Research

Hormonal

Aging causes 'anabolic resistance,' characterized by a blunted muscle protein synthesis response to feeding, which contributes to sarcopenia.

As you age, your body becomes less efficient at turning food into muscle (anabolic resistance). To combat this, you likely need to consume slightly more protein per meal or ensure you are doing resistance exercise to 'wake up' the muscle's synthetic machinery.

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In states such as aging, there is an anabolic resistance to feeding, which is characterized by a blunted rise of MPS to amino acids.
Stuart M. Phillips · Applied Physiology Nutrition and Metabolism · 2009

Why this rating

Supported by multiple citations (Cuthbertson et al. 2005; Guillet et al. 2004) in a peer-reviewed review.

Source

Physiologic and molecular bases of muscle hypertrophy and atrophy: impact of resistance exercise on human skeletal muscle (protein and exercise dose effects)This paper is one of a selection of papers published in this Special Issue, entitled 14th International Biochemistry of Exercise Conference – Muscles as Molecular and Metabolic Machines, and has undergone the Journal’s usual peer review process.

Stuart M. Phillips · Applied Physiology Nutrition and Metabolism · 2009

DOI 10.1139/h09-042

narrative_reviewCited 112×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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