Hi everybody this is Monica Reinagel welcome back to the nutrition divas quick and dirty

tips for eating well and feeling fabulous the other day I saw an ad on television for a nutrition drink that's supposed to prevent

the loss of muscle that occurs naturally as we age. Once you're over 40, the ad says,

you could be losing as much as 8% of your muscle mass every decade.

The product, which was called Ensure Muscle Health, promises to help stave off this age-related

muscle loss with an amino acid metabolite called

HMB. Well I had never heard of HMB so I thought I'd take a closer look at the

product and the claim that it will help keep you from getting soft as you get older.

So why do we lose muscle as we age?

Because it's true that people tend to lose lean muscle tissue as they get older.

One factor is a decline in the secretion of growth hormone and other anabolic hormones that help you build and maintain muscle mass.

The other factor is lifestyle.

Muscle is a use it or lose it type of tissue and because people tend to be less active as they get older they lose muscle as a result.

Even if you maintain the same body weight over the years, unless you make a concerted effort to prevent it,

your body composition will gradually change to less muscle and more fat, and that means a less efficient metabolism and an increased risk of

diseases including diabetes, heart disease and osteoporosis.

There are really three ways to prevent age-related muscle loss.

Number one, you can take hormones.

Doping with growth hormone, testosterone, and other steroids

is a very effective way to slow and reverse age-related changes in body

composition.

And if you're not a professional baseball player, it's also perfectly legal.

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