Robert Fried responds to arginine question

Anonymous said…
Hi,
I suffer from the viral disease herpes. A diet high in Arginine can trigger an attack. For general maintainance of the disease it is recommended to have a diet high in Lysine and low in Arginine. Though after reading your article, it would appear that I would be missing out on the benefits of a diet high in Arginine. Confused!

Robert Fried replies…
Dear “Confused”
You are absolutely right. A high arginine diet can promote and/or worsen herpes. We are very careful in our book to tell our readers about that possibility. One can, however, increase Nitric Oxide availability by consuming the “greens and beans.” The body synthesizing NO from high nitrogen-compound foods does not, to the best of our knowledge, entail the herpes risk.