The Counterintuitive Catabolic & Pro-Diabetic Effects of Leucine Supplementation in Rodents on Corticosteroids
Not the mice from this study, but still a nice example of the effects of dexamethasone on skeletal muscle (right; Quin. 2012) "Leucine-laced water + stress = insulin resistance" - This simple equation is the net result of a recent study by Nelo Eidy Zanchi and his colleagues from the Laboratory of Applied Nutrition and Metabolism at the School of Physical Education and Sports of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. Inspired by previous research which clearly indicated that leucine does not only have pro-anabolic, but also insulin sensitizing effects, Zanchi et al. speculated that the provision of adequate amounts of leucine would blunt the catabolic and pro-diabetic effects of 7 days of intraperitoneally injections of dexamethasone, an artificial corticosteroid that's used to treat all sorts of inflammatory diseases. Remember SuppVersity Rule of Smart Supplementation No. 2? Right. Specificity! In order to test their hypothesis that leucine supplementati...