Eat Like An Athlete to Combat Age-Related Muscle Loss
Research reveals how protein timing, creatine, and omega-3s can preserve strength and independence as you age.
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This review shows how the same nutritional strategies elite athletes use to build muscle and enhance performance can help older adults maintain muscle mass, strength, and mobility well into their later years.
Overview
This comprehensive review, published in GeroScience in 2021, examines how sports nutrition strategies can combat sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss) in healthy older adults. The authors explore evidence-based nutritional approaches, including optimised protein intake, creatine supplementation, omega-3 fatty acids, inorganic nitrate, and carbohydrate periodisation.
Key Points
The review highlights that adults lose approximately 1% of muscle mass per year beginning in their 50s, with muscle strength declining at 3% per year and power at 8% per year. These losses are associated with reduced independence, impaired daily activities, and negative metabolic health outcomes. Athletes utilise specific nutritional strategies to maximise training adaptations and muscle health, and many of these same principles can be applied to support active aging.
Aim
The primary objective was to review sports nutrition science and determine which nutritional strategies used by athletes to enhance skeletal muscle quality, mass, and function could be applicable to support active aging and prevent sarcopenia in healthy older adults.
Methods
This was a narrative literature review examining research on protein supplementation, creatine, omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3PUFAs), inorganic nitrate, and carbohydrate periodisation. The authors analysed studies involving both athletic populations and healthy older adults to identify transferable nutritional strategies. For this review, healthy older adults were defined as individuals free of health conditions or medications that might impact the clinical outcomes of nutritional interventions.
Results
Protein Intake:
Athletes require 1.2-2.0 grams per kilogram of body weight per day, compared to the standard 0.8 g/kg/day recommendation for adults. Older adults experience “anabolic resistance,” meaning their muscles respond less effectively to protein intake. Research shows older adults require approximately 40% more dietary protein after exercise to maximise muscle protein synthesis compared to younger adults. Specifically, older adults need about 35 grams (0.4 g/kg per serving) of protein per meal to optimise muscle protein synthesis, compared to 20 grams for younger individuals. Daily protein recommendations for older adults range from 1.2-1.6 g/kg/day. Distributing protein evenly across 3-4 meals throughout the day (rather than consuming most protein at one meal) was associated with greater lean body mass in free-living older adults.
Creatine:
Supplementation at 3-5 grams per day, combined with resistance training three times per week, increased lean body mass, muscle thickness, and strength in older adults. A meta-analysis of older participants aged 50-72 years reported a weighted mean difference of 1.37 kg for lean body mass and 0.24 kg for leg press one-repetition maximum in individuals supplemented with creatine. Importantly, across over 700 participants, no adverse events related to kidney or liver function were reported following prolonged creatine supplementation. Creatine supplementation can increase skeletal muscle stores of phosphocreatine by 20-40%, contributing to improved high-intensity exercise capacity.
