Understand your product’s impact on the body’s metabolic response and what this means for potential health benefits, through blood amino acid kinetics
Innovations in dairy and plant proteins offer exciting market opportunities for functional foods with health benefits. But many different elements play a role in how your ingredient influences the body’s metabolic response. The protein’s amino acid composition, its interaction with other nutrients in the end-product, its reaction to processing, etc. have to be considered. Even the consumer’s profile can make a difference: age, health and more.
Measuring concentrations of amino acids in the blood of healthy volunteers can offer key insight. For example, maintaining muscle mass is strongly associated with the stimulation of muscle protein synthesis after eating. Consuming proteins increases amino acid concentrations in the blood. Specific amino acids, including leucine, trigger the synthesis of muscle protein.
In clinical trials, we can compare the blood amino acid concentrations before and after the protein ingredient is consumed, to understand how the body is able to digest and make use of it.