Muscle has always been recognized for its importance in mobility and physical activity, but did you know that muscle plays a big part in maintaining the metabolism of protein in your body?

You body is composed of proteins that are in a constant state of breakdown and synthesis. Their goal is to stay balanced between anabolism (gaining protein) and catabolism (losing protein).

Throughout the day, your body routinely goes through periods of both anabolism and catabolism, depending on whether you have just eaten a meal or whether it has been several hours since you have eaten and you are no longer absorbing amino acids.

Thankfully, your organs and tissues maintain the balance between synthesis and breakdown throughout the day as well... even if you are not consuming dietary protein.

This is a good thing! Just think of the problems we would have if we missed a couple of meals and the skin protein became catabolic and caused us to lose a significant amount of skin. Or what if we lost protein from the liver, heart or kidneys?

The essential tissues and organ maintain a balance between protein synthesis and breakdown in the absence of dietary protein consumption because they can draw from the amino acids circulating in the blood. Even in the absence of food intake and continuous uptake of amino acids from blood for protein synthesis in tissues other than muscle, the blood amino acid concentrations remain constant.

How does your body stay balanced? You can thank you muscles for that!