MTOR and obesity disorder: It has been proposed that high tissue and blood concentrations of BCAAs in human obesity cause or exacerbate IR through mechanisms involving leucine; this amino acid promotes the activation of the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) in muscle (Tremblay et al. 2005) and the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signaling pathways (Nellis et al. 2002).