Research

Hormonal

Eight weeks of fish oil supplementation (5 g/day) suppresses anabolic signaling (panPKB, p70S6K1, AMPKa2) in response to resistance exercise and protein ingestion without increasing myofibrillar muscle protein synthesis rates in young, resistance-trained men.

If you are a young, resistance-trained man, taking 5g of fish oil daily for 8 weeks will not increase your muscle protein synthesis rates after working out and eating protein. It actually suppresses key anabolic signaling markers (like p70S6K1) without providing any anabolic benefit. Do not rely on fish oil to boost muscle growth; it may be neutral or even counterproductive to signaling in this specific demographic.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
These data highlight that 8 weeks of FO supplementation alters kinase signaling activity in response to RE plus protein ingestion without influencing MPS.
Chris McGlory et al. · Physiological Reports · 2016

Why this rating

Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design with gold-standard tracer methods for MPS measurement, though limited to young, healthy, resistance-trained males.

Source

Fish oil supplementation suppresses resistance exercise and feeding-induced increases in anabolic signaling without affecting myofibrillar protein synthesis in young men

Chris McGlory et al. · Physiological Reports · 2016

DOI 10.14814/phy2.12715

rct · n=20Cited 104×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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