Plant proteins for muscle growth

Skeletal muscle mass maintenance is regulated by two main anabolic stimuli, food intake and physical activity. Dietary protein intake directly stimulates muscle protein synthesis rates and inhibits muscle protein breakdown. Therefore, the post-prandial muscle protein synthetic response to feeding plays a key regulatory role in skeletal muscle mass maintenance.



The capacity of dietary protein to stimulate post-prandial muscle protein accretion varies between protein sources. More than half of the total amount of dietary protein that is consumed by humans worldwide is of plant origin, with plant based proteins providing up to 80% of dietary protein consumed in less developed regions. Overall it is assumed that plant based proteins are less potent in stimulating post-prandial muscle protein synthesis. However, the anabolic properties of plant based protein sources have hardly been assessed. Therefore, this project will investigate the anabolic properties of plant based proteins.

It is hypothesized that the ingestion of plant based proteins will result in a similar muscle protein synthetic response compared to animal based proteins.

Blood and muscle samples will be collected at regular time intervals.

Subjects will consume 30 g of protein in the form of a beverage.