Research

Hormonal

Ingestion of an isonitrogenous non-essential amino acid (NEAA) formulation does not stimulate muscle protein synthesis (MPS) or activate mTOR signaling pathways in skeletal muscle cells, making it an effective non-bioactive control for protein bioactivity studies.

If you are looking to stimulate muscle growth, consuming non-essential amino acids (NEAA) alone will not trigger the necessary biological signals. Muscle protein synthesis is driven by essential amino acids (EAAs), specifically leucine. Use NEAA as a control or filler in studies, but rely on complete proteins or EAAs for actual muscle building effects.

ModerateRefutesMEDIUM confidence
Media conditioned by NEAA fed serum had no effect on protein signalling or MPS compared to fasted... In summary, media conditioned by NEAA fed serum did not result in activation of MPS.
Bijal Patel et al. · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2019

Why this rating

The study uses an ex vivo human serum model with C2C12 cells; while rigorous for mechanism, it is not a direct human clinical outcome study.

Source

A cell-based evaluation of a non-essential amino acid formulation as a non-bioactive control for activation and stimulation of muscle protein synthesis using <i>ex vivo</i> human serum

Bijal Patel et al. · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2019

DOI 10.1101/713768

preprint · n=6Cited 4×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →