{"id":241937,"date":"2026-07-31T08:10:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T13:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/this-amino-acid-may-help-the-body-fight-tumors-and-viral-infections"},"modified":"2026-07-31T08:10:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T13:10:24","slug":"this-amino-acid-may-help-the-body-fight-tumors-and-viral-infections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/this-amino-acid-may-help-the-body-fight-tumors-and-viral-infections","title":{"rendered":"This amino acid may help the body fight tumors and viral infections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/this-amino-acid-may-help-the-body-fight-tumors-and-viral-infections.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The amino acid arginine helps keep the human body humming, most notably by synthesizing proteins that carry out a range of cellular processes. It\u2019s produced by our bodies and found in common high-protein foods. Low levels of arginine are associated with a number of diseases, including colon cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Sohail Tavazoie, head of Rockefeller University\u2019s Elizabeth and Vincent Meyer Laboratory of Systems Cancer Biology, has been investigating that connection for years. In 2023, Tavazoie\u2019s team found that starving colon cancer cells of arginine increases the number of mutations they accumulate. Now they\u2019ve discovered that an arginine-deficient diet also affects the immune system by stalling the production of the MHC-I protein, which alerts the immune system to dangers such as a mutating cell or an invading virus.<\/p>\n<p>Intriguingly, they also found that a moderate dose of arginine\u2014about as much as is found in a couple of over-the-counter tablets\u2014could potentially restore expression of the genes responsible for MHC-I production. They published the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/cell\/fulltext\/S0092-8674(26)00818-4\" target=\"_blank\">results<\/a> in the journal <i>Cell<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The amino acid arginine helps keep the human body humming, most notably by synthesizing proteins that carry out a range of cellular processes. It\u2019s produced by our bodies and found in common high-protein foods. Low levels of arginine are associated with a number of diseases, including colon cancer. Sohail Tavazoie, head of Rockefeller University\u2019s Elizabeth [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1506,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-food","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}