Can't train to become "Juju"? Muscle growth is related to meal time! Study: Eating more protein at breakfast helps build skeletal muscle hypertrophy
Are you a fitness fanatic who exercises every day, but your muscles still don’t grow? In addition to understanding your muscle status and whether the exercise method is correct, you should also pay attention to your daily dietary intake. As we all know, our muscles need enough protein to grow. But you know what? The body’s efficiency in metabolizing protein also changes throughout the day. Does it vary with the biological clock?
Have you ever noticed when you eat protein foods? At which meal should you eat protein to build muscle faster? If we start from the concept of “chrononutrition”, our circadian rhythm of work and rest, as well as biological time (rythme biologique), will affect the body’s ability to metabolize various nutrients. A team of Japanese Waseda scholars recently published a study pointing out that eating more protein for breakfast can help increase the size of skeletal muscles in animals and humans.
Biological clock affects protein digestion and absorption
Protein is composed of long-chain amino acids. In addition to promoting skeletal muscle growth, protein is also an important nutrient for body development and repair. However, human body activities will follow the “day and night rhythm”, that is, the biological clock will determine the function of our metabolism, including the digestion and absorption of protein.
Although sporadic studies have pointed out in the past that consuming protein during breakfast and lunch can promote muscle growth, there is no clear correlation or comparative experiment on whether eating time is related to muscle growth.
In this regard, the research team of Professor Shibata Shigenobu of Waseda University divided the mice in the laboratory into two groups and fed them two meals a day, with protein concentrations of 11.5% and 8.5% respectively. The results showed that mice that consumed a high protein concentration for breakfast showed more significant leg muscle growth. Compared with the control group that consumed a high protein concentration for dinner, the muscle growth rate increased by 17%.
In addition, mice fed with ingredients such as branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) during the early active phase will indeed have the benefit of skeletal muscle hypertrophy.
To confirm that the circadian clock affects protein metabolism and muscle growth, the research team involved mutant mice and mice lacking muscle control genes in the same diet distribution experiment. The same muscle changes were not observed in the mutant mice. It means that under normal conditions, the same protein intake will affect the muscle growth of organisms due to different day and night patterns.
Eating more protein for breakfast can help increase muscle size
Shibata Shigenobu’s research team published the study in the journal “Cell” and further pointed out that eating more protein-rich diet at the beginning of daily activities of the day, especially during breakfast time, can help maintain skeletal muscle health and increase muscle mass. Volume, has also been shown to improve muscle grip strength in tests.
The research team recruited 60 women over the age of 65 and examined whether their muscle function would change due to the timing of eating a high-protein diet by measuring skeletal muscle index (SMI) and handgrip strength testing. The results found that 60 female subjects showed better muscle function when they consumed high protein for breakfast. The research team believes that the distribution of protein intake during breakfast is positively correlated with the skeletal muscle volume of healthy middle-aged and elderly women.
The research team emphasized that skeletal muscle index (SMI) is related to breakfast protein intake. However, current surveys in Western and Asian countries show that the average protein intake of the average person is 15 grams at breakfast and nearly 28 grams at dinner. Adjusting your protein intake to a more appropriate time of day will help promote muscle function.
In the study, Shibata Shigenobu called on people in Western and Asian countries to pay more attention to the combination of breakfast ingredients or eat more protein to change the problem of low protein quality in breakfast in the past.
