Research
Mixed
Deuterium oxide (D2O) tracing allows for the measurement of long-term muscle protein synthesis in free-living conditions, revealing that early resistance exercise training drives muscle hypertrophy through chronically elevated MPS.
This paper describes a research method (D2O tracing) rather than a direct advice for the public. However, it confirms that consistent resistance exercise leads to chronic increases in muscle protein synthesis, which drives muscle growth over time.
StrongSupportsHIGH confidence
Providing a single bolus of D2O to individuals performing repeated unilateral resistance exercise for 8 days revealed that MPS was chronically elevated and that differences in integrated anabolic responses could be detected in a little as 2 days
Why this rating
Supported by multiple studies using D2O (Wilkinson et al., 2014; Brook et al., 2015).
Source
Contemporary stable isotope tracer approaches: Insights into skeletal muscle metabolism in health and disease
Matthew S. Brook et al. · Experimental Physiology · 2020
DOI 10.1113/ep087492
narrative_reviewCited 10×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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