A few years ago on one bodybuilding forum I used to visit, there was a prominent mod who started advocating supplementing with aminogen. The company behind aminogen, has many claims and research behind it. But does aminogen really work or is it all smoke and mirrors?

Aminogen claims:

The company behind aminogen claims it’s a proprietary synthetic enzyme, that helps breakdown protein during digestion, making it easier to absorb. According to them, aminogen leads to more absorbed protein and nitrogen retention, ultimately leading to more muscle and strength gains. They also claim that aminogen will help against the negative effects of undigested protein, such as gas and bloating.

Aminogen research:

The company has research showing Aminogen works, such
as increasing nitrogen retention, and saying there was a 250% increase in branched chain amino acids. The problem with all this is, who did these studies? It looks to me like the company themselves did(or sponsored) the study. Who is going to trust a study by the supplement company that makes them? Aminogen is a proprietary name, meaning it has no real scientific meaning and therefore we can’t find any studies on this supposed “enzyme” since we don’t know what it is.

Remember how I mentioned that prominent member who was advocating Aminogen? He also was a distrubutor of Herbalife, which happens to make aminogen also. He obviously had financial motive for advocating Aminogen.

Final thoughts:

I can’t say for certain if aminogen works or not, for the purpose of actually breaking down protein. There is no way to research the compound “Aminogen” since we don’t know what exactly it is(if anything important). We would have to rely on user feedback to find out. If Aminogen works, it should help reduce digestion problems, by aiding the breakdown of protein. If you don’t have any digestion problems when taking protein and aminogen together, then it works as claimed in regards to breaking down protein. If you have a lot of problems digesting your protein it might be worth a try, to see if it eliminates those side effects.

However, increasing the digestability of protein with Aminogen, is not going to automatically increase nitrogen retention, in fact probably just the opposite. Whey protein has low nitrogen retention because it is digested very easily. Hydrolyzed whey protein, has even less nitrogen retention time because it’s in a more broken down form of protein. There is some evidence that increasing protein in your diet, may increase muscle mass, which is the reasoning behind aminogen claiming it also. However, you could get the same effect by simply increasing protein in your diet, without using the expensive aminogen supplement.