Dr. Layne Norton

But they showed not only do you get a decreased sensitivity of that pathway, you actually get like less – I think less protein, less of the actual like mTOR and the machinery associated with protein synthesis.

So you're – the research basically showed you could restore a normal response of muscle protein synthesis but you have to consume proportionally more protein.

So I think really –

Are you talking about anabolic resistance in older adults?

Yeah.

So I think...

When you're young, it still matters, but it matters less than when you get older.

And the problem with that is it's kind of like going in both directions of older people have a lower anabolic sensitivity and they tend to consume less protein because it's more satiating.

It's harder to chew in general, like if you're talking about animal proteins.

And so people just kind of end up gravitating away from that.

And that's also where you kind of start to see protein distribution probably matter a little bit more when you get into older age where if you're getting three meals where you're stimulating muscle protein synthesis versus just one big meal, which most people eat about 65% of their protein at dinner in America.

Yeah.

And well, what's the problem with that?

Well, on a mechanistic level, there's not really a storage form for a protein like we have for carbohydrate and fat.

So fat, obviously you can store as much as you need, adipose.

Carbohydrate, you've got liver glycogen.

You got muscle glycogen, limited, but still a storage form.

I mean, protein, you have the free amino acid pool, but it's very, very, very small.

It's not what I would consider a storage form of protein at all.

And some people will say, well, skeletal muscle is a storage form of protein.