Arginine and Lysine What It Has To Do With Your Herpes

What you need to know about Lysine & Arginine to prevent herpes outbreaks.  

Prior to being diagnosed with herpes you probably never heard of arginine and lysine. At least I never did. I am pretty sure it was covered in biology class at some point in high school but not being the science geek that stuff went right out of my memory bank. So what is all this fuss over arginine and lysine and how does it affect people living with herpes?  

Here are the deets.

Let’s go back to science class. Remember what amino acids or essential proteins do? I had to pull this way out of my memory file.   Amino acids are the building blocks of our muscles and really each muscle is what shapes our body so they are pretty important. Perhaps when you were in biology your teacher used the visual example of legos. Remember when you completed your lego house and it was all put together well imagine that each leggo is an amino acid. Each leggo fits and builds on top of the other one to make the big lego house. It’s the same with amino acids they all go together and to build your muscles. Amino acids do other cool stuff that is essential for the synthesis of proteins, enzymes, hormones, neurotransmitters, metabolic pathways, mental stabilization, and just about every function that takes place within the human body. So they are pretty important.

Essential amino acids are...wait for it…essential. They are essential because our bodies can not make them on our own so in order to function properly, we have to consume them in our diet. There’s a whole long list of the essential amino acids but for our purpose, we are interested in Arginine and Lysine. We need both of them in our diets in order to live a healthy life and have our bodies function properly. If your going….what’s this got to do with herpes just hang in there a bit longer :-)

So what do these two do in the body?

Well, arginine improves cardiovascular health, increases blood flow and helps with athletic ability. You will find that there’s a lot of arginine in athletic performance drinks and supplements. Lysine is helpful with growth hormones as well as for athletes and people who are active because it helps the muscles repair and recovers. It’s also used for fat digestion, lowering cholesterol, forming collagen and absorbing calcium. Both arginine and lysine are important and we need them in our system.

Here’s where lysine and arginine come into play with herpes. The herpes virus needs arginine to breed. Without arginine, it can’t multiply. It’s basically fuel to the fire and it feeds the virus which makes it multiple and thus you get an outbreak. If you have an outbreak and continue to feed it with herpes lighter fluid then guess what happens. You guessed it, it keeps the outbreak active longer and can even cause more lesions. So not a good combo. On the contrary, lysine suffocates the herpes virus. The virus cannot replicate when lysine is present. So when using the lighter fluid analogy it's like a fire extinguisher to the virus.  

Lysine and Arginine play a pretty big role in preventing your herpes outbreaks. Now if your thinking, “great I will just eliminate all arginine from my diet and only eat lysine so I never get another outbreak” that's what I thought too. However, this won't work and as I explained earlier, both are essential and we need both arginine and lysine in our diets to live life. But here is what you can do to help fight the herpes fire. You can cut back on the high arginine foods, increase the lysine foods and the pro tip is take daily lysine supplements.

By adding a little bit extra lysine to your diet it can help keep the herpes virus dormant or if you get an outbreak lysine will help speed up the healing process and keep it at bay. I use the Pure Encapsulations of I-Lysine, click here to buy some. I take 1000mg daily and 3000mg if I have an outbreak. Sometimes when I feel my immune system is low or if I have overindulged in high arginine foods then I will up my does for the day. Give them a try. Also, please remember if you have any questions to consult with your doctor before taking supplements. Make sure your body can handle them and you don't have any cross-reactions. Ok?  

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