Add Essential Amino Acids To Whey Protein For Added Muscle Growth

I wanted to also bring to light a recent study that I thought was fantastic because it honestly speaks to something that I do quite often. I use essential amino acids as a tool to maintain or build muscle. And I'm often asked, well, why would you need to use these if you are doing something like a whey protein or a vegan protein shake which already has essential amino acids, or using steak or chicken or fish or whatever. So this most recent study that came out in mid October 2024 is titled consuming whey protein with added essential amino acids Not Carbohydrate maintains post exercise anabolism while underfed. I won't repeat that title in case it made smoke come out your ears, but if you think about it, it's pretty straightforward. When you have something like a whey protein shake and you add essential amino acids to it, not branched chain amino acids, but essential amino acids EAAs compared to adding carbohydrates to that whey protein, you get better anabolism or muscle building effects even if you are undereating, even if you are not consuming adequate calories compared to how many calories you're actually burning. Now in this case they had subjects consume a whey protein style shake with essential amino acids added to it or a whey protein shake with carbohydrates added to it. And then they measured muscle protein synthesis, whole body protein synthesis, whole body protein breakdown and net protein balance. Supplementing with the essential amino acid enriched whey protein resulted in much better post exercise muscle protein synthesis even during an energy deficit compared to adding the carbs into the whey protein protein. Now in this case they were using pretty high doses of essential amino acids in this whey protein shake they were using. Make sure I get this right. Got the study pulled up in front of me now. Okay. It was a 300 calorie shake and they had 48 grams of essential amino acids in there. That's a lot. Like one scoop of the the kion aminos. The one that I use is 5 grams. That would have been like you do the math, like nine scoops of essential amino acids. That's a lot. But there have been other studies that came out prior to this that looked into just the same thing using far less essential amino acids. For example, back in 2020 there was a study in which they found that the anabolic response to essential amino acids plus whey protein was greater than whey protein alone in and in that case they were using 3 grams of essential amino acids added to whey protein, which is like less than a full scoop of something like the kion aminos. So even a small dose of essential amino acids has an impact at improving muscle protein synthesis compared to not adding amino acids at all to a protein shake. And then there was another study that was in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition in 2021 that found that when you add essential amino acids to whey protein, you get better post exercise, whole body protein balance, again during an energy deficit compared to a regular meal. What's called a mixed macronutrient meal, like your average, I don't know, breakfast with hash browns and eggs and toast or a whey protein shake. And in this case again, they did this on a bunch of healthy young men. The amount of amino acids that they use in this case was.

Around looks 24 grams, right? So decent amount. You know, in this case, again, if we were talking about the kion aminos, that would be four to five scoops. And again they saw pretty impressive benefits compared to just using the whey protein alone. So what's the takeaway study here? If you're making a protein shake, it's like and you're trying to build or maintain muscle, it's kind of a no brainer, better living through science thing to add anywhere from 5 up to 45 ish grams of essential amino acids to the whey protein shake. And if you wanna see much better muscle protein synthesis and if you wanna know more about just the whole science of essential amino acids and how these work, Angelo Keeley, who is the CEO of Kion, he was recently interviewed on the Mind Pump podcast and they talked for like an hour and a half about a ton of really interesting data on why essential amino acids are like a Swiss army knife, like a secret weapon when it comes to fitness. That would be a good one to listen to. The Mind Pump guys are friends of mine. They're great dud, entertaining podcast host, way more entertaining than me. And I'll put a link to that episode@BenGreenfieldLife.com 481hit subscribe, leave a ranking, leave a review. If you got a little extra time, it means way more than you might think. Thank you so much.