Amino acid supplements have overwhelming evidence against their use. I dream of the day dorks across this world would stop purchasing worthless powders like BCAAs.
However, that likely won’t happen in this lifetime. BCAAs are ridiculously popular despite being marketed completely off ignorance.
Top influencers sponsored by supplement companies tell their followers to take BCAAs. The biggest meathead tells everyone at the gym to take them. Consequently, our world is filled with dummies who listen to other dummies who tell other dummies to take a garbage supplement.
Complete ignorance or as I like to describe it, suckers being suckers. Despite my audience being generally more scientifically informed, I probably still called some of you a sucker.
If that’s you, you won’t have to flush more money down the drain anymore. You’re welcome suckers.
Let’s first go over amino acids to see why people think they’re benefiting from BCAAs supplements.
There are 20 amino acids that can make up protein, 9 of which your body cannot make on it’s own. These are considered essential amino acids because you have to get them through your diet.
The 9 essential amino acids are
Leucine, isoleucine, and valine are considered branched chain amino acids hence the acronym BCAAs. They’re called branched because they’re the only nonpolar amino acids with a side chain in their chemical structure.
If this sounds nerdy and irrelevant, it’s because it is. It’s relatively an arbitrary way to label them, but one branched chain amino acid, leucine does some neat stuff and deserves some further explaining.
Leucine triggers mTOR which is an enzyme that can signal for a cascade of muscle building processes (1,2). In fact, there’s a minimum dose of leucine required to initiate significant anabolic cell signaling (4).
So supplementing with BCAAs means more leucine which means more muscle growth right?
No, not exactly.
You see, leucine can flip the muscle building signal on, but you still need all essential amino acids to power muscle growth and actually construct new muscle (3). I’ve heard it described like this. Leucine is like flipping a switch to turn on a lamp, but the other amino acids is the electricity needed to power the lamp.
Without the other amino acids, you’re flipping on a physiological switch that can’t power or construct anything hence why leucine or BCAA supplements are beyond lame.
EAA supplements are less leucine saturated, but can build muscle thanks to having all essential amino acid supplements. However, EAAs are still isolated amino acids like BCAAs as opposed to a complete in tact protein like whey. Why is this relevant?
Well, whole food or whole supplement sources like beef or whey protein contain all essential/non-essential amino acids including plenty of branched chain amino acids. Their amino acid profile is in tack.
In fact, sufficient protein intake renders any amino acid supplement pointless. Even with insufficient protein intake, whole protein always stimulate a higher net protein balance at lower price. Read on to be enlightened.
There’s never a time where BCAAs or any amino acid supplement would be worth taking over something like whey.
And if you still couldn’t connect the dots, all the random claims you hear about BCAAs aren’t true either. When compared to whole protein, free amino acids don’t improve soreness and extra leucine isn’t needed for the elderly. BCAAs also don’t retain more muscle during a diet and they don’t prevent muscle loss during fasted cardio.
Their only use is to make you look like a clown who likes to buy expensive lemonade. Oh man, my pettiness is through the roof today. But speaking of pettiness though, here are the last 2 decades of research that consistently shows BCCAs are either pointless or even detrimental.
So while amino acid supplements especially BCAA and leucine supplements sound trendy, you can already get all the essential amino acids including plenty of hypertrophy signaling leucine from whole protein sources.
Beef, chicken, or whey protein will always be the superior option. They also cost about 3-5x less than amino acid supplements for the same level of protein and amino acids. Not to mention, most BCAA supplements don’t even contain 2/3 of the amount of amino acids on the label (31).
So you don’t need to use roided up Rick’s affiliate code for another case of BCAAs expensive lemonade. You don’t need EAAs either. You simply need to consume sufficient protein. For supplementation, standard whey protein powder is cheaper, better, and has no potential downside.
If you’re a scientist reading this, please stop doing BCAA studies and spend your time on supplements that need more research. BCAAs are clearly garbage. We don’t need more studies to convince the suckers. At this point, let the suckers be suckers if they refuse to accept the evidence.
Edwards, Sophie J, et al. “High-Dose Leucine Supplementation Does Not Prevent Muscle Atrophy or Strength Loss over 7 Days of Immobilization in Healthy Young Males.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 10 Sept. 2020, academic.oup.com/ajcn/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ajcn/nqaa229/5903731?redirectedFrom=fulltext.
Jakubowski, Josephine S., et al. “Supplementation with the Leucine Metabolite β-Hydroxy-β-Methylbutyrate (HMB) Does Not Improve Resistance Exercise-Induced Changes in Body Composition or Strength in Young Subjects: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” MDPI, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 23 May 2020, www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/5/1523.
Jakubowski, Josephine S, et al. “Equivalent Hypertrophy and Strength Gains in β-Hydroxy-β-Methylbutyrate- or Leucine-Supplemented Men.” Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Jan. 2019, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6303132/.
Plotkin. “Isolated Leucine and Branched-Chain Amino Acid Supplementation for Enhancing Muscular Strength and Hypertrophy: A Narrative Review.” International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, U.S. National Library of Medicine, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33741748/.
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