Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Branch Chain Amino Acids

[JohnTaylorHK]

Greetings All. I was watching some of Robert Lustig's presentations on Metabolic Syndrome and came across a reference to BCAAs and NAFLD. He more or less stated that "irregular" consumption of BCAAs could lead to metabolic syndrome, giving their consumption as one of a few dietary contributions to NAFLD.

Having researched diets/wellness for the last 10 years (in an amateur, N=1 experimental fashion) I was about to embark on BCAA supplementation (one of my planned interventions for this year) when I thought "Whoa! What about all the bobybuilders out there munching protein powder, taking BCAA supplements and generally "over" eating protein. Personally I am of the opinion that getting calories from excess protein is not ideal (!), and, for me, more than 80g of protein makes no difference to my training. I have found one pubmed post that more or less says there is no evidence for causation between BCAA supplementation and NAFLD, but I find the (2013) Lustig presentation worrying. I found another link confirming a correlation between BCAA and NAFLD here.

I would welcome comments and further info on this topic, from anyone with an informed opinion on this subject.

Namaste.

 

[Guided_by_Voices]

The best brains on this topic seem to thinks that if you're going to supplement with something, EAAs are far superior. I have never heard of an NAFLD connection so I don't know if that would be a risk for EAAs, but the key to avoiding NAFLD as far as I know is to avoid seed oils, especially corn and soybean oil, which both seem to be strong promoters of NAFLD. But what are you trying to accomplish?

 

[JohnTaylorHK]

I was going to find if there was any effect on my muscle mass or body composition. I'm about 12% body fat, was hoping to find a small decrease in that without losing strength. Originally I had read that there was some gain to be had in taking BCAAs before sleeping, due to the pulsatile nature of endogenous HGH. I just wanted to find if there was any truth in that for me. Namaste.

 

[Nelson Vergel]

Have you been diagnosed with NAFLD?

 

[JohnTaylorHK]

Have you been diagnosed with NAFLD?

Hi Nelson. No, I haven't. Lustig was pretty unclear in the presentation as to whether the fact that BCAAs can only be processed in the liver actually caused NAFLD or not. My experiment would have only been for as long as the supplement lasted anyways. In the end, I decided to try a Lecithin-only supplement, just 3 gms per day taken at night. Already I feel that it causes a little dehydration, so I need to keep an eye (or throat?) on that. Namaste.