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v1
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Back to Study: Addition of carbohydrate or alanine to an essentia...
quantitative
Analysis v1
Strong Support

A small protein shake makes your muscles start growing, but adding sugar or alanine doesn’t make it grow any faster or stronger.

46
Pro
0
Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

46

Community contributions welcome

46

Addition of carbohydrate or alanine to an essential amino acid mixture does not enhance human skeletal muscle protein anabolism.

Randomized Controlled Trial
Human
2013 Mar

Scientists gave people amino acids alone, or with sugar or another amino acid, and found that adding sugar or the other amino acid didn’t make muscles grow any more than the amino acids alone — so the extra stuff doesn’t help.

Contradicting (0)

0

Community contributions welcome

No contradicting evidence found

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Addition of carbohydrate or alanine to an essential amino acid mixture does not enhance human skeletal muscle protein anabolism.

Score: 46
DOI: 10.3945/jn.112.168203

Similar Assertions

Adding sugar or alanine to a protein drink doesn't make your muscles grow more than the protein drink alone in healthy young people.

46
0
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If you're a healthy young adult, drinking a supplement with 30 grams of broken-down amino acids won't help your muscles grow more than drinking the same amount from real milk protein—even though your body absorbs the amino acids faster.

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In adult rats, how well their muscles use essential amino acids to build protein depends on whether they get their protein spread out through the day or all at once, and also on how much leucine is in the food they eat.

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When you eat a big protein meal (100g) after working out, your muscles absorb more of that protein for building than when you eat a smaller meal (25g) - about 13% of the big meal gets used for muscle building.

73%

If you only raise the levels of three specific amino acids in the blood—without boosting all the other important ones—your muscles won’t start building more protein, even if insulin is around to help.

33
0
71%