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Should we be supplementing with leucine regularly?

Steveoph said:
I still do my 1tsp-1 tbsp per meal. I suppose I could cap it, but I don't mind the taste at all lol.
What flavour Xtend do you use OCC? I got lemonade still lying around, but if I ever get through it I might try orange.
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I have used watermelon since day 1 on of using Xtend (about 1.5 years ago) and never have tried another because I really enjoy it.

I figure I will only start capping if I start dosing with meals (or when I go to school..) How long have you been dosing with meals Steve?
 
Yo Easy/fellas check this out. I recently signed up for Alan Aragon's Research review and came across this (actually read it a while ago but recently dawned on me about this thread when I re read it.)

Actual study:
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Free Inaugural Issue of The Research Review (AARR): Read Section 15 for the comments pertinent to this study/this thread discussion
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**granted this is a EAA supplement, it is still pretty encompassing of this discussion.

I am loving his work and highly recommend anyone who gives any care to diet/nutritional information sign up for it.
 
strategicmove said:
No. Leucine is the most anabolic essential amino acid. Yet, even though it is the BCAA that triggers protein synthesis, complete protein synthesis cannot take place, unless enough BCAAs and EAAs are available. Leucine should not replace the complete BCAAs for standard supplementation.
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I agree. (I'll quote myself from another forum below...)

Trying to crank up protein synthesis with BCAAs or L-leucine isn't going to do much without plenty of protein intake. There are ZERO proteins that the body makes that are made up of only leucine, isoleucine and valine.

Personally, I think an EAA (essential amino acid) supp that has plenty of the BCAAs is the best thing peri-workout, and of course you need a good bit of protein post workout in order to keep everything going.

Just for sh^ts and giggles I looked at a bottle of ON pro-complex and some BCAAs I had laying around.

One serving (74 g) of the protein has 60 g total protein, of which ~6.5 g is leucine, ~4 g is isoleucine and ~3.5 g is valine. One serving of the BCAAs has 1.6 g, 0.9 g and 1 g respectively.

I guess I feel that adding the BCAAs on top of the protein might be pointless, and unless you're not getting enough protein spaced throughout the day or you are on a strict fat loss diet, I expect that BCAAs and extra leucine are not really doing that much (placebo anyone?).

Of course, they could be having minor effects and I'm all for doing every little thing to help, but I worry that the leucine/BCAA issue is suffering from a little of the mistranslation of in vitro (test tube) research to actual practice.

Hopefully everyone understands that leucine or BCAAs aren't serving as substrates for protein synthesis under these conditions (well, maybe a bit, but a very minor bit). The research (most of it done in a test tube) does show that leucine (or BCAAs, with leucine being the most effective of the three) can stimulate protein synthesis by activating a multi-layer signal transduction cascade that eventually increases protein synthesis. Leucine's role in this is not as a substrate for the actual synthesis of new proteins, but as a signal that cells may sense as a stimulus for protein production.

So my main point is that in the absense of plenty of other amino acids (to be used as substrates for protein synthesis), large amounts of leucine or BCAAs may not do much. And if you are eating large quantities of proteins, you'll be getting enough of all the amino acids, including BCAAs.

--tilebreaker
 
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