Once past 30 years of age, we can lose up to 2% of our muscle each year. A leucine-rich diet may prevent the loss of your hard-earned muscle, particularly as you get older, says French researchers who have reported positive results on rodents.
This study showed a diet containing 5% added leucine, not only suppressed muscle loss in the older rodents, the leucine appeared to reignite one of the key mechanisms that block or prevent excessive muscle protein breakdown.
Elevated levels of peptidase enzymes and proteasome subunits that are characteristic of old muscle were suppressed in the older rodents fed a leucine-rich diet.
A daily protein intake of 5% leucine is pretty easy to obtain, particularly if you supplement with leucine-rich VP2 Whey Isolate, Raptor-HP, BCAA 4500 and BCAA-6K.
Source: Am J Clinical Nutrition
