Rhonda Patrick
👤 PersonAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Yeah.
Anabolic resistance, when we eat protein, we're breaking down amino acids and the primary amino acid that is
Anabolic is leucine.
Leucine are getting into the muscle tissue and that is instigating.
It's a signal to increase muscle protein synthesis.
So you're making more protein in your muscle and that in turn increases muscle hypertrophy.
The other major signal to do that is mechanical force.
So that would be the resistance training working of the muscles.
So as we get older, our muscles do become less sensitive to those amino acids, the leucine transporter being one of the major ways, but I think there's others as well.
And so what happens is, is that for the same amount protein dose, and the study has been done, and if you compare younger adults and older adults, 65 years age and older, you give them the same exact protein dose.
The younger adults have twice as much muscle protein synthesis.
And for the older adults to get the same amount of muscle protein synthesis, they had to double their amount of protein to get the same amount of muscle protein synthesis as the younger adults.
That's a lot.
Double that amount of protein.
That's because, again, it's just your muscle tissue is not as sensitive to the amino acids.
And so to get more of them in, you have to increase your intake of the protein.
Now, to your point about physical activity being the major driver here, I think that's 100% I agree.
I think it's totally true.
And there's so much evidence out there to prove that.
Luke Van Loon's study being one, but also older adults that do engage in resistance training have the same anabolic response to the same amount of protein as younger adults.