Research

Hormonal

Older women exhibit anabolic resistance to feeding, where muscle protein synthesis (MPS) does not increase in response to a protein-containing meal, unlike older men who show a significant increase.

Older women may not get the same muscle-building benefit from a standard meal as older men do. This 'anabolic resistance' means that simply eating protein might not be enough to maintain muscle. Older women might need to focus on higher protein intakes per meal or resistance training to stimulate MPS, as their bodies don't respond to feeding as robustly as men's.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
Feeding increased (P<0.05) the phosphorylation of eIF4ESer209 and eIF4E-BP1Thr37/46 in men only. Accordingly, feeding increased MPS in men (P<0.01) but not in women.
Gordon I. Smith et al. · PLoS ONE · 2008

Why this rating

Robust experimental design with stable isotopes and biopsy, but small sample size.

Source

Differences in Muscle Protein Synthesis and Anabolic Signaling in the Postabsorptive State and in Response to Food in 65–80 Year Old Men and Women

Gordon I. Smith et al. · PLoS ONE · 2008

DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0001875

mechanism_only · n=29Cited 168×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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