This may be is a crazy idea (a nutty idea?), but I wonder if anyone has tried taking a lysine pill right before eating arginine rich foods to manage the balance. If so, what's your experience with that? Signed, Someone who loves nuts
What do you mean, "manage the balance?" There is no "balance." Lysine and arginine occur without regard to each other. Some foods have elevated levels of arginine (many nuts); a few foods have increased levels of lysine (but no food sources provide enough free, pure lysine to suppress herpes activity --- that can only happen with pure lysine capsules, taken without food, especially arginine, which actually promotes herpes virus activity). Consuming lots of arginine can increase herpes virus activity. Lysine (if properly taken) suppresses herpes activity (at least after an initial loading dose period). Eating nuts with Meniere's can be nuts (or cause increased symptoms, anyway). Info on how lysine works against Meniere's here: http://www.zoominternet.net/~kcshop/JOH.pdf --John of Ohio --John of Ohio
I used the word "balance" because foods are not purely made or a single amino acid, so when I looked into foods with lysine and arginine the info is given in terms of the ratio between the two, for example here--http://www.herpes.com/Nutrition.shtml. Since you chew and digest your food before it goes into the blood stream it seems to me that it is really the mix of foods and their amino acids that you eat at one sitting that is relevant--so perhaps a lysine capsule could tip the ratio (or balance) towards lysine. I realize this a different use of lysine than you propose in your regime. I have noticed that many people are having success with anti-virals, but flare-ups when they eat arginine foods and wondered if anyone has tried to manage such flare-ups in this way.
Arginine, simply, promotes herpes virus replication. It's an essential amino acid for the virus. If it's present, it will be chemically bound to the virus and will be used for replication. Lysine, too, is taken up by herpes viruses; but when this happens, the lysine amino acid molecules substitute for the preferred arginine, and as such prevent viral replication. It stands to reason, then, that if sufficient lysine is taken, compared to arginine, the lysine will have its desired effect in slowing or stopping viral replication. But I do not know what an effective arginine-to-lysine ratio might be. I think it would be hard to get a solid number on the grams of arginine in any particular meal, against which an unknown number of grams of lysine might be added to counter the arginine. Simplest approach would be simply to avoid arginine-containing foods when taking lysine. --John of Ohio
From what I'm reading about arginine and lysine you can't avoid arginine-containing foods. Even the "lysine" foods have some arginine--so you are looking at ratios, not absolutes. Here's the link in my previous post (actually as a link this time--I'm still learning my way around here). It includes data from the US Dept of Agriculture on various foods: http://www.herpes.com/Nutrition.shtml Here's a naturopath's take on it: http://regannaturopathic.com/2013/04/the-truth-about-arginine-lysine-and-herpes-simplex-virus/
The entire arginine confusion can be disregarded if the lysine is taken at least 20 min before a meal, or 2 hr after one. The arginine in the meal simply does not get mixed with lysine supplementation, and doesn not then compete with it. If the lysine is comsumed all by itself, and never gets mixed digestively with proteins or arginine in foods (hence the before and after meals scheduling), it gets digested and absorbed into the bloodstream all by itself, where it lasts longer and can interfere with herpes virus replication. --John of Ohio