Association of postprandial postexercise muscle protein synthesis rates with dietary leucine: A systematic review

Dietary protein ingestion augments post (resistance) exercise muscle protein synthesis (MPS) rates. It is thought that the dose of leucine ingested within the protein (leucine threshold hypothesis) and the subsequent plasma leucine variables (leucine trigger hypothesis; peak magnitude, rate of rise, and total availability) determine the magnitude of the postprandial postexercise MPS response.

A quantitative systematic review was performed extracting data from studies that recruited healthy adults, applied a bout of resistance exercise, ingested a bolus of protein within an hour of exercise, and measured plasma leucine concentrations and MPS rates (delta change from basal).

Ingested leucine dose was associated with the magnitude of the MPS response in older, but not younger, adults over acute (0-2 h, r²  = 0.64, p = 0.02) and the entire postprandial (>2 h, r²  = 0.18, p = 0.01) period. However, no single plasma leucine variable possessed substantial predictive capacity over the magnitude of MPS rates in younger or older adults.

Our data provide support that leucine dose provides predictive capacity over postprandial postexercise MPS responses in older adults. However, no threshold in older adults and no plasma leucine variable was correlated with the magnitude of the postexercise anabolic response.