Meta-analysis links dietary branched-chain amino acids to metabolic health in rodents

BACKGROUND: The role of dietary branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) and their effect on metabolic health is complex. How dietary BCAA levels and their interaction with background nutrition affect health is unclear. Here, we used meta-analysis and meta-regression, together with the nutritional modelling, to analyse the results of rodent studies that increased the level of dietary BCAAs and measured circulating levels, outcomes related to metabolic health, body mass and food intake. RESULTS: Across all studies, increasing dietary BCAAs resulted in increased levels of circulating BCAAs. These effects, however, were heavily moderated by background dietary levels whereby on high BCAA diets, further increases were not reflected in the blood. Impaired glucose tolerance was associated with elevated dietary BCAAs, with the greatest effect occurring with a simultaneous increase in total protein intake. Effects of dietary BCAAs on plasma glucose, insulin, or HOMA emerged only when dietary macronutrient background was considered. We found that elevated dietary BCAAs increases % body fat, with largest increases in adiposity occurring when BCAAs are increased on a high protein, low carbohydrate dietary background. Finally, we found that increased dietary BCAAs were associated with increased food intake when the background diet was low in BCAAs. CONCLUSION: Our data highlights the interaction between BCAAs and background nutrition. We show that the effects of BCAAs on metabolic health cannot be studied in isolation but must be considered as part of complex mixture of dietary components. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12915-021-01201-2.