Rhonda Patrick· PhD
In another study, older adults consuming 3.36 grams of omega-3s daily for two months had an increase in muscle protein synthesis in the presence of amino acids and insulin.
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In another study, older adults consuming 3.36 grams of omega-3s daily for two months had an increase in muscle protein synthesis in the presence of amino acids and insulin.
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High-dose omega-3s (4-5g/day) can blunt the disuse atrophy that occurs with age by upwards of 50%
However, during periods of disuse—such as injury, surgery, or prolonged inactivity—omega-3 fatty acids may similarly enhance this sensitivity, albeit to a lesser extent, by helping maintain muscle responsiveness to amino acids.
He's actually shown that omega-3 is playing a role in disuse atrophy and through a mechanism where it's not inflammatory. It's not the anti-inflammatory effect of omega-3. It's actually doing something anabolic. It's somehow affecting muscle protein synthesis, and he thinks it's actually sensitizing muscle to amino acids through some unknown mechanism they're trying to figure out.
partly what's happening is Omega-3s are sensitizing skeletal muscle to amino acids so this is independent of its anti-inflammatory effects
he does work on on on highdose omega-3 and disuse atrophy. And he's done a couple of randomized control trials showing has to be preloading because it's completely independent of the inflammatory effects, anti-inflammatory effects of omega-3s, right? Where it it seems to be you have to like get these people on omega-3 for at least a month right? They're doing like four or five weeks before the tri before um before the trial starts. So, they have to be loaded up. That's how long it takes to accumulate in cell membranes. and um it's accumulating in their in their cell membranes in their muscle and people then have a disuse event. So he'll put a cast or whatever on them and it cuts disuse atrophy like in half and he's like you know trying to figure out what's going on but it appears to be sensitizing muscle to amino acids.
So DHA plays a very important role in a lot of functions also muscle tissue. So there's studies now by Chris Mcllori um showing that DHA actually having high levels super high levels of DHA in the muscle can make it can sensitize it to amino acids. So that plays a role in obviously muscle protein synthesis and um preventing muscle atrophy as a um function of disuse.
So it seems to be going on is that these the omega-3 in the cell membrane is sensitizing the amino acids in the muscle tissue like they were young, like what exercise does, right?