Eight weeks of whey supplementation lined up with lower ALT, AST, and creatine kinase in 59 male athletes

What the research found

Ben Mhamed and colleagues, including Knechtle, report in the European Journal of Sport Science (November 2026; e70279; DOI 10.1002/ejsc.70279; PMID 42929456). PubMed indexed the record on 26 October 2026. The card date is 1 November 2026, the issue month. Fifty-nine male athletes (power n = 30, endurance n = 29) took 30 grams a day of whey, or a placebo, for 8 weeks, in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design. The athletes were already in training. The paper reports reductions in ALT, AST, and creatine kinase after whey supplementation, with p-values 0.001, 0.015, 0.001, and 0.003 printed for those reductions. It does not map each p-value onto one marker in a single sentence, so this card does not assign them. Only ALT had a significant time by supplementation by training-modality interaction (p = 0.003). CRP, an inflammatory marker, was measured. A within-group CRP drop in the supplemented power group (p = 0.039) was not backed by a significant three-way interaction, so it is not evidence the two training types responded differently. Placebo groups were stable or rose, particularly in the endurance group. This was added protein intake in athletes who were training. It is not a liver-disease treatment and not medical advice. Age was not stated, so the age tag is all ages.

Evidence level: Clinical trial. This is among the stronger kinds of evidence, but one study rarely settles a question.

Read the original at PubMed