theweapon
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An article i found on MD, well a piece of it. Hope it helps.
You have heard of myostatin knockouts mice, well get ready for the new genetically altered super leucine mouse. Scientists disrupted the branched chain aminotransferase gene, which is the enzyme which breaks down BCAA in muscle. In essence, the mice have genetically elevated levels of leucine. So is there anything unusual about these super leucine mice? What interesting is that these mice exhibit elevated plasma BCAA’s but also decreased adiposity, despite eating more food, along with increased energy expenditure, remarkable improvements in glucose and insulin tolerance, and protection from diet-induced obesity12. High dosages of leucine may be the able to prevent excess fat gain in the offseason when calories are high. Another article of interest was published in the journal of Diabetes in which they fed rats a high fat diet but also doubled their leucine intake by adding it to their drinking water. Even though the rats ate the exact same calories on the high fat diet increasing leucine intake resulted in up to 32% reduction of weight gain and a 25% decrease in adiposity. The reduction of adiposity resulted from increased resting energy expenditure associated with increased expression of uncoupling protein 3 in brown and white adipose tissues and in skeletal muscle10. Consider being like a rat for a while during the weeks leading up to the competition and adding leucine to your water supply. The final article of interest was published in Journal of Life Sciences which they took rats and put on leucine and phenylalanine and then put them on a calorie restricted diet by 50% for 1 week. The scientists then let the rats eat whatever they wanted for 2 weeks after that. Compared to the group of rats that received nothing, chronic supplementation with leucine and phenylalanine was able to improve the body composition by increasing lean body mass and by reducing, although modestly, the accumulation of body fat11. This means that bodybuilders may be able to prevent putting on excess bodyfat after dieting for a competition by taking leucine. So based on these studies, bodybuilders should be taking leucine especially during the competition phase to reduce bodyfat but also stimulate protein synthesis rates. I even suggest adding it to your drinking water like the lab rats!!!