Abstract
Aging is accompanied by a progressive decline in skeletal muscle mass, termed sarcopenia, which is associated with functional impairments in daily living activities, the loss of independence, and an increased risk of developing chronic metabolic disease. A possible key-factor in the etiology of sarcopenia is an impaired muscle protein synthetic response to food intake at a more advanced age.
In the present thesis, a series of dietary interventions were tested to effectively increase the muscle protein synthetic response to food intake in older adults. The uniqueness of the experiments that were performed is the use of intrinsically labeled milk and meat protein which allows the in vivo assessment of dietary protein digestion and absorption kinetics as well as subsequent (muscle) protein synthesis rates following consumption of a single bolus of protein.
Defence date: 03/04/13