However, questions regarding the mechanisms underlying the relationship of BCAAs to disease process and severity need to be answered prior to the use of BCAAs as a biomarker in clinical practice. Importantly, the relationship of BCAAs to insulin resistance is affected by the intake of fat in the diet as well as age.Ĭurrent evidence supports the potential use of BCAAs as biomarkers of disease. Further, circulating levels of BCAAs have the potential to predict populations at risk for cardiometabolic disease, type 2 diabetes and mortality from ischemic heart disease. Recent evidence demonstrates that BCAAs are associated with insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, risk of cardiovascular disease, stage I and II chronic kidney disease and ischemic stroke. The purpose of this review is to summarize the current evidence in this area. Credit: Clint Thayer/Department of Medicine.There is burgeoning evidence that branch chain amino acids (BCAAs) are biomarkers of metabolic, cardiovascular, renal and cerebrovascular disease. This work was supported in part by a grant (PRF2015-61) from The Progeria Research Foundation, by grants from the NIH (AG041765, AG050135, AG051974, AG056771 and AG062328), by a Glenn Foundation Award for Research in the Biological Mechanisms of Aging and by funding from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and Department of Medicine.īanner: Dudley Lamming, PhD, associate professor, Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, and first author of the study, Nicole Richardson, PhD, look over data. “Between this and other work we’ve published, we believe that reducing branched-chain amino acids are really key to promote healthy aging, at least in mice,” Dr. These findings demonstrate the intersection between aging and nutrition, and can be further looked at as a method for preventing and intervening in age-related disease. The next steps in this line of research included understanding which specific BCAAs, leucine, isoleucine or valine, is responsible for the improvements in health and longevity. “We think that protein or BCAA restriction, at least to this degree and started when young, doesn’t work to extend the lifespan of females,” Dr. “This is the first time we showed that a low BCAA diet improves metabolic health in female mice, and the first time we showed this in middle-aged and old mice,” Dr. Previous research has shown that low-protein diets can extend male lifespan, but there’s has been little research done on the specific role of the BCAAs, and little work done using female mice. Lamming explained that this is the first time that restriction of BCAAs have been shown to extend lifespan and reduce frailty. Additionally, the team found that the low-BCAA diet increased metabolic health by improving body composition, and better controlling blood glucose.ĭr. However, no difference in lifespan or frailty was shown in female mice when fed this diet from early on in life. Male lifespan was extended by 30%, and they experienced less frailty. When they restricted BCAAs in standard wild-type mice starting in middle-age, both types of mice experienced improved health and reduced frailty, and female mice had reduced rates of cancer, but they didn’t live longer.īut, when mice were fed this diet from early on in life, instead of at the end of life, the findings were different. The team found that restricting BCAAs extended the lifespan of male and female progeroid mice. This low-BCAA diet was fed to progeroid mice, which are very short lived and display characteristics of aging like a hunched back and grey hair, as well as to standard (wild-type) lab mice. Lamming and colleagues reduced the dietary level of the BCAAs in the mice diet by two-thirds. To better understand the contribution of the BCAAs to the beneficial effects of low protein diets, Dr. The three BCAAs are leucine, isoleucine and valine, and are linked to insulin resistance in mice and humans. Dietary protein is composed of amino acids nine of these amino acids, including the BCAAs, are essential in the diet. The term amino acid is short for -amino alpha-amino carboxylic acid. Protein-restricted diets have been shown to promote health and longevity in many species. An amino acid is an organic molecule that is made up of a basic amino group (NH 2), an acidic carboxyl group (COOH), and an organic R group (or side chain) that is unique to each amino acid. A recent study in Nature Aging from the laboratory of Dudley Lamming, PhD, associate professor, Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, found evidence that a diet restricting branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) can extend the lifespan and increase metabolic health in mice.
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