In 2018, Shawn Wells co-founded Ingenious Ingredients L.P. along with Dr. Ralf Jaeger, Dr. Martin Purpura, and Kylin Liao.
They started the company with a shared vision of developing new ingredients for sports and active nutrition, nootropics, and more. One of the first ingredients released from Ingenious Ingredients is dileucine, a dipeptide branded as RAMPS. A published paper in the Journal of Applied Physiology reported a 42% increase in muscle synthesis in young men that ingested dileucine, compared to young men that consumed standard leucine. Ingenious Ingredients has been granted a US Patent for the use of dileucine for muscle health, and there are further US Patents and international patents pending.
“Dileucine has the potential to revolutionize the BCAA market, by providing a stronger boost in muscle protein synthesis, as a stand-alone muscle health ingredient, or as a boost in protein-based products.” – Dr. Ralf Jaeger
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While there are only 3 BCAAs (Branched Chain Amino Acids), leucine, isoleucine, and valine, it is leucine that is regarded as an anabolic trigger for muscle protein synthesis. Prior to research conducted by the team at Ingenious Ingredients, dipeptides such as dileucine were thought to simply break down into individual amino acids. This research showed that dileucine is partly absorbed intact, which results in a significant increase in the levels of dileucine present in plasma, in turn increases muscle protein synthesis significantly. Professor Nicholas Burd led researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, in a randomized control study with 10 healthy young men, who were fed either 2 grams of leucine, or 2 grams of dileucine.
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“We found that leucine got into the blood more quickly when participants consumed dileucine than if they had just free leucine. That means that some of that dileucine is getting hydrolyzed, or cut up, before it gets into the bloodstream. But we also saw that dileucine was getting into the bloodstream intact.” – Professor Nicholas Burd
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