Older adults aged 60+ need more amino acid leucine than young people to stay healthy and energized. Moreover, leucine is important for the general health of muscle mass, which decreases tremendously after 60.

The only source of leucine is food as it is an essential amino acid and can not be produced by the body. The food sources are, for example, meat, poultry, fish, eggs, milk, tofu, beans and pumpkin seeds.

The current international recommendation for daily leucine intake is 39 mg per kg. According to a recent small study, this current recommendation needs to be revised. In the study the estimated leucine requirements for older adults were more than double the amount of the current recommendation, namely 77.8 mg per kg per day for men, and 78.2 mg per kg per day for women. These unexpected results, however, need to be confirmed by other studies with a larger group of participants.

Till then is no harm to eat more leucine-containing food, especially if you are 60+!

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