Amino Acids and the Human Being

Abstract

THE satisfaction which may quite legitimately be felt in the logical and painstaking work which enabled Rose to classify the amino acids into essential and non-essential groups rather dims the realization that his classification only refers to the needs of the growing rat. In his recent communication to NATURE, Mr. Bacharach¹ gives a welcome jolt to the complacent attitude, so easily adopted, of assuming that what is true of the growing rat is true not only of the adult rat, but also of other species of animals. The work of Wolf and Corley², and of Burroughs, Burroughs and Mitchell³, has shown, however, that the amino acids required to maintain nitrogen equilibrium in the adult rat are not entirely the same as those needed to make the young rat grow. These results illustrate the necessity of qualifying the term 'essential' when it is applied to amino acids.