Whey protein is Superior
Whey Protein is superior to Soy protein for Muscle Gains.
What are the reasons for this advantage.
The reason for this comes down to digestibility, absorption and amino acid profile.
Whey protein has a Higher Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score DIAAS and a better, Protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score or PDAAS.
Which basically means that Whey protein digests and absorbs better.
Whey also has a superior amino acid profile in terms of essential amino acids and the branch chain amino acids that stimulate muscle protein synthesis.
Whey protein generally has score of than 1.00 on PDCAAS and DIAAS scores which means it is a complete protein. and it also absorbs well.
Many plant proteins have lower PDCAAS and DIAAS scores due to limits in some of the essential amino acids.
Soy has PDCAAS of 0.93 and a DIAAS around 0.92 which isn’t too bad but it’s still inferior to Whey protein.
Pea protein is around for 0.78 for PDCAAS and 0.66 for DIAAS.
When scores are lower this means that they are not as digestible and more plant protein must be eaten in order to absorb similar amino acids when compared to animal sources.
When it comes to the Amino Acid Profiles of Leucine, isoleucine and Valine which are the Branched Chain Amino Acids or BCAAs we find that whey protein is far superior.
This is important because leucine is a trigger of muscle protein synthesis or MPS.
The average plant isolate has around 7.1% leucine vs animal proteins that have around 8.8%.
Whey contain around 12% leucine versus soy protein with around 8%.
This would mean that we need to consume around 25 to 30g of soy protein for every 20 g of whey.
Many plant proteins are also lower in other Essential Aminos acids such as methionine.
Most plant proteins except for potatoes have less isoleucine and valine than animal proteins as well.
All the BCAAs in plant proteins are lower.
In order to trigger muscle growth we need to consume proteins higher in BCAAs.
Many MPS studies show greater MPS with Whey protein than plant proteins at equal protein serves.
Authors attributed this to the higher leucine content and faster absorption of whey.
In one Randomised control trial of 12 weeks duration they compared Soy protein to Whey and in the trial they matched total protein to the concentration of leucine in each.
The participants were given either 19g of whey or 26 g of soy after training with both providing 2 g of leucine.
hypertrophy was found to be similar after 12 weeks between soy and whey sources.
Generally when whey Protein and Soy Protein are given in amounts equivalent to the amount of Leucine. The resulting hypertrophy is similar with a slight edge for whey protein.
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