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Resveratrol-leucine combo boosts fat burning
Resveratrol-leucine combo boosts fat burning
A cocktail of resveratrol and leucine can help you lose weight faster. Nutritionists at the University of Tennessee write in Nutrition and Metabolism that this combination boosts fat and glucose burning in cells. A combination of resveratrol and HMB works just as well.
The amino acid leucine and its metabolite HMB not only stimulate the production of muscle fibre, they also reduce fat mass. This is probably because both compounds enhance the activity of the enzyme Sirt1. [Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2012 Nov 15; 303(10): E1234-44.] [FASEB Journal. 2012; 26:251.6.]
Sirt1 is an enzyme in the nuclei that enables cells to repair themselves. It also activates anti-cancer genes like p53. The more active Sirt1 is, the less room for manoeuvre free radicals have.
Sirt1 has a little brother, Sirt3, which is present outside the cell nuclei, in the cytoplasm. Sirt1 and Sirt3 play a key role in energy metabolism. They are involved in the production of mitochondria, which enable cells to burn glucose and fatty acids, thus generating more energy. Sirt1 becomes more active the less energy you consume, but also if you consume substances like resveratrol.
The effect of leucine on Sirt1/3 is limited. And in complex organisms the effect of resveratrol is also limited. The researchers wondered whether a combination of the two compounds would have a mutually strengthening effect.
The researchers did experiments with mice that had been fattened for 6 weeks first. The animals were then given food for another six weeks, which had been enriched with nothing [the control group], resveratrol, leucine, HMB or combinations of these.
At the end of the experiment the animals in a resveratrol-leucine group had 35 less fat that the mice in the control group, as you can see in this table. The mice that had only been given resveratrol – albeit a high dose – had only 8 percent less fat than the mice in the control group.
Below you can see how the combination of leucine/HMB and resveratrol boosted the burning of fatty acids in the mice's cells. The second and third figures below show how the combination led to an increase of Sirt1 and Sirt3 respectively in the muscle cells.
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Exposure to leucine and resveratrol boosted the activity of the enzyme AMPK in the mouse cells, as you can see in the figure above.
In the animals that had been given both leucine/HMB and resveratrol, the insulin level went down and the muscle cells' glucose uptake increased. [Table]
At the end of the supplementation period the researchers gave their lab animals labelled palmitate [a fatty acid] and a labelled glucose analogue. In the photos below you can see that the mice's tissues absorbed more fatty acids and glucose as a result of the HMB/resveratrol combination.
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Converting the doses used to human equivalents you arrive for the 'low' resveratrol groups at a couple of dozen milligrams resveratrol per day. The leucine dose used converts to a couple of dozen grams per day. The human equivalent of the quantity of HMB used in the 'low' HMB groups amounts to several grams per day.
Source: Nutr Metab (Lond). 2012 Aug 22;9(1):77.
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