Rules For BCAA

We made it VERY clear to our R & D team – USPlabs Modern BCAA™ MUST be developed under these strict rules:

• BCAA Ratio formulation with mTOR activation in mind
• Ultra-Micronized
• Mix Clean
• No Artificial Colors
• No Artificial Flavors
• Natural, refreshing taste
• No L-Glutamine

Little Known Anabolic Pathway - mTOR

If you've never heard of mTOR (and even if you have), listen up and listen good as this is one of THE most under-rated anabolic & protein synthesis pathways known to man…

And…chances are…you're not even coming close to maximizing its enormous potential…

mTOR (Mammalian Target of Rapamycin) is a large proline-directed serine-threonine protein kinase that's responsible for a wide range of physiologic and metabolic functions in several cell types, including both adipocytes (fat cells) and myocytes (muscle cells)…

Among its many roles, mTOR is responsible for hypertrophic growth (an increase in muscle cell size, for example), protein synthesis and tissue morphogenesis…

As a result, compounds which target the regulatory pathways of mTOR have been highly sought out for quite some time…

A wide range of data have suggested that amino acids are capable of directly regulating mTOR signaling pathways in skeletal muscle (1, 2, 3, 4), including the possibility that they activate some of the cell signaling elements upstream from mTOR in the insulin/growth factor signaling pathway…

Unlike Your Mom, mTOR DOES Play Favorites

However, this same data suggest that the amino-acid induced activation of mTOR signaling pathways is not uniform, and there is evidence that the mechanism of mTOR activation may be both tissue and amino acid specific (5, 6).

In particular, the amino acid leucine is indicated as being primarily responsible for the branched chain amino-acid induced activation of mTOR signaling pathways, and therefore mTOR's effect on protein turnover and synthesis (1 – 6).

This hypothesis has come about as studies have shown that most of the effects of amino acids on mTOR signaling are abolished by lowering the concentration of leucine, or increased by adding leucine and, to a lesser extent, the other branched-chained amino acids.

Leucine IS the Star…BUT…

In other words, leucine is the star, but it also must be mentioned that the other two BCAA's, isoleucine & valine, need to be present in order to maximize results…

8-1-1 BCAA Ratio

With the above in mind, we've formulated USPlabs Modern BCAA™ with an 8-1-1 leucine-isoleucine-valine ratio…

In terms of the leucine, the reasoning here is that, from a strictly technical standpoint, the data displays that only leucine and those other amino acids structurally related to leucine are responsible for the increase in mTOR commonly associated with BCAA supplementation.