Iovate/Muscletech Metabolism and Sports Science Lab

Understanding how the body digests and absorbs key nutrients, such as dietary protein and its amino acid building blocks, is essential to developing nutritional best practices to maintain health and vitality across the lifespan and to optimize post-exercise recovery and adaptation in athletes. Through the use of stable isotopes (e.g. amino acids that are “heavier” than normal), we can track the metabolic fate of dietary amino acids from real food and supplements to determine whether they are used as a source of energy or used to build new body and muscle proteins in humans. This research is made possible through the precise measurement of stable isotopes in biofluids (e.g. blood, urine, cellular water), muscle proteins, and breath (i.e. carbon dioxide) by sensitive and specialized mass spectrometers. We also measure changes in hormones (e.g. insulin, testosterone) and metabolites (e.g. glucose, urea) in various biofluids to better understand how nutrition and/or exercise affect our metabolism and how our bodies utilize the nutrients in our diets for energy or growth.