Ingenious Ingredients L.P. (ING2) was founded in 2018 by Dr. Ralf Jaeger, Dr. Martin Purpura, Shawn Wells, and Kylin Liao to develop new ingredients for sports and active nutrition (muscle health), nootropics (brain health), and more.
One of the company’s first ingredients to be developed is the dipeptide dileucine for muscle health, which is branded RAMPS. The ingredient is the subject of a paper published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, which reported that young men who consumed dileucine had 42% more muscle synthesis than men who ingested only leucine.
“Dileucine brings true innovation to the popular category of branched chain amino acids (BCAAs), sports and active nutrition and muscle health (age-related muscle loss (sarcopenia), muscle disuse atrophy (immobilization through injury or hospitalization),” Dr. Ralf Jaeger told NutraIngredients-USA.
The US Patent and Trademark Office granted a patent to ING2 earlier this year for the use of dileucine for muscle health (US11026991B2), and Dr Jaeger told us that additional and international patents are pending.
“Dileucine has the potential to revolutionize the BCAA market, by providing a stronger boost in muscle protein synthesis, as a standalone muscle health ingredient, or as a boost in protein-based products,” said Dr Jaeger.
Science
There are only three BCAAs: Leucine, isoleucine and valine, but leucine specifically is believed to be the trigger for muscle protein synthesis.
Dr Jaeger explained that dipeptides play a crucial role in human health and the body has dipeptide transporters that absorb dipeptides faster and more efficiently than individual amino acids. “Prior to our research, it was commonly believed that dipeptides like dileucine would simply be broken down during absorption into individual amino acids, in this case leucine. Our research not only showed that dileucine is partly absorbed intact, resulting in a significant increase in dileucine levels in the plasma, but dileucine significantly increases muscle protein synthesis compared to isomolar amounts of leucine.”