Prof.Stuart Phillips: Sarcopenia

Professor Phillips is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Skeletal Muscle Health. In addition to being a full Professor in Kinesiology, also an Adjunct Professor in the School of Medicine at McMaster University. He is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the American College of Nutrition (ACN). His research is focused on the impact of nutrition and exercise on human skeletal muscle protein turnover. He is also keenly interested in diet- and exercise-induced changes in body composition.

His research is funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the National Science and Engineering Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation as well as the USDA.

He has received more than $2.4 million in research funding in the last 3 years. Dr. Phillips was the recipient of a New Investigator Award from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the Ontario Premier's Research Excellence Award and in 2003 received the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology Young Investigator Award. He currently has more than 18000 career citations, and 200 original scientific research and review papers.

In this podcast, Prof.Phillips and I discussed Sarcopenia. Some of the things we discuss are: 

1.What is sarcopenia and what causes it?

2.When do we start to see age-related declines in muscle mass and how much muscle mass can potentially be lost annually?

3.What type of exercise can be beneficial and easy to perform for elderly people?

4.Do you feel that the RDA of 0.8 g/kg is set to low and if so, what would be more optimal to aim for?

5.Could you explain what “anabolic resistance” is?

6.Why is it important to not only focus on total amount of protein per day, but also protein amount per meal, distribution and protein quality?

7.What is your take home message?