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Researchers took 44 men and gave either plant-protein or animal-protein supplements for 12 weeks while strength training. There was no statistical difference in muscle strength or mass between groups (www.tandfonline.com)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml to c/science@lemmy.world

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[-] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Were these subjects athletes or were they just people who were weight training?

[-] LordMayor@piefed.social 4 points 2 days ago

Doesn’t matter. The point of the research was to determine if there was a difference between animal and plant based protein supplements for adding muscle. The results would apply to anyone.

[-] victorz@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

And if neither has much effect, the study is pointless.

I hope there was a control group who had a placebo supplement.

[-] LordMayor@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

That’s not how science works. You do experiments even to find out if it is pointless.

But, yes, they should have a control group.

[-] Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 day ago

So the research was pointless because we can't tell the difference without a control group. Further research needed.

[-] LordMayor@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

That doesn’t make it pointless.

There is something to be learned from this. Using a control would answer a different question.

[-] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Using a control group would tell us if there's any gain from the supplements whatsoever, was basically my point. For the average person using supplements doesn't do much for weight gain as far as I hear, so that's why I was asking what kind of people these subjects were, if they were athletes or regular people doing weight training. So, it does matter.

[-] LordMayor@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago

And, my point is that calling this research pointless is just wrong because it answers à different question.

I’m not disagreeing that the question that you want answered should be studied. It should. But, the fact that this research doesn’t answer your question doesn’t make it pointless.

It’s perfectly valid research to study whether the results are different between animal-based and plant-based supplements. I didn’t go through the citations but they say:

Recent evidence suggests that both animal and plant proteins support strength and hypertrophy gains when paired with resistance training and adequate protein intake

which sounds like the research you’re asking for has already been done.