Reviewing Leucine Supplementation as a Treatment for Sarcopenia

Sarcopenia is the name given to the characteristic loss of muscle mass and strength that takes place with advancing age. A surprisingly large fraction of this loss is self inflicted: few people undertake the necessary exercise and strength training to maintain muscle in later life. But the rest of the losses are to some degree inevitable, a consequence of damage and disarray in muscle stem cells, neuromuscular junctions, and various processes necessary to muscle tissue maintenance. There is evidence for one those issues to be a growing inability to process leucine, an essential amino acid. Leucine supplementation may thus slow the onset of sarcopenia, even while being a compensatory approach that in no way addresses the underlying causes of this form of age-related degeneration. One of the main ways in which sarcopenia contributes to disease is that it alters muscular turnover and metabolism. Moreover, older adults exhibit a decreased anabolic response to protein feeding, which is a mechanism underpinning the loss of muscle mass in sarcopenic individuals. Compared to younger adults, those aged over 65 years require ∼70% more protein per meal to maximally stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Furthermore, at a global level, only 40% of older adults meet the recommended daily allowance for protein (0.8 g/kg/day) and 10% of older women do not even meet the estimated average requirement of 0.66 g/kg/day. One strategy to increase the muscle protein synthesis that h...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs