A major scientific review is challenging the idea that more protein is always better.
The review, led by pathologist and biomedical researcher Dudley Lamming and published in the journal Cell Press Blue, examined more than 350 studies involving humans, mice, insects, yeast, and other organisms.
The review found that eating less protein, or less of certain amino acids that make up protein, may turn on body processes linked to healthier aging, as well as metabolism, the process by which the body turns food and drinks into energy.
The study points to increased fat-burning activity in lower-protein diets, and from there connects those diets to lower body fat and better aging.
This isn’t a new result… carrying excess bodyfat is bad, we’ve known this conclusively for decades.
The increased use of bodyfat for energy is also expected (if you aren’t overeating). Your body has 2 fuels cells can use, glucose and ketones. Glucose is easy, and this is the primary pathway. If you eat carbs, your body converts them to glucose and feeds that to your brain, muscles, etc.
If you aren’t eating enough, your body breaks down stored glycogen in your muscles to get glucose. Once those reserves are gone, your body will switch to converting fat stores into ketones. This can be a rather unpleasant switch for a few days until you adjust.
However, there is another pathway. If you are eating significant amounts of protein, the amino acids will be used for gluconeogenesis (literally: “new glucose creation”) by your liver - turning the excess protein in your diet into glucose for your cells to use for energy.
So, if you are eating a lot of protein and otherwise not overeating calories and carbs, your body will turn that protein into glucose rather than scavenging bodyfat into ketones. Eating less protein (and more fats) would promote the fat-burning pathway and lower bodyfat overall.
The study is solid, confirms the general consensus understanding of metabolism. The reporting is trash. Don’t avoid protein. But also don’t assume 10 g/lb is doing anything to help you build muscle or lose weight - after a certain point, it’s just energy.
I’m going to guess it’s overeating in general. Protein as a proxy for calories. Undereating does extend life, that gets proven over and over. And yeah, too much protein is hard on your kidneys.
But I would bet money that a person is better off being more active, so that they burn off the calories they eat, or fasting sometimes and eating less overall.
Just holding calories steady and reducing protein doesn’t seem better. Because the other places calories can come from are carbohydrates and fats, and it’s not healthy to eat too much of those either. Therefore I think it probably just means don’t overeat or even do undereat.
Conversely, upping my protein intake at the suggestion of my doctor has led to me being significantly healthier in my late 40s than I was in my 30s
Because you need some protein. So getting the appropriate amount is necessary for health. But the excessive consumption which is recently trending in the US and the rest of the West is not good for anybody but the ocmpanies producing that shit.
I think we need better education on what an appropriate amount is - I live in a fairly hippy world, lots of veggie peeps, and it’s noticeable that you can be eating super-healthily without getting enough protein to keep muscle on as you age, so especially the girls have found that upping their protein intake (consciously and within a decent diet) has made a fair bit of difference. Man cannot live on salad alone, as the prophet said.
I don’t live on salad alone, I have a roommate.
Likely because you had too many carbs in your diet.
North Americans simply eat too much.
I’m in the uk, and was mainly veggie.
It’s not hard to consume high carb veggie diet.
What did you drop? Junk food? There you are.
I didn’t drop anything, I just added more protein-rich foods to my diet, namely fish and chicken. I eat more overall
Well, alright, this is not as annoying as I thought it was going to be. Why? Because I’m on dialysis, and people on dialysis have to eat more protein. I struggle to meet my goals. In fact, I do not meet my goals. Which is irritating.
But I’m also trying to lose weight so I can be considered for a transplant, trying to stay within the limited liquid restrictions, trying to eat enough protein but limit potassium which more protein triggers, limit phosphorous… there’s… several other things. It’s very annoying, especially when I need to cook everything I eat from scratch but sheer fatigue means I’m unable to do so.
Bleh.
So I just needed to vent about that in relation to this study. heh
What about meal shakes like Huel? I wouldn’t recommend a Huel only diet but each serving is 33% of a ton of minerals and vitamins. It might have too much protein in relation to this new information.
Most protein drinks (and I assume meal shakes, but I will look into those now) have lots of potassium. They do make dialysis-friendly protein drinks, although the ones I can find have 10g protein which is not nothing, but considering they take up ¼-⅓ of my daily liquid intake, I don’t like them for that reason. heh.
But an otherwise excellent thought <3
640 mg potassium. 25 grams of plant based protein, though.
From what I can find, the potassium is nearly double that, but maybe my info is outdated. But even with yours, four eggs are about 25g carbs with 275mg potassium. Phosphrous - which I didn’t happen to mention - is about the same - but I also take phosphorous binders which helps (in both cases).
However, the annoying thing is that the Huel would be ⅔ of my entire daily fluid allowance - which is 32oz. Which is why I also mentioned the fluid intake, because dialysis-friendly ones tend to be like 12 ounces I think - maybe less, I haven’t paid enough attention because I don’t use them. heh
But I think you for following up - and while I think it’s not useful for me, I think they are useful for some, or maybe even many. :)
I forgot about the liquid restriction. You could make it with less liquid but it would probably be pretty off-putting texture-wise.
Edit: maybe their nutrition bars would work for you?
They might - I’ll double-check with nutritionalist to make sure, but thank you! <3 :)
Cheers!
Carbohydrates drive fat, if you want to lose weight, reduce your carbs or cut them out completely.
This literature survey is basically talking about the virtues of fgf 21 activation, which happens in a high glucose diet with low protein inputs. Inputs. However, they did not look at low glucose diets.
Carbs are essential for brain function. Which certainly explains keto-fanatics…
Your brain, and all your other cells, can use either glucose or ketones for fuel. They prefer glucose because it is more efficient, but there is no measurable cognitive impairment in those on keto diets - in fact, ketosis has been shown to improve cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients: study.
In general, this isn’t an either-or thing. Your body is doing all of these pathways all the time, just the relative degree of them can be shifted depending on what’s available in the diet.
Great point, plus the body can make glucose on its own if it’s needed, so those keto people still have glucose, it’s just 99.9% of the body is burning fat, so there isn’t much demand for that glucose.
Bonus fact: the emerging literature is linking long term neurodegenerative diseases (dementia, Alzheimer’s, parkinson’s, etc) to impaired brain glucose metabolism… I.e the more insulin resistant someone becomes the more energy starved their brains are, but even in those people ketones feed the brain without impairment
I doubt protein is the problem. It’s almost always animal protein that’s the problem
Beans and nuts and seitan are all super healthy
The next time you’re at a restaurant and they ask what protein you want, tell them beans.
jesus is even better than seitan but dont eat him please
Aren’t you literally supposed to eat his body and drink his blood?
Shai-Halud is better than Shaitan, but don’t eat him either please
I don’t think there’s much protein in his body. I think it’s mostly wheat?
The manosphere thinks protein can only come from meat.
this article / research paper wasn’t written by the manosphere, it was written by scientists
There sure has been a lot of protein fear-mongering lately. No, you’re not eating too much protein. No, you’re not getting lead poisoning from protein powder. No, it’s not damaging your kidneys or whatever this week’s claim is.
Updating the recommended daily intake of protein to 0.8-1g/kg was the only thing RFK was almost correct about. Though that amount also comes with the recommendation of including resistance training in your exercise routine, which is far more important for aging than just protein alone. Conveniently the new dietary guidelines failed to mention that part.
This part in particular:
Lamming reviewed the effect of reducing protein in many body processes. One of the processes involves a hormone called FGF21.
“There’s an increase in a hormone called FGF21 that promotes energy expenditure [when protein intake is reduced],” Lamming said. “It essentially increases thermogenesis in your adipose tissue, so you don’t just store fat, but actually burn it as fuel.”
stinks of someone wanting to get in on a peptide or hormone treatment.
Exercise. Eat protein. Try to get most of it from whole plant sources.
I mean yes, but let’s be honest. Most Americans are eating a lot of protein in the form of meat and dairy. So if you take a typical American diet and remove protein I’m not surprised it’s healthier.
Several long term trends show that Americans, especially children, drink far less milk than they once did. And studies show that if they have consumed dairy it’s probably a low fat or skim variety. Replacing whole dairy with low fat or fat free products removes much or all of the milk fat, along fat-soluble vitamins and minerals, typically bound in colloids (a type of nutritional matrix, another active research topic.) Children who do consume full fat dairy tend to be more metabolically healthy than those who do not, but more research would be great.
The problem with SAD (standard American diet) is extremely high refined foods with highly refined carbs(UPFs), and so often low vegetable, and they tend to really focus on lean muscle.
People often think animal fat contains toxins. That’s generally false. Animal fat does contain multiple(likely all) fat soluble nutrients though, which are all core essential nutrients.
Most importantly, many don’t eat the rest of the animal. Like the offal/organs or the bone/marrow or the collagen or blood … These all are great sources of nutrients that lean meat and plants do not contain. Very critical to this understanding are vitamin forms. Animal sources of vitamins are generally more bio-available and potent, and then they’re delivered in a rich nutritional matrix with other highly potent and bioavailable vitamins so you’re getting a naturally balanced source of extremely good and vital nutritients. Sure, a carrot contains beta carotene which is vitamin a just like retinol is but retinol is much more potent version of the vitamin. And this is true for every single vitamin out there, and plants pretty much universally contain inferior(less potent, less efficacious) versions. Just like plant proteins are far less digestible than animal, often requiring double the amount per meal (around 20g vs 40g.)
