Eva Blomstrand

Current research is focused on investigating the mechanisms behind the muscular adaptation to exercise and how nutritional intake in combination with different forms of work affects the effect. Maintaining or increasing muscle mass and strength can be crucial for performance and health.

It is well known that nutrient intake in the form of protein or amino acids enhances the stimulating effect of exercise on the formation of new muscle protein. Interestingly, only the essential amino acids (i.e. the amino acids that the body cannot produce itself) need to be supplied to provide a stimulating effect on synthesis in connection with exercise. The addition of the non-essential amino acids has no additional effect. Of the essential amino acids, the three branched-chain amino acids, especially leucine, are considered to have a particularly important role.

Current projects focus on the role of branched-chain amino acids and in particular the role of leucine in relation to other essential amino acids in terms of the ability to stimulate synthesis and inhibit degradation. Other projects investigate how combination training affects the training response, in particular how endurance training affects the effect of a subsequent strength training session carried out with a previously active and inactive muscle group.

My thesis is called "Muscle metabolism during intensive exercise – influence of subnormal muscle temperature".

The research group has active collaboration with researchers at the University of Stirling, Scotland (Lee Hamilton), Rigshospitalet and the University of Copenhagen (Gerrit van Hall) as well as the University of Athens (Gerasimos Terzis).

We also collaborate with other researchers in Sweden, including at Karolinska Institutet (Mona Esbjörnsson, Eva Jansson, Olav Rooyackers) and Mid Sweden University (H-C Holmberg).