For healthy men under 30, the body absorbs less methionine from lentils compared to a protein based on egg protein, meaning lentils do not provide all essential amino acids in sufficient amounts when...
Mechanism
Synthesis from 1 study
Lentils don't have enough of one key building block—methionine—for your body to make proteins efficiently. Without it, your body breaks down the other building blocks instead of using them to build muscle or repair tissues. Adding rice fixes this because it provides the missing methionine, letting...
Most probable mechanism
When someone eats only lentils, their body doesn't get enough methionine, which is a key building block for making proteins. Without enough methionine, the body can't efficiently use the other amino acids from lentils, so it breaks them down for energy instead of building muscle or other tissues. When lentils are eaten with rice, the rice adds the missing methionine, letting the body use all the amino acids properly to build proteins.
Lentils contain insufficient levels of methionine relative to the requirements for optimal protein synthesis in healthy young men.
Low methionine availability causes a bottleneck in the assembly of new proteins, leading to excess accumulation of other indispensable amino acids.
Excess amino acids not incorporated into proteins are oxidized in the liver as an alternative energy source, detected by increased indicator amino acid oxidation.
The metabolic availability of methionine from lentils alone is insufficient to support maximal protein synthesis, resulting in reduced net protein retention.
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (1)
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