But sure, like the article mentions. Calorie reduction goes hand in hand with protein reduction, especially if you’re eating excessive protein.
If you have kidney problems you should probably not be on a high protein diet… By all means, go ask a doctor.
That’s true, but different from protein causing the kidney problems.
Extremely high protein diets have actually been linked to what’s called de novo kidney disease which means from the new.
Antipeptide is so odd to me, yall just hate it because the lookmaxer crowd coopted it, they are good overall
I don’t necessarily care what movement coopted it, I care that it’s become a favorite of health grifters. What may be legitimate is completely overshadowed by quickly churned out low effort crap, just like supplements. I care that as an American, completely unregulated substances that may or may not actually be peptides have become the official government stance at the expense of funding literally any form of healthcare.
I’m talking about regulated prescribed petptides, they have been getting approved, it isn’t 10 years ago, and they weren’t new then, had successful trials for years
Tell that to Bryan Johnson. His peptide cocktail gave him an autoimmune disease that will kill him.
Biochemist here, peptides are 99% dangerous bullshit.
And I’m talking about how legitimate peptides are now becoming overshadowed by the grift economy.
Oh great, first salad and now meat.
Man cannot live on bread alone.
I have some bad news for you about bread…
Bread makes you fat?!
Yeah, bread is carbohydrates and your body turns all carbohydrates into glucose in your blood, however high blood sugar isn’t great so the body releases insulin to get blood sugar back to normal… the insulin forces your fat cells to take in all this new glucose (that’s how it lowers your blood sugar)…
Therefore - bread makes you fat.
I don’t think it’s beneficial to look at bread so reductively. Effects of bread on weight (or health) depend on the type of bread, quantity, and the person having it.
For example I eat homemade sourdough bread with lentils and greens. And I’m very lean. Eddie hall also eats some sourdough btw.
For thousands of years, we ate bread and didn’t get fat. It’s been a fundamental source of nutrition so much so that it has become a synonym for food.
Hot tip: don’t eat a loaf for breakfast.
Humans lived thousands of years on bread and fish without obesity.
Yeah but we evolved for 2.5 million years of survival before bread was invented…
my rye bread and baguettes with lots of fillings disagree with your claim of spiking blood sugar :D
Sure, they have lots of honeyed things to say! get a CGM and wear it for two weeks, it’s eye opening!
No, just no. You can’t take bread from me, it’s all i have left.
David Mitchell has your back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5bKN6xP8Kk&t=26s
I actually watch that show. It’s one of my favorites.
It’s quite interesting :)
I am not a mouse, insect, … You cannot generalize diet from cross studies like this. Different species have different abilities to process things
Studies in mine lead to studies in humans, and the process saves time and is safer and is generally somewhat applicable. Does it always work out? No. The problem is media reporting studies in mice as canonical truth for humans when studies need to happen in humans - but studies in mice are valuable and directly lead to improvements in human health.
I didn’t say mice studies were not valuable I said they can generalize to humans. You cannot get better data by mixing mice studies with human. Particularly with diet where we have evolved to eat different diets.
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First of all because they are cheap and easy. Mice can live in a small cage, don’t eat much, and don’t live long. Mice also can be forced to eat whatever diet you want, (unlike humans - nearly all diet studied in humans should result in “in conclusion we were unable to get the subjects to eat their assigned diet”) That means you can do a study in a lab quick and cheap.
While mice don’t generalize, there is a lot we can learn from them. We just need to remember the limits of mice studies and not generalize to anything other than mice (and even mice is questionable since lab mice are often genetically different from wild mice, sometimes intentionally). So long as you remember the limits mice are valuable.
studies in mice are valuable and directly lead to improvements in human health.
Or, they waste decades of time and billions of dollars studying an artifact of rodent biology not relevant to humans. Most rodent research does not work out in humans. They are not universal models of diseases.
uhh … cellular biology between humans and coconut is like 90% similar … at a fundamental level
If 100% of studies do not lead to direct improvements for humans, then, we must give up all the ones that do because you don’t like that all of them do? That seems counterproductive to me. Because mice studies have absolutely contributed to benefits to humans. That’s why they do them. If they didn’t lead to success, people motivated by trying to improve things for humans AND people motivated purely by profit WOULD NOT DO THEM.
Oh no, RFK Jr is wrong?
If its wrong to have a nice soak in a hot tub with jorts on, I don’t want to be right.
We can’t drink raw milk in a hot tub with Kid Rock?
You bet your sweet gun toten ass we can
this makes sense. I have not been on, because its a pita, cron but have followed the studies. A study showed just restricting methionine in mice without the calorie restriction showed the effect and a further study showed glycine supplementation (glycine helps the body get rid of excess methionine) also did. Now vegans would be something like the methionine elimination group because its high in muscle meat and bone broth bros would be like the glycine supplementation as there is a lot of that in broth.
