Should you be taking BCAAs?
Branched Chain Amino Acids, or BCAAs for short, seem to be all the rage in the fitness industry at the moment. Are they worth your money?
What are BCAAs?
Branched Chain Amino Acids refers to three amino acids: leucine, isoleucine and valine. These three are part of a group of amino acids that are called essential amino acids, and the reason that they're called essential is that they have to be consumed through diet. There is also a group of amino acids that your body can create from other compounds, making them non-essential to acquire through your diet.
Muscle protein synthesis, in case you are unaware, is the biological function in the body that maintains and creates muscle tissue. This is where the case for BCAA supplementation comes in, because leucine is the branched chain amino acid that is directly responsible for stimulating muscle protein synthesis.
Isoleucine's function is to improve glucose consumption and to increase your muscles' glucose uptake. Glucose stored in your muscles, as you may be aware, is a very quick acting energy source that is especially helpful for physically stressful activities, such as working out. Valine, however, doesn't really seem to have any unique effects on its own.
The argument for BCAA supplementation, then, is obvious. It triggers your body's processes to create new muscle and helps store energy in your muscles, making sure you're ready for your next bout of exercise. There's also some evidence that branched chain amino acids may reduce perceived fatigue, especially in untrained individuals. What's not to love?
The case against BCAA supplementation
A lot of wild claims are made for what branched chain amino acid supplements can actually do for healthy individuals. One of the scientific studies that is often brought up in favour of BCAA supplementation is by Bigard, de Kerviler, Guezennec, Legrand, Mourier and Roger (1997). This study looks at 25 competitive wrestlers on a restricted calorie diet, and finds that the group with BCAA supplementation retains more muscle mass and loses more body fat than the control groups.
The problem, though, with this study is that all 25 athletes were eating around 80 grams of protein per day while they weighed an average of 68 kilos. That ends up being around 1.1 grams of protein per kilo of bodyweight. As covered in our article "The Marble and the Sculptor", the scientific consensus for optimal protein intake in athletes is that it should be around 1.8 grams of protein per kilo bodyweight, more than 50% higher than in Bigard et al's BCAA study.
Sources for protein intake in athletes:
Lemon PW, Yarasheski KE & Dolny DG (1984)
Lemon, Peter (2000)
Philips, Stuart & van Loon, Luc (2011)
Clearly, 80 grams of protein per day is not enough to optimise muscle protein synthesis in athletes, so it is no wonder that the control groups in Bigard et al's study lost more muscle tissue. When coupled with branched chain amino acids, though, the muscle protein synthesis response was considerably stronger because of the supplemented leucine. This will lead to the upkeep of muscle mass, and will prevent muscle atrophy.
Lemon et al (1984), Lemon (2000), and Philips & van Loon (2011), as referenced above, found that around 1.8 grams of protein per kilo bodyweight is optimal for stimulating muscle protein synthesis in athletes, meaning that you gain no additional benefit by supplementing BCAAs on top of that.
Where to get BCAAs?
Branched chain amino acids are powerful, as established above, so it is only natural to want to include them in your diet. The multi-billion dollar supplement industry made note of this decades ago, and began selling BCAA powders as a dietary supplement for active individuals, and it remains one of the most popular supplements available to this day.
The last thing the supplement industry wants you to know is this: BCAA supplementation is entirely unnecessary in healthy individuals with a balanced diet. Let me say that again. BCAA supplementation is unnecessary.
The thing about branched chain amino acids is that they are everywhere. Eggs are full of them, meat is full of them, and so are dairy products, including protein powders which are derived from milk. You'd be better off just eating food. Regular, boring food. I know that everybody is looking for an edge or a "secret" to get big or lean, and eating food isn't the sexy answer anybody is looking for.
If you want a sexy answer, have one scoop of a good quality whey protein powder. That scoop should contain somewhere around 5 grams of BCAAs, which is comparable to a scoop of most leading BCAA supplements.
Compound all of this with the fact that research suggests that BCAA supplements on their own do not produce an anabolic state in the body. It may stimulate muscle protein synthesis, but if you have not added any building blocks with which this new muscle tissue can be built, BCAAs alone simply do not do anything of value. It's like turning the car on and revving the engine in neutral, it doesn't go anywhere. Your money is better spent elsewhere. A jug of milk, a chicken breast, or whey protein, which we know works very well.
