Anabolic Response to Beef vs Plant Protein in (Pre)Frail Older Adults Using a Novel Stable Isotope Pulse Method

Summary

Frailty is a common clinical syndrome in older adults that increases the risk for poor health outcomes including falls, disability, hospitalization, and mortality. Previous research showed increased protein needs and reduced anabolic response to meals in older adults, indicating the need for proteins with a high anabolic capacity to prevent and attenuate physical and cognitive health decline throughout the frailty cycle. Recently, more people have chosen to eliminate animal (i.e., beef) products from their diets which is concerning because of beef's anabolic properties due to high essential amino acid (EAA) levels and many other positive health effects. The Researchers' recently developed stable isotope amino acid pulse method enables measurement of the true intracellular anabolic response to a meal and bioavailability of food-derived amino acids. The research objective is to examine differences in the anabolic response and bioavailability of individual EAA and non-essential amino acids (NEAA) in beef as compared to plant protein in older adults with and without (pre-)frailty.

Description

Eligibility

Age range

65–95 years

Sex

All

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Interventions

• Other
  Beef

  Beef, ground, 93% lean meat / 7% fat, patty, cooked, broiled: 100g = 26.2 g protein

• Other
  Tofu

  Fried tofu: 100g = 18.8 g protein

• Other
  Placebo

  water (to correct the anabolic data obtained after intake of the proteins for baseline (postabsorptive) values

Location