Ha. Maybe I am confusing the two. I wasn’t in a rush to buy more back in those days.
Nutritional yeast tastes great. Easy way to get flavor without sodium. I think it activates the immune system though, for better or worse.
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Nutritional yeast flakes were an old hack for vegans back in the 70s and 80s. Sprinkle on anything where you would traditionally have used grated cheese. Not great, but better than nothing!
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Press coverage of this paper (that started the thread):
UW study: Mice live longer, healthier lives with less of one amino acid (isoleucine)
Mice fed a diet formulated to cut out two-thirds of their intake of isoleucine lived longer than mice in a control group. Male mice lived 33 percent longer, while females lived 7 percent longer. The mice were considered middle-aged when the study began, and still saw benefits from the change in diet.
“And they’re fitter throughout their lifespan, too,” said professor and metabolism researcher Dudley Lamming. “So they’re still able to run and climb, and they don’t grow as frail as normal animals do as they age.”
The mice also maintained steadier blood sugar levels and were less likely to develop cancer. Male mice experienced less age-related prostate enlargement.
Earlier research from UW-Madison showed that Wisconsinites with higher body mass index measurements ate more isoleucine. The amino acid is plentiful in foods including eggs, dairy, soy protein and many kinds of meat.
Lamming said he doesn’t expect his research to turn into a new fad diet. Humans need isoleucine to live and it would be difficult to even cut intake in half, he said.
But he said scientists may find ways to mimic the effect.
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Late-life isoleucine restriction promotes physiological and molecular signatures of healthy aging
Chung-Yang Yeh, Lucas C.S. Chini, Jessica W. Davidson, Gonzalo G. Garcia, Meredith S. Gallagher, Isaac T. Freichels, Mariah F. Calubag, Allison C. Rodgers, Cara L. Green, Reji Babygirija, Michelle M. Sonsalla, Heidi H. Pak, Michela Trautman, Timothy A. Hacker, Richard A. Miller, Judith Simcox and Dudley Lamming
bioRxiv. posted 7 February 2023, 10.1101/2023.02.06.527311
http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2024/01/09/2023.02.06.527311
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Simple, take only Gelatin powder as protein source and add leucine and 5htp seperately, even better if it’s only taken in one meal to enhance FGF21.
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It is a problem for those of us needing protein to avoid sarcopenia.
So I guess casein protein is better than whey protein
“Whey typically has more BCAAs overall; by amino acid profiles, isoleucine is roughly ~6–7 g per 100 g protein in whey vs ~4–5 g per 100 g in casein, so casein is ~20–30% lower.”
But, I don’t like the taste of casein as compared to casein.
There is a possible solution: Increase your collagen intake and reduce meat, whey, etc. Collagen/gelatin: ~0.5–0.6 g Ile per 30 g protein (missing tryptophan; low in several EAAs).
I take some tryptophan daily as a supplement.
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More data on Valine from Dudley Lamming’s group:
Lifelong restriction of dietary valine has sex-specific benefits for health and lifespan in mice
Dietary protein is a key regulator of metabolic health in humans and rodents. Many of the benefits of protein restriction are mediated by reduced consumption of dietary branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs; leucine, valine and isoleucine), and restriction of the BCAAs is sufficient to extend healthspan and lifespan in mice. While the BCAAs have often been considered as a group, it has become apparent that they have distinct metabolic roles, and we recently found that restriction of isoleucine is sufficient to extend the healthspan and lifespan of male and female mice. Here, we test the effect of lifelong restriction of the BCAA valine on healthy aging. We find that valine restriction (Val-R) improves metabolic health in C57BL/6J mice, promoting leanness and glycemic control in both sexes. To investigate the molecular mechanisms engaged by Val-R with aging, we conducted multi-tissue transcriptional profiling and gene network analysis. While Val-R had a significantly greater molecular impact in the liver, muscle, and brown adipose tissue of female mice than males, there was a stronger gene enrichment with phenotypic traits in male mice. Further, we found that phenotypic changes are associated with a multi-tissue downregulation of the longevity associated PI3K-Akt signaling pathway. Val-R reduces frailty in both sexes and extends the lifespan of male by 23%, but does not extend female lifespan, corresponding with a male-specific downregulation of PI3K-Akt signaling. Our results demonstrate that Val-R improves multiple aspects of healthspan in mice of both sexes and extends lifespan in males, suggests that interventions that mimic Val-R may have translational potential for aging and age-related diseases.
bioRxiv. posted 4 September 2025
http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2025/09/04/2025.08.31.673254
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Again a male only lifespan effect. Interesting.
I’d love to see some studies combining a valine or isoleucine-restriction diet with a pharmacological approaches like rapamycin. Especially because as far as dietary approaches go, restricting a single amino acid is way more palatable (maybe not in the literal sense) than calories, since it allows you to maintain a higher weight (which means more muscle)/not look malnourished.
Also, worth noting that D-Valine extends median lifespan by around 15% in B6C3F1 females.