WHOLE EGG VERSUS EGG WHITE CONSUMPTION ON POSTPRANDIAL PROTEIN HANDLING IN VIVO IN HUMANS

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: TERMINATED
• Funding Source: HATCH
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1008682
• Project No.: ILLU-971-324
• Project Start Date: Jan 26, 2016
• Project End Date: Sep 30, 2017

Project Director
Burd, NI.

Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
2001 S. Lincoln Ave.
URBANA,IL 61801

Performing Department
Nutritional Sciences

Non Technical Summary
The identification of feeding strategies that are most effective to augment the skeletal muscle adaptive response is essential to support healthy aging, weight management, and to offset the risk of the development of chronic metabolic diseases (type II diabetes). Eggs are a nutritionally complete food source and commonly consumed at breakfast by U.S. adults. The removal of the yolk is often promoted for improved health when multiple eggs are consumed; a belief related to the cholesterol content of an egg. In addition, the fat contained in the yolk is believed to reduce the speed of protein digestion and absorption kinetics, thereby leading to a reduced anabolic signal to skeletal muscle tissue. Consequently, this practice of removing the yolk prior to egg consumption is often commercially misrepresented as being nutritionally superior. The yolk is nutrient dense and contains nearly half of an egg's total protein content. Since the protein density of a meal is essential to maximally stimulate postprandial muscle protein synthesis rates, it seems counter-productive (and currently unsubstantiated) to remove the yolk with a goal of supporting skeletal muscle health, despite this being an often cited benefit of commercial communication strategies. Our project represents a novel avenue to identify the positive effects of whole egg consumption on the postprandial muscle protein synthetic response and, as such, provide relevant information for the design of more effective and economical strategies aimed at preserving or enhancing skeletal muscle mass.

Animal Health Component

0%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

50%

Applied

50%

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
701	3270	1010	100%

Knowledge Area
701 - Nutrient Composition of Food;

Subject Of Investigation
3270 - Eggs;

Field Of Science
1010 - Nutrition and metabolism;

Keywords

skeletal muscle mass

postprandial muscle protein synthesis

egg yolk

Goals / Objectives
The goal of this proposal is to identify whole egg consumption as an effective and economical strategy to enhance postprandial muscle protein synthesis rates. Identifying whole egg consumption as a potent food to enhance muscle anabolism will increase the competitive advantage of U.S. egg farmers by increasing the demand for egg products within the consumer market.

Project Methods
Intrinsically labeled L-[5,5,5-2H3] leucine egg protein was produced by supplementing the diet of 3 laying hens with 0.3% L-[5,5,5-2H3] leucine for 55 days at the UIUC Poultry Research Farm. Subsequently, these eggs will be used in a human trial. Specifically, participants (20-35 y) will arrive at the laboratory and receive a prime constant stable isotope amino acid infusion combined with the collection of blood and muscle samples. These human samples will be collected before and after the ingestion of 3 whole eggs (~19 g protein) or an equivalent amount of protein from egg whites. The samples will be analyzed for stable isotope enrichment and calculations will be performed to determine dietary protein digestion and absorption kinetics and postprandial muscle protein synthesis rates. Multiple avenues will be used to disseminate the results of the work to the target audience. The work will be presented at relevant nutrition and physiology conferences. The sophisticated nature of the methodology used in the study will allow us to publish in top tier nutritional (e.g, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition or Journal of Nutrition) and/or physiology related journals, thereby allowing us to evaluate the impact of our work on the target audience. Finally, the results of the work will be released as a press release as well as posted on the University of Illinois website and distributed in newsletters.

Progress 01/26/16 to 09/30/17

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience is U.S. adults. Outcomes of this work will be especially relevant to geriatrics, obese populations, and populations with poor economic status. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Undergraduate and graduate students were involved in performing this research and received 'hands-on' experience in performing in vivo human metabolic research. Moreover, the work was accepted in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, thereby providing research exposure to all co-authors. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have presented our work at national conferences as well as published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We showed that whole egg consumption was more effective for the postprandial stimulation of muscle protein synthesis rates during recovery from resistance exercise when compared to the ingestion of iso-nitrogenous amounts of egg whites. Thus, our data supports the concept that eating protein within its natural food matrix is an optimal strategy for muscle mass maintenance.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: van Vliet, S., Shy, E.L., Abou Sawan, S., Beals, J.W., West, D.W., Skinner, S.K., Ulanov, A.V., Li, Z., Paluska, S.A., Parsons, C.M., Moore, D.R. and Burd, N.A. 2017. Consumption of whole eggs promotes greater stimulation of postexercise muscle protein synthesis than consumption of isonitrogenous amounts of egg whites in young men. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 2017 Dec;106(6):1401-1412. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.117.159855. Epub 2017 Oct 4.

Progress 01/26/16 to 09/30/16

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience is U.S. adults. Outcomes of this work will be especially relevant to geriatrics, obese populations, and populations with poor economic status. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Undergraduate and graduate students were involved in performing this research and received 'hands-on' experience in performing in vivo human metabolic research. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have submitted four conference abstracts related to this work to be presented at Experimential Biology in April 2017. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The manuscript is currently being drafted and we expect to submit to a top tier nutrition journal.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We have idenified that consuming whole eggs does not modulate the appearance rates of dietary protein derived amino acids into circulation, but provides a stronger stimulatory signal for muscle protein synthesis rates when compared to only consuming egg whites.

Publications