L-Leucine

L-Leucine can be a valuable tool in not only muscle building but can also play a critical role in weight loss. In the next few paragraphs we’ll outline the many benefits of L-Leucine and what pitfalls you may want to avoid.

If you’ve taken all kinds of muscle builders or even fat burners and are looking for something else to either give you a finer edge or take you to the next level L-Leucine might be something you want to consider.

What is L-Leucine?

To understand how L-Leucine can help you in either your workout or diet it’s important to understand what exactly it is and how it affects your body.

First, L-Leucine is an essential amino acid, which means that the body doesn’t produce it naturally. So for the body to get this key amino acid in the system it has to pull them from a variety of foods. Those foods typically include protein rich animal foods like beef, chicken, fish, dairy and eggs.

If you’re on a no protein diet, or a strict vegan, chances are you won’t get many of these amino acids coursing through your blood stream. Even if you’re not on such a strict diet, I’ll bet your body could stand to have a nice infusion of the aminos into it. The only way to do that is to either take a supplement or start eating a ton of meat.

What exactly does L-Leucine do?

Let’s discuss how L-Leucine helps in weight loss and muscle gain. Recent research has discovered that L-Leucine acts in a unique way: it can help burn fat without burning muscle. That’s a bit of a head scratcher because aminos are responsible for getting nutrients to the individual cells to burn – but usually aren’t discretionary about what nutrients it takes to the “furnace”.

As mentioned previously, L-Leucine seems to be different; they found that L-Leucine actually spares the muscle proteins, leaving them to help build and increase muscle gain and mass. That’s a nice thought for those gym rats or dieters who workout regularly and are trying to build muscle while at the same time looking to keep the fat off the body.

Because of this amino acids’ unique ability you’ll find the ingredient creeping into more and more diet pills and lifting supplements. It is, of course, important to get the right amount of the stuff into the product so L-Leucine can maximize its potential.

What does scientific research say about L-Leucine?

Let’s consider one study done published in the Journal of Nutrition. They performed a 10-week study involving two groups of women. One group followed a high protein diet (which included a high dosage of L-Leucine) verses a low protein, high carb diet.

The results were interesting. Each of the women consumed about 1,700 calories per day. By the end of the 10 weeks they found that both groups of women lost an average of 16 pounds. But those that stayed on the protein rich diet (consuming a plentiful amount of L-Leucine) lost more body fat and retained more lean muscle mass then those in the high-carb group.

This supports the claims about L-Leucine and its ability to aid in weight loss while not burning muscle mass.

Are there any side effects?

At this time there have been no known major side effects with taking L-Leucine. Usually when a substance like L-Leucine is produced organically in nature, and if proper dosage amounts are used, then the chances for side effects really drop. That is consistent with L-Leucine.

Final word on L-Leucine