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Branch chain amino acids are critical for many people including athletes, people who want to stop wasting of dieting or diseases, and to enhance immune function. BCAAs have long been a supplement with bodybuilders, strength and endurance athletes. This is partly due to the fact that the BCAAs undergo extensive metabolism in skeletal muscle, particularly during exercise. Thus, by consuming BCAA supplements, it is believed that muscle proteins (a source of BCAA) may be spared.

In addition to their roles as building blocks in cellular proteins (e.g., the contractile proteins of skeletal muscle), the BCAA appear to have regulatory effects, such as on protein turnover. Leucine, in particular, has been found to be the most potent amino acid in terms of its ability to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. In fact, leucine alone is sufficient to stimulate protein synthesis when taken orally after resistance exercise.

General Information on BCAAs
Branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) catabolism plays a key role in formation of glutamine (Mittendorfer et al., 1998). Glutamine is one of the major glucogenic amino acids; it is also involved in the regulation of glycogen and protein synthesis. Leucine powerfully stimulates protein synthesis, an effect which is potentiated by glutamine (Hankard et al., 1996).

Orally ingested BCAA tend to escape extensive liver metabolism and are preferentially extracted from the bloodstream by the muscle. Although the BCAA are the most abundant in protein, branched-chain a-keto acid dehydrogenase the rate-limiting enzyme in BCAA oxidation) will not allow their concentration to rise and they are oxidized rapidly in muscle after feeding unless incorporated into protein (Millward et al., 1990).

General information on Leucine
• Leucine is one of the most rapidly absorbed amino acids in the diet (Adibi and Gray, 1967)
• Leucine is an important ketogenic amino acid that provides energy and a substrate for protein synthesis in skeletal muscle; increased demand for protein synthesis and cell growth in this tissue increases demand for leucine due to the higher rate of lipid and protein synthesis [synthesis of the former may relate to the purported growth-enhancing effects of the leucine metabolite beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate (HMB)]
• Leucine has been found to be the most potent amino acid in terms of its ability to increase the rate of protein synthesis in muscle cells (Shigemitsu et al., 1999)
• Leucine potently stimulates insulin and increases the sensitivity of the protein synthetic apparatus (e.g., mRNA translation initiation factors) to insulin
• Leucine-induced insulin secretion is potentiated by arginine and glutamine (Rabinowitz et al., 1973 and references therein)
• It has been reported that, strength-training exercise is capable of producing dramatic decreases in plasma/serum leucine concentrations (~30%) compared with other forms of exercise, even when dietary protein intake is kept fairly high (1.26 g/kg body weight/day) (Mero, 1999).

Suggested Doses
The typical dosage of BCAAs is 1 to 5 g daily.

Safety Issues
BCAAs are believed to be safe; when taken in excess, they are simply converted into other amino acids.