Maintaining muscle mass and strength reduces the risk of sarcopenia – an aging-related loss of muscle mass and strength, which can affect a person’s energy and ability to perform daily activities. Zhe-rong Xu, from Zhejiang University (China), and colleagues completed a meta-analysis of nine published clinical studies of the effects of leucine, an amino acid, on parameters of muscle mass. Finding that dietary supplementation of leucine increased the protein synthesis, the study authors report that: “leucine supplementation is useful to address the age-related decline in muscle mass in elderly individuals, as it increases the muscle protein fractional synthetic rate.”
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