Kudos to you for reading through the study. Here are a few more studies on BCAA showing that administration of insulin or carbohydrates along with BCAA is what accounts for the reduction in muscle protein breakdown, with no significant increases in markers for muscle protein synthesis.
If you compare that to studies showing significant increases in muscle protein synthesis with whey protein it still validates my assertion.
If you can show me a study that shows BCAA lead to increased muscle protein synthesis on its own, I will have to rethink my position. I am not aware of such study though.
Extracting this from its academic routes and applying a more holistic approach to it, I think it makes perfect sense that a complete protein (with actual caloric content) found in whole foods is going to stimulate a stronger muscle protein synthesis response than cherry-picked amino acids with no caloric content.
Ferreira, Maria Pontes, et al. “Peri-exercise co-ingestion of branched-chain amino acids and carbohydrate in men does not preferentially augment resistance exercise-induced increases in PI3K/Akt-mTOR pathway markers indicative of muscle protein synthesis.” Nutrition Research (2014).
Katsanos, et al. “Effects of Increased Plasma Branched-chain Amino Acids and Insulin on Muscle Protein Metabolism.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise: May 2016 - Volume 48 - Issue 5S - p 52.
Tbh I only ever read the abstract. I do agree with you on BCAAs just saying if you are gonna evidence the shit out of stuff use better research to back it up
Wasn’t there a hypothesis that Glutamine would spare muscle protein since it would be preferrentially used for gluconeogenesis during training? Is that bunk? I don’t read much about glutamine anymore. I knew powerlifters who swore that it helped. Anyway, I think the balance of evidence says complete protein and carbs, but the OP didn’t want to add carbs because of the AD. I think that a major point of the AD is that you don’t want insulin during training because it blocks anabolic hormone secretion (if AD works, or to the extend that it may work for people with certain goals). If I were on the AD, I’d be fat loading my muscles and trying to burn fat for fuel and also stimulate some lactic acid with training. If your muscles are fat loaded then they burn a higher percentage of fat and less glucose at all intensity levels. Then again, they don’t load glycogen very well unless you are highly trained.
I don’t think it is bad research. It was more a matter of that I had come across multiple instances of research supporting what I wrote and a rat study was just a part of a larger body of evidence.