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25.01.2023

Do you want to build muscle? If your protein intake is high, a 'slow' protein is more efficient

If you want to gain more muscle and consume a lot of protein, then - leaving peri-workout shakes out of consideration - proteins such as casein, whose amino acids enter your blood slowly, are more useful than proteins such as whey, whose amino acids are absorbed quickly appear in the bloodstream.


If you want to gain more muscle and consume a lot of protein, then - leaving peri-workout shakes out of consideration - proteins such as casein, whose amino acids enter your blood slowly, are more useful than proteins such as whey, whose amino acids are absorbed quickly appear in the bloodstream.


Study
Around the turn of the century, researchers at the French Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique studied the biological effects of a diet with a relatively high protein content.

In 2003 they published a human study in the Journal of Nutrition that aimed to elucidate whether it matters whether a protein is 'fast', causing an 'amino acid peak' in the blood shortly after ingestion, or 'slow', causing a slow but steady increase in the concentration of amino acids in the blood.

To answer this question, the researchers gave 2 groups of healthy men and women a diet for 7 days that supplied 1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight daily, or a diet that provided the subjects with 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily. Both diets contain the same number of joules. The test subjects did not train with weights.

At the end of the 7 days, the subjects received a meal containing labeled proteins. On one occasion, this meal contained slow milk proteins. On another occasion, this meal contained relatively fast proteins from soya. The meals were otherwise identical.


If you want to gain more muscle and consume a lot of protein, then - leaving peri-workout shakes out of consideration - proteins such as casein, whose amino acids enter your blood slowly, are more useful than proteins such as whey, whose amino acids are absorbed quickly appear in the bloodstream.


Results
The researchers were able to calculate how much protein - more precisely: nitrogen - from the meal the subjects' bodies could retain. They found that a diet high in protein significantly reduced the amount of retained protein from the meal if that protein was 'fast'.

If that protein was 'slow', then the efficiency of that protein was no less during a high protein diet than during a normal protein diet.


If you want to gain more muscle and consume a lot of protein, then - leaving peri-workout shakes out of consideration - proteins such as casein, whose amino acids enter your blood slowly, are more useful than proteins such as whey, whose amino acids are absorbed quickly appear in the bloodstream.


The more proteins the test subjects consume, the more of those proteins are converted into urea in ammonia. However, this degradation is slowed down if the proteins are slow.

That is what the table below tells. Click on it for a larger version.


If you want to gain more muscle and consume a lot of protein, then - leaving peri-workout shakes out of consideration - proteins such as casein, whose amino acids enter your blood slowly, are more useful than proteins such as whey, whose amino acids are absorbed quickly appear in the bloodstream.


Fast and slow proteins
Hydrolyzed proteins and peptides are faster than whey and soy protein. Whey and protein from soy are faster than casein and protein from animal foods such as meat and eggs.

Source:
J Nutr. 2003 Sep;133(9):2733-40.

More:
Meta-study: animal proteins are better muscle builders than vegetable proteins 07.07.2021
Spreading proteins over meals increases muscle growth 30.05.2020
Quality of protein in whey isolate better than that of protein in whey concentrate 03.10.2018

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