Effects of Essential Amino Acid Supplementation and Blood Flow Restriction Training on Myonuclear Accretion in Single Muscle Fibers

48 pagesHealthy muscle is characterized in part by its ability to recover from atrophy after surgery, bedrest, or immobilization. The goal of this thesis is to determine if the combined effects of essential amino acid (EAA) supplementation and blood flow restriction (BFR) exercise would upregulate muscle resilience by stimulating muscle stem cell (satellite cell) proliferation to increase myonuclear numbers. Healthy (22±2) male and female (n = 4 and n = 3, respectively) subjects were randomized to ingest 23 grams of EAA or placebo 3x/day for 7 consecutive days. On days 2, 4, and 6, BFR exercise was performed on the right leg only, followed by supplement (EAA or placebo) ingestion. Bilateral biopsies were obtained on day 8 to determine the impact of supplement alone (left) versus supplement with BFR exercise (right). Single fibers were analyzed using immunohistochemistry to quantify myonuclei (DAPI) per fiber type (MyHC 1). Analysis was performed in a blinded manner (treatment condition) using ImageJ software. We did not have a large enough sample size to produce significant results. We will be presenting the raw data from the analyses we have performed this far, and plan to continue the study into next year in hopes of producing significant results thanks to a larger sample size