The effect of meal composition to modulate the anabolic response during recovery from resistance exercise

Two of the most powerful anabolic stimuli to skeletal muscle tissue are resistance exercise (RE) and protein ingestion. RE and protein ingestion synergistically enhance the muscle protein synthetic response. Evidence suggests that the digestion and absorption kinetics, particularly protein derived amino acid availability in circulation, of the ingested protein source is an important regulator of postprandial muscle protein synthesis rates. Moreover, recent work has shown that dietary protein digestion and absorption kinetics is altered when other macronutrients are co-ingested with isolated protein powders. Indeed, current research has focused primarily on the ingestion of isolated protein powders to support the repair and remodeling process of skeletal muscle tissue. However, this does not accurately reflect the human diet as protein is generally consumed as part of energy-dense whole foods. In this thesis, we aimed to investigate to what extent dietary protein derived amino acid availability modulated the anabolic response to protein-dense whole foods during recovery from resistance exercise in healthy young adults using sophisticated stable isotope amino acid tracer methods. The study in this thesis demonstrates that whole eggs and egg whites are similar in the amount of dietary derived amino acids that become available to skeletal muscle after ingestion