Feeling old? Supplement diet with leucine prevents muscle loss linked to ageing

Muscle in adults is constantly being built and broken down. As young adults we keep the two processes in balance, but when we age breakdown starts to win. However, adding the amino acid leucine to the diet of old individuals can set things straight again. This is the finding of research performed by Lydie Combaret, Dominique Dardevet and colleagues at the Human Nutrition Research Centre of Auvergne, INRA, Clermont-Ferrand, France.

After the age of 40, humans start loosing muscle at around 0.5–2% per year. Immediately after a meal degradation of protein slows down and synthesis doubles. This process is triggered by the arrival of a plentiful supply of amino acids. In older animals this stimulus is less effective; synthesis slows down, and previous work also suggests that breakdown may be affected. While adding leucine to the diet restores protein building there was no knowledge about this supplement’s effect on breakdown.

To address this, researchers compared protein breakdown in young (8-month) and old (22-month) rats. They discovered that the slow down in degradation that normally follows a meal does not occur in old animals, so there is excessive breakdown. But adding leucine to the diet restored a balanced metabolism.

The team of researchers believe that the age-related problem results from defective inhibition of ubiquitin-proteasome dependent proteoloysis, a complex degradative machinery that breaks down contractile muscle protein, and that leucine supplementation can fully restore correct function.

“Preventing muscle wasting is a major socio-economic and public health issue, that we may be able to combat with a leucine-rich diet,” says senior co-author Didier Attaix.

Commenting on the work Michael Rennie from the University of Nottingham Medical School at Derby says: “This is exciting because it strengthens the idea of a co-ordinated linkage between the meal-related stimulation of protein synthesis and the inhibition of breakdown.”

Media Contact

Carol Huxley alfa

All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine

This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.

Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors