Study on protein -- eat as much as you want

(Bob M) #1

They used an isotropic tracer to figure out where protein went, although this was done AFTER exercise. (Not sure what happens if you don’t exercise.)

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#2

It seems quite thorough, I haven’t read everything but probably got the gist :wink: No surprise here… They mentioned the animals, I had the same thoughts whenever I heard about humans and their supposed ideally super tiny meals (at least protein wise tiny)… It never made sense and many of us proved that we don’t need many tiny meals in order not to get muscle atrophy… :wink:

I am sure exercise matters a lot here, I am a tad curious about the same without exercise. Of course I know we still can use protein in a single big portion but there may be changes…
And I personally wonder about 150-200g protein. 100g was used as the biggest feasible amount but many of us very easily eat way more protein at once, sometimes I really need 150g as I can’t get satiated without it… And my protein need probably isn’t even so high, I am not tall or muscular or even male…

I wonder why there is such an obviously wrong myth about protein… Such studies provide some concrete data (even if they are inevitably limited) so they are useful anyway but it’s quite obvious we use more than a tiny protein per meal so we should know at least that… I still wonder about snakes, they work quite differently from us :smiley: We aren’t that “good” but we are humans, not shrews, we don’t need to eat tiny food all the time…

(Bob M) #3

Yeah, I was going to read it all at lunch, and I only got partway through. I also would have liked them to try a higher protein level, say 150 grams in addition to 100g. And, like you, I don’t know what happens if you’re not exercising.

For instance, I’ve been drinking raw milk with some collagen peptides and whey protein on the days I do body weight training. But I also drink the same on days I jog and on days I don’t exercise. What happens there? I don’t know.

I think of muscles as being “sinks” for protein and carbs…you eat higher protein and carbs after exercising your muscles, and there’s somewhere for that to go. What happens when you’re not exercising muscles (and I don’t think jogging the way I do exercises muscles very much).

I tried 100g of carbs after body weight training one day, and the same 100g the next day when not exercising. The day with exercising was fine. The next day, I got tired in the afternoon, I was hungrier, etc. All the bad things that happened to me when I was high carb. Could something like that happen with higher protein and no exercise? I’m not sure.

#4

Your carb experiment makes perfect sense, we know muscles use the carbs so they had somewhere to go instead of bothering you.

I need to eat about the same, almost no matter the exercise as I am hungry the same (of course, there is variety but it doesn’t dependent on exercise - at least if it’s not very much but I rarely have that)… My SO is the same and even our fat mass doesn’t matter, we have some amount of food we need for satiation, even if it means overeating. At least my food choices help a lot in my case…

So I can’t just eat less food or protein when I am not active at all. I just try to be a bit active every day (I fail but I exercise something on the majority of my days, most if the weather is nice).

I don’t think high protein is harmful for most of us. Super high is a problem but few people eat that much. Merely unnecessarily high seems to be okay, maybe it’s a tiny burden for the body, unnecessary extra work but I don’t think it is often a problem… Of course I don’t know, I just experience things and hear about others. People rarely notice problems on high-protein keto due to high protein as far as I know.
My body clearly communicated it needs its high protein and most of it (but ideally all) in a small eating window so I do that. It’s just reassuring experiments show we actually use the more protein well, just like other animals…

I definitely felt fine after a lunch containing 150g protein, I don’t remember my activity that day but it definitely wasn’t much. A tiny walk or arm exercise, at most.

I know what I would feel after eating 25g protein (for my first meal): huge, unbearable (for me) hunger… Under most circumstances in most cases, at least. One can never know but I almost never can pull off a tiny first meal. I experimented a tiny bit with eating a decent sized meal but with low protein but that inevitably results in a serious overeating afterwards (and the protein won’t stay low either) and that is in conflict with my goals… Fat fast being the only exception. I should try it out again, it was so long ago. Just for a day to see if anything changed…

#5

Because it’s cheaper for lazy docs to do cheap labs and use bad proxies for kidney health than to do more expensive ones that check it directly. Higher protein diets, especially in people with low muscle mass doesn’t utilize it all, and since we only burn protein as a fuel in extreme cases the blood amino levels stay high and raises creatinine. Since Creatinine is used as a proxy to judge kidney function (eGFR) they made the assumption that having a high eGFR meant impaired kidney function, which it can, but they don’t take the context of why it’s high into consideration and therfor came to the conclusion that high creatinine and lowered eGFR means that kidney function is becoming impaired.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #6

The availability of a drug to treat an “abnormal” test reading is also a factor in what tests insurance companies will pay for.

#7

But why people think we can’t use more than a tiny amount of protein per meal when it’s glaringly obvious without any test that it’s false…? I don’t get THAT. So many people eat few meals (like 1-2) without problems… Oh whatever, it’s not my personal problem, at least as I never listened to basically anyone when it came to my eating - especially when something was plain impossible for me. If I am still hungry for more protein and food, I can’t possibly stop.

(Bob M) #8

I think part of the problem is that many believe we should decrease our protein intake, not increase it. Like this for instance:

Here, the low group ate less than 10% of their calories from protein. Gulp! (If you’re eating 2000 calories, 10% is 200 calories, or 50g of protein per day.)

Edit: and the “high” group ate 20%, a mere 100g of protein, a day.

#9

We should eat the right amount (range), be it increase, decrease or whatever. Few people need to decrease though, probably.

I don’t care about such results as I doubt they can make it really clean and informative. There are so many factors and they can’t just keep everything fixed but the protein intake (it’s not possible with different people anyway but some effort can be made that may or may not be good enough).
And they used percentage… Our ideal or minimum or maximum protein need is at different percentages. A low percentage may mean the one is a very active person who needs way more energy (while the protein need can’t go up so much) or that the person eats too little protein. A very high percentage (not like it was in the study) may come from eating very little food or massively overeating protein (though that’s tricky and probably one experiences problems but some people are good at forcing down unnecessary protein).
Our need is in grams, not percentage… I don’t really care about my percentage, only my grams. My percentages are more fixed than my grams… They may look great but I may eat very wrong. But our need in grams is different too…

50g protein is a common number, I saw it as minimum for people with some nothing special stats, many people actually eat that little… It even works for some…

I usually eat 30-35% protein on my okay days, by the way. Less means overeating, the smaller the number, the more severe. Not 100% but more than 99… More (up to 40%) probably means undereating but maybe I just ate unusually lean, not like it’s something I normally do even when I really try.
But if I was more active with muscle gain goals, not fat-loss ones, these numbers would drop somewhat. Just like they do on overeating days. I had days where my protein was just a bit above 20%, I just ate 200-250g protein then… But leaner days happened so there are chance for only 130-150g protein at 20%.

So percentages are even way less informative than grams.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #10

Scary, isn’t it? :scream:

(Bob M) #11

Here’s what I think happens. That study was based on FFQs, which are worthless in my opinion. However, assuming the people eating 50g a day or less of protein were telling the truth, these people are really, really, really trying to be healthy. They likely are thinner, don’t have diabetes, don’t smoke, make more money, are more religious or even very religious, exercise more, etc. (And I know this study probably said they “adjusted” for all these variables, but trust me – that’s not possible.)

So, it most likely has nothing to do with the amount of protein they ate.

@PaulL I think it’s ridiculous. And a recipe for getting frail, falling, and dying of a broken bone.

As for protein, I do think it’s possible to overeat it. One time, I ate something like 220+ grams of protein in a single meal with low fat. That made me sick to my stomach, and I did not feel good.

However, 160 or so grams of lean protein was fine.

And these are all after exercising, so I’m not sure I would try these on a normal day. Maybe higher protein on days I exercise and lower when I don’t? An interesting test.

#12

It is, merely not common. Some people manage to overeat protein to the point of protein toxicity if that is the term.
Some of us have some great built-in guide. I don’t need to worry about unhealthily little or much protein, I don’t seem to be capable to eat too little (at all) or overly much (on average. some days are very high protein but I never feel bad).
But we know many people undereat protein (even if they could eat more. I mean, of course most people undereat protein as a huge percentage of humanity can’t afford proper food to begin with), it must be quite common unlike massively overeating protein. Though very enthusiastic and not very knowledgeable amateur body builders probably do it in a big percentage… (Many uses steroids too enthusiastically and early too, that may “balance” it out somewhat…)

I would like to try eating very high protein to see what happens but fat is impossible to keep that low. If I eat 200g protein (not at once), I almost surely eat about 200 g fat as well. And this combo is pretty satiating. But sometimes I fancy leaner food, I just stop wanting protein somewhere over 200g and desire fat instead. So my body guides me well, I suppose it works the same for very many people. And not well for some others.
I still wish to try eating lean one day, I am curious about what exactly would happen. But as long as it’s really challenging to go down to 60% fat, it’s not realistic to go even way lower (without getting SUPER determined, maybe).

Apropos fat. The experiments were made with lean protein. What if it comes with plenty of fat? I have some thoughts but I am half-asleep and don’t know enough so I just stop here. But the body should use the protein well either way so probably no major change…?
It’s so normal to eat fat with protein anyway. It would be quite serious if humans couldn’t function just fine doing it :wink:

(Michael) #13

I did not bother reading the paper since the summary was sufficient to say, yep, all things i mentioned a year ago when I was researching protein. Your body can use protein for hours after consumption, not just within a short time span. This idea came about in regards to the concept that proteins were instantly used since we have no protein deposits outside of muscle. Our bodies are not that rigid and proteins are slow to digest to allow usage over an extended timeframe as per
“Postprandial protein anabolism remains elevated during prolonged hyperaminoacidemia”.

Probably the second reason is a push from the vegan community to reduce meat (high protein intake) and justify this with the limiting concept to encourage lower intakes.

(KM) #14

I’d add this bit of common sense: animals are hard to catch, kills are hard to protect, and meat spoils quickly. No self respecting predator would have limited themselves to a few polite nibbles every few hours. Impossible for me to think evolution could favor that eating pattern for meat.

#15

@kib1: I totally agree. And while I understand we animals are extremely different, humans are pretty far from small cats or shrews, for example (they are quite different too but smaller, more frequent meals suits both, the shrews need to eat all the time and the small cats typically catch small prey), we belong to the ones who can fast for long (not the longest but it’s not bad), a bigger hunt is totally a thing too… We can’t eat a ton at once though. Sometimes I wish I was a snake for a while. When it gets very tiresome eating very often (every day and possibly multiple times, it’s so frequent for a long living one! especially that humans ten d to overcomplicate cooking too… and we need to get many ingredients. shopping isn’t my hobby).
So we can’t eat for a week or month in advance (we need to eat well for a longer time to get away with such a long fast) but it would be super annoying if we needed to eat many times a day just not to get muscle atrophy… How anyone could think it is so? It’s not how humans in the past ate… It’s not how many of us eat either…

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #16

That is reminiscent of the experiment on Stefansson and Andersen, who were asked at one point to eat lean meat, and who experienced symptoms similar to yours:

Preliminary observations while on a mixed diet were started in the metabolism ward, February 13, 1928. Stefansson took his meals in the ward but slept at home. On February 26, 1928, he was admitted to the ward and on February 28, started on the meat diet. At our request he began eating lean meat only, although he had previously noted, in the North, that very lean meat sometimes produced digestive disturbances. On the 3rd day nausea and diarrhea developed. When fat meat was added to the diet, a full recovery was made in 2 days. (McClellan & DuBois, 1930)