Can muscles stay strong without eating carbs?
Isonitrogenous low-carbohydrate diet elicits specific changes in metabolic gene expression in the skeletal muscle of exercise-trained mice
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Endurance didn’t drop—even on 1% carbs.
Conventional wisdom says carbs are essential for endurance performance, yet mice on near-zero carbs ran just as far as those on normal diets.
Practical Takeaways
Athletes may maintain endurance and muscle on low-carb diets if they consume enough protein and train consistently.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Endurance didn’t drop—even on 1% carbs.
Conventional wisdom says carbs are essential for endurance performance, yet mice on near-zero carbs ran just as far as those on normal diets.
Practical Takeaways
Athletes may maintain endurance and muscle on low-carb diets if they consume enough protein and train consistently.
Publication
Journal
PLoS ONE
Year
2022
Authors
Hazuki Saito, N. Wada, K. Iida
Related Content
Claims (6)
Mice that exercise and eat very low-carb diets still keep their muscle and energy stores, probably because their bodies adapt to use fuel differently.
In mice that exercise, cutting carbs down to just 1% of their diet — but not 10% — turns on ketosis, a state where the body burns fat for fuel, and this only happens when protein levels are kept the same.
Mice that are used to exercising can still run just as far on very low-carb diets as they do on higher-carb ones — their muscles might be adapting to save energy and switch fuels efficiently.
When someone's body is used to burning fat for fuel, it can still keep their muscles stocked with energy (glycogen) by making sugar from protein and fat — even if they eat zero carbs.
Mice that exercised and ate a low-carb diet (with 10% carbs) showed increased activity in genes that help burn fat for energy — in all types of muscle — even though they weren’t in ketosis.