What to do about sarcopenia

food pyramid turn into pie chart against white background

Paddon-Jones, D., et. al. (2015). Protein and healthy aging. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 101, pp. 1339S-1345S. Full text.

Abstract. Our understanding of the potential benefits and challenges of optimizing dietary protein intake in older adults continues to evolve. An overarching hypothesis generated during [the international] Protein Summit 2.0 was that consuming an adequate amount of high-quality protein at each meal, in combination with physical activity, may delay the onset of sarcopenia, slow its progression, reduce the magnitude of its functional consequences, or all of these.

The potential benefits of young and middle-aged adults adopting a diet pattern whereby adequate protein is consumed at each meal as a countermeasure to sarcopenia are presented and discussed. For example, meeting a protein threshold (∼25–30 g/meal) represents a promising, yet still largely unexplored dietary strategy to help maintain muscle mass and function.

For many older adults, breakfast is a carbohydrate-dominated lower-protein meal and represents an opportunity to improve and more evenly distribute daily protein intake. Although both animal and plant-based proteins can provide the required essential amino acids for health, animal proteins generally have a higher proportion of the amino acid leucine. Leucine plays a key role in stimulating translation initiation and muscle protein anabolism and is the focus of ongoing research.

Protein requirements should be assessed in the light of habitual physical activity. An evenly distributed protein diet provides a framework that allows older adults to benefit from the synergistic anabolic effect of protein and physical activity.

2018-09-17T18:06:09-07:00June 19th, 2015|1 Comment

One Comment

  1. Fran 20 June 2015 at 16:17 - Reply

    Thanks for this reminder, Peter. It’s often difficult to maintain adequate protein intake, especially with special diets such as vegetarian or those restricted by allergies or intolerances. Even when eating meat it’s useful to realize that 100 grams of meat doesn’t provide 100 grams of quality protein. Sarcopenia, eh?

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