An abundant supply of balanced amino acids synergistically enhances protein muscle anabolism after exercise. Biolo, Gianni, Kevin Tipton, Samuel Klein, and Robert R. Wolfe. Metabolism, Shriners Burns Institute and The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas
APStracts 4:0065E, 1997.
Six normal untrained men were studied during the intravenous infusion of a balanced amino acid mixture (0.15 g/kg x h for 3 h), at rest and after a leg resistance exercise routine, in order to test the influence of exercise on the regulation of muscle protein kinetics by hyperaminoacidemia. Leg muscle protein kinetics and transport of selected amino acids (alanine, phenylalanine, leucine and lysine) were isotopically determined using a model based on arteriovenous blood samples and muscle biopsy. The intravenous amino acid infusion resulted in comparable increases in arterial amino acid concentrations at rest and after exercise, whereas leg blood flow was 64+/-5% greater after exercise than at rest. During hyperaminoacidemia, the increases in amino acid transport above basal were 30% to 100% greater after exercise than at rest. Increases in muscle protein synthesis were also greater after exercise than at rest (291+/-42% versus 141+/-45%). Muscle protein breakdown was not significantly affected by hyperaminoacidemia either at rest or after exercise. We conclude that the stimulatory effect of exogenous amino acids on muscle protein synthesis is enhanced by prior exercise, perhaps in part due to enhanced blood flow. Our results imply that protein intake immediately after exercise may be more anabolic than when ingested at some later time.

Received 28 August 1996; accepted in final form 6 March 1997.
APS Manuscript Number E426-6.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Endocrinol. Metab.).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1997 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 21 March 1997