When used as a food additive, ractopamine added to feed can be distributed by the blood to the muscle tissues, where it serves as a full agonist to murine (mouse or rat) TAAR1, a receptor protein (not necessarily in humans). It is also an agonist to beta-adrenergic receptors.  A cascade of events will then be initiated to increase protein synthesis, which results in increased muscle fiber size. Ractopamine is known to increase the rate of weight gain, improve feed efficiency, and increase carcass leanness in finishing swine. Its use in finishing swine yields about  of additional lean pork per animal, and improves feed efficiency by 10%. In cattle on 28 January 2004 Elanco Animal Health
made Optaflexx commercially available in the US. Optaflexx is a "medicated feed additive that is labeled only for use in steers or market heifers (not breeding heifers or bulls) during the last 28–42 days on feed."