I enjoyed this article. http://www.ketotic.org/2012/08/if-you-eat-excess-protein-does-it-turn.html
This made me wonder what happens to excess protein? As far as I understand, excess protein is not stored by the body as protein but must be converted. The article implies that this excess is not converted to glucose, so what happens? Is it excreted or converted to fat?
All Iâve been hearing is that too much protein is not good for you. I believe you have to balance it with the right amount of fat. Someone please correct me if Iâm wrong. Dr. ken Berry has a youtube video on too much protein.
Thereâs no such thing as âtoo muchâ protein, unless you do nothing but eat protein.
There are many overeating studies where higher protein = lower (or no) weight gain. I think itâs assumed that youâre either converting it to fuel, using it for repair, or generally disposing of it.
Iâm after a definitive answer.
Protein is for building, maintaining and repairing muscle/organs, not really a fuel source. Carbs and fats are fuel sources. So, what happens to excess protein above and beyond what is needed for the above?
@ctviggen you say âconverted to fuelâ, do you mean gluconeogenesis or something else? The article says gluconeogensis does not happen because itâs demand driven, not supply driven.
Good luck with that.
The truth is we donât know. But that it seems like if you follow your hunger and not a computer that tells you what to eat, most people eat the protein they need naturally. It doesnât cause any addictive behaviour like carbs do, so we can trust our hunger and craving signals when it comes to protein. Barring a medical reason that Iâm unaware of. So if we overeat protein on a given day, it is likely that we just wonât feel like eating as much on the next day.
There are formulas to figure out what amount of protein one should eat. And that is the same amount most people naturally do.
Too much will spike your insulin and will take you out of ketosis. Total amount is often over estimated.
According to Healthline.com
"Excess protein consumed is usually stored as fat, while the surplus of amino acids is excreted. "
That seems to be the prevailing answer out there.
But this simplyshredded.com article which cites some studies, points out that context matters a lot. For example, what is the body composition of the person when they are consuming âtoo muchâ protein? It also suggests that protein may be first turned to glucose and stored as glycogen, adding water weight at the same time. It goes on to conclude that under normal and slightly hypercaloric conditions it may not store as fat at all.
Here it is again, folks, for your reading enjoyment:
Executive Summary: Gluconeogenesis is demand driven, not supply driven. The contention that âexcessâ protein will be converted to glucose is many years outdated. Both fat and protein can be and will be utilized to synthesize glucose. Although some amino acids are more easily utilized to synthesize glucose, the process is controlled by glucagon not how much protein you eat. Protein in excess of necessary maintenance/repair becomes expensive calories not glucose.
This connects to one question Iâve had for a while: if protein is use either to reconstruct body tissues, or for energy, why is it always quoted as 4 kcal per gram?
For example, suppose you lift hard on Monday, so that you need more protein to rebuild and heal your muscles. So presumably more of your protein on Monday (and soon after?) goes to rebuilding muscle and is not used for energy.
A few days later you donât lift, and youâre in protein excess, so more of your protein eaten that day is used for energy instead. The basic CICO models donât seem to deal with this dual role of protein in the body when they quote a simple 4 kcal/g.
Itâs because every bit of protein is eventually burned. If you eat zero protein today your body will still burn a certain amount of your bodyâs lean mass. There is turnover. Every day some lean is burned as energy. This is why we always have to eat protein to replace what is lost.
Thanks! This was such a sensible response and cleared up a question Iâve had for a long time.
I wonder, does it make sense to say that if youâre in protein balance, and you eat (say) 100 g / day, youâre also burning 100 g / day of protein for energy ⌠itâs just not the same protein that you ate. Instead, itâs the old remnants of protein that the body is recycling.
It may be the prevailing answer, but it is wrong. Firstly, there is no such thing as âproteinâ running around our bodies, there are only amino acids. (This is similar to how we say âcarbohydrateâ when we are really talking about glucose.) The proteins we eat are all proteolysed (broken down into their constituent amino acids) in the digestive tract, and proteins that have become damaged or that have reached the end of their lifespans are also proteolysed (the key process in autophagy, by the way). A complete protein molecule is far too complex to be turned into fatty acids, and even its amino acid components would first need to be deaminated (stripped of their nitrogenâactually ammoniaâmolecule) before they could be metabolised, excreted, or turned into fatty acids.
The body maintains a pool of amino acids available for building proteins as needed, but the capacity of the pool is limited. A certain quantity of amino acids