In a new study, researchers found that on a gram for gram basis, animal proteins are more effective than plant proteins in supporting the maintenance of skeletal muscle mass with advancing age.
The research was conducted by a team at King’s College London.
The number of vegans in the UK has quadrupled since 2006, meaning that there are around 600,000 vegans in Great Britain.
While plant-based diets are beneficial for the environment, how healthy these diets are for keeping muscles strong in elderly people is unknown.
Scientists generally agree that the primary driver of muscle loss with age—at least in healthy individuals—is a reduction of muscle proteins being built from amino acids.
These amino acids come from protein that we eat and are also formed when we exercise.
In the study, the team found that a larger dose of soy and wheat proteins is required to achieve a comparable response of building muscles.
Simply transitioning from an animal-based protein diet to a plant-based diet, without adjusting total protein intake, will likely to be detrimental to muscle health during aging.
A more balanced and less extreme approach to changing dietary behavior, meaning eating both animal and plant-based proteins, is best.
The team conducted carefully controlled laboratory studies in human volunteers that involve the ingestion of plants compared with animal-based protein sources.
To test changes in participants’ muscles, they use several techniques including stable isotope methodology, blood sampling, and skeletal muscle biopsies to see how quickly the muscles were building up from amino acids.
It’s important to note that this research to date has only compared two plant-based protein sources, namely soy, and wheat.
The researchers in this field will be conducting further research on other promising plant proteins such as oat, quinoa, and maize.
This study challenges the broad viewpoint that plant proteins don’t help build muscles as much as animal protein by highlighting the potential of alternative plant-based protein sources to maintain the size and quality of aging muscles.
One author of the study is Oliver Witard of King’s College London.
The study was presented at The Physiological Society’s virtual early career conference Future Physiology 2020.
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