L arginine is an amino acid.Proteins are made up of 21 different types of amino acids.The body is able to make some of them and others have to come from the food we eat.The amino acids that our bodies cannot make are called essential amino acids.L arginine is called a semi essential amino acid.Most people can mak arginine without any difficulty.In certain medical conditions such as in premature born babies arginine cannot be made by the body and must come from dietary sources.There are studies that show tha human growth hormones can be somewhat increased by certain doses of arginine.Small doses seem to cause at least a short-term increase in human growth hormone.There's also science that shows that high doses of arginine does not cause a human growth hormone increase but can cause side effects like stomach cramping.arginine has no similarities to aspirin.There should be no reason why taking supplemental arginine in moderate amounts should be a problem after surgery though you should check with your plastic surgeon to make sure.you should not need supplemental arginine and even people with health problems that limit the ability to make arginine who have a normal diet will have it sufficiently supplied in the foods they eat.Best,Mats Hagstrom M.D.
