Research

Hormonal

Obesity exacerbates age-related anabolic resistance, leading to impaired muscle protein synthesis (MPS) response to nutrition and exercise, resulting in poor muscle quality despite preserved mass.

If you are older and obese, your muscles may not respond to protein and exercise as well as a younger or leaner person's. This is called 'anabolic resistance.' It means you might need to pay extra attention to protein intake and resistance training to maintain muscle quality, even if your muscle mass looks okay. Don't give up if progress feels slow; it's a biological hurdle, not a personal one.

ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
muscle anabolic resistance is exacerbated with obesity and thus the combination of obesity with older age leads to a near non-existent elevation of the MPS response to amino acid provision beyond basal levels
Paul T. Morgan et al. · Frontiers in Nutrition · 2020

Why this rating

Based on narrative review of mechanistic studies and human trials showing blunted MPS.

Source

Exploring the Impact of Obesity on Skeletal Muscle Function in Older Age

Paul T. Morgan et al. · Frontiers in Nutrition · 2020

DOI 10.3389/fnut.2020.569904

narrative_reviewCited 91×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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