While emphasizing basic principles and classical concepts of amino acid biochemistry and nutrition, this text includes recent progress in the field. It also provides concise coverage of significant historical developments in the scientific discipline so that readers will appreciate the past, understand the current state of the knowledge, and explore the future of the field.

Following its predecessor, the second edition of amino Acids: biochemistry and Nutrition presents exhaustive coverage of amino acids in the nutrition, metabolism, and health of humans and other animals (including livestock, poultry, dogs, cats, fish, and crustaceans). Substantially revised, expanded, and updated to reflect scientific advances, this book introduces the basic principles of amino acid biochemistry and nutrition, while highlighting the current knowledge of the field and its future possibilities. The book begins with the basic chemical concepts of amino acids, peptides, and proteins and their digestion and absorption. Subsequent chapters cover cell tissue, and species-specific synthesis and catabolism of amino acids and related bioactive metabolites, and the use of isotopes to study amino acid metabolism in cells and the body. The text details protein turnover; physiological functions of amino acids, and both the regulation and inborn errors of amino acid metabolism. It concludes with a presentation on human and animal dietary requirements of amino acids and evaluates dietary protein quality.