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.

80

Pro

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Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

80

Community contributions welcome

80

Ingestion of Free Amino Acids Compared with an Equivalent Amount of Intact Protein Results in More Rapid Amino Acid Absorption and Greater Postprandial Plasma Amino Acid Availability Without Affecting Muscle Protein Synthesis Rates in Young Adults in a Double-Blind Randomized Trial

Randomized Controlled Trial

Human

2022 Jan 11

The study found that even though free amino acids led to higher levels of amino acids in the blood, they didn’t build more muscle protein than drinking milk protein in young adults over 6 hours.

Contradicting (0)

0

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No contradicting evidence found

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Source Study

Ingestion of Free Amino Acids Compared with an Equivalent Amount of Intact Protein Results in More Rapid Amino Acid Absorption and Greater Postprandial Plasma Amino Acid Availability Without Affecting Muscle Protein Synthesis Rates in Young Adults in a Double-Blind Randomized Trial

Score: 80

DOI: 10.1093/jn/nxab305

Similar Assertions

If you're a healthy young adult, drinking amino acids might help your body build more muscle in the hours after eating than drinking the same amount of protein from milk.

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If you're a healthy young adult, your muscles might use amino acids from supplements better than from real milk—scientists tracked this by seeing how much labeled phenylalanine ended up in muscle over 6 hours.

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Both types of protein shakes boosted muscle protein building similarly in young men, whether they were resting or exercising after drinking them.

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