BCAA Overuse and Neurotransmitter Competition

hey um how many people do you prescribe to um sip on branch chain amino acids all day because it tastes better than water yeah yeah no that's a super common thing when you're trying to get people to drink more water especially women they for whatever reason water's too boring to them. And so they'll just put five or 10 grams of powdered BCAAs and they'll sip on that all day. And what they're not understanding is that when you, when you influx the body with a lot of large neutral amino acids, they're going to compete with each other through the blood brain barrier. So the more leucine you take in, the more tyrosine, the more tryptophan, they're going to compete with each other. And in a lot of cases, people are inhibiting tyrosine and tryptophan from getting into the brain. So two and a half months after they've done, you know, 40, 45, 50 grams of branched-chain amino acids a day, all of a sudden they're depressed and they're apathetic. They have no motivation. It completely destroys their personality, and they get super flat. And then you sit down for a consult, and you go, okay, how long have you been taking high-dose branched-chain amino acids? And they look at you and go, how did you know? And I'm like, well, when did you lose your personality? And they go, two and a half months ago. When did you start taking high-dose BCAs? Two and a half months ago. And then they're like, holy shit. Then you give them some things that counteract that, and they feel normal again. and they're like, okay, well that was dumb. Do you want to- Wired but tired. That's the way I used to describe them. Then they come and say I'm wired but tired. Like, so they're sitting there, they can't switch it. They get no energy to do anything, but they're just running on nervous energy. It's a classic symptom of sipping on branch chains. Cause not even the tryptophan and tyrosine, which are the precursors to the brain chemistry but we know 80 of the serotonin is made in the gut It competing with that directly Absolutely For absorption through the blood barrier It actually a curse as well because the branched amino acids are actually formulated to take usually during or before a workout because it blocks serotonin, and serotonin relaxes you. And when you're wanting to work out, you don't want to be relaxed per se. You want to be, hey, you know, so that's when you take it. But people know that, oh, yeah, that's right. It also upregulates mammalian target of raptomycin complex 1, which means I can grow. so this great idea maybe one person in a thousand Steve yeah remember that bloke that time he said that yeah that's right so they're drinking this stuff going oh yeah it's going to make me pep me up and make me huge it's going to stop my muscle tissue from breaking down while I'm working out and it's going to help me to recover that's what most people say correct how does it do the muscle sparing effect your body uses it as fuel instead of your muscle so excellent so in a sense is there a place for mega doses of branch chains if you want to get massive? Like if you want to get big, would you use it? Or would you still focus on more protein? I would focus on more whole proteins. You're not throwing amino acids out of balance.