 

Chemically speaking, leucine, an amino acid, contains an alpha amino group, an alpha carboxylic acid, and an isobutyl group. It is a branched-chain amino acid; for those who missed this part of their bio class, that means that leucine contains an aliphatic side chain (which means that they are not aromatic, meaning that they do not have structures that are typified by benzene [a benzene ring]). For now, though, that is all I will discuss on the matter.