GLOSSARY

Essential Amino Acid Requirements Table

WHO/FAO/UNU 2007 mean adult indispensable-amino-acid requirements, mg/kg/day; these are population requirement estimates, not supplement doses.

Essential Amino Acid Requirement is the amount required for function and tissue maintenance under stated conditions. It may be expressed as milligrams per kilogram daily, unlike a proportion within one gram of protein.

Adult essential amino acids are histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan and valine. The body cannot synthesise enough, so the diet must supply them. Essentiality differs from general importance: a nonessential amino acid can still perform vital functions even though direct dietary supply is not always obligatory.

Scoring commonly expresses amino acids as milligrams per gram of protein and compares them with an age-specific pattern. That differs from a daily requirement in milligrams per kilogram of body mass. Without knowing age group, method and denominator, comparing two quality numbers can be misleading rather than informative.