Green Tea Focus contains L-theanine. What is it exactly?

L-theanine is an atomic structure known in fields of biology and organic chemistry as an amino acid. You probably know of amino acids; they are a building block essential to almost all life forms on the planet  (including mammals, like you and me), but you have probably heard of them under another title: proteins.

Most people when they hear protein think of the Atkin’s diet or guys who work out at the gym with their protein-shakes or meat. In the scientific field however, a protein is a megastructure that is composed of many amino acid chains. In other words think of proteins as the equivalent of a brick house, and the individual bricks can be considered to be amino acids. There are many kinds of amino acids (which in turn are made up of different chemical groups, but we won’t get into that) and they can make up everything from hair, to skin to a celery stalk to the chicken breast you had for dinner last night.

So L-theanine is an amino-acid. Big deal. But what else is it?

L-theanine is found primarily in species of plants and fungi. L-theanine is not something the human body makes. So how does L-theanine go on to affect the brain? In other words, why are our brains evolved to react to a chemical we do not synthesize on our own? Well, L-theanine is a chemical analog (think anagram) of glutamine which is an amino acid that the human body does make. Since both amino-acids are structurally similar, when you ingest L-theanine, it can change conformity (change its shape essentially) to fit the receptors in your brain that bind with chemicals that look and feel similar to glutamine or glutamic acid. Don’t worry too much about the science here (unless of course you are into that, in which case kudos to you!) but do appreciate how amazing it is that we can take something another plant makes and ingest it and enjoy the benefits without your body ever having encountered that same chemical before!

L-theanine was discovered as a constituent of green tea in 1949 and gyokuro leaves (a Japanese variant of green tea) the following year. It is usually orally  ingested in the process of prepared tea (or in the form of supplements) and is absorbed in the smalle intestine of the digestive tract. Then it is either hydrolyized (broken into) L-glutamate and ethylamine by the liver OR it crosses the blood-brain barrier to have direct pharmacological effects on your brain and behavior.

The blood-brain barrier is essentially a firewall type system found in the body that prevents just anything from entering your bloodstream and wandering into your brain / nervous system. Chemicals such as the caffeine and L-theanine that are found in Green Tea Focus are safe chemicals that the body allows to cross that barrier and it is when they enter the brain that you feel their effects and experience greater focus, improved cognition and an overall boost in productivity.