Loren Ward, Ph.D., manager of whey research, Glanbia Nutritionals, Inc, Twin Falls, ID, notes that a number of studies have focused specifically on the BCAA leucine, which appears to signal the body to build and preserve more muscle. “If you look at it from an energy standpoint,” he says, “suppose you go on a hypocaloric diet and you cut 500 calories out of your diet. In order to make up for the energy of those calories, your body has to go somewhere else. There are really only two other places that your body can go for long-term energy: muscle or body fat.” So, if the hypocaloric diet includes high levels of muscle-sparing leucine, it shunts the body’s energy-burning needs toward fat. “That’s where you get a body-composition change,” Ward says. “There are quite a few studies out there showing that you can shift your ratio to where you can get upward of 80% of your weight loss to come from body fat.”
This drove Glanbia to develop a whey protein and mineral complex designed to target fat loss in weight management. Human clinical trials show the product can reduce body-fat mass by 5.81%, compared to 2.29% in a placebo group, and that 79% of weight loss among subjects consuming the product came from fat, while only 51% of the control’s weight loss came from fat.
To match the fat-loss results seen in the clinical trials requires 24.4 grams per day, notes Starla Paulsen, R&D manager, Glanbia. She suggests splitting this into two 12.2-gram doses per serving—an amount she says “is doable” in a 330-ml ready-to-drink (RTD) beverage or a 50-gram bar, but strategic ingredient handling is key. While it gels and exhibits pH sensitivity just like standard whey ingredients, she says, “you run into a few new challenges, because you combine several different fractions of proteins that act differently, and then you add the minerals and those interact differently, as well.”
Satiety solutions
Scientists are also tackling the weight-management challenge from another angle: protein’s effect on satiety. “Several recently published review papers have concluded that protein is more satiating than carbohydrate or fat,” Pikosky says. “These findings further reinforce a 2002 report released by IOM that concluded, ‘A number of short-term studies indicated that protein intake exerts a more-powerful effect on satiety than either carbohydrate or fat.’” This feeling of fullness, he says, “may lead to a subsequent decrease in calorie intake, which, over time, can help with weight management.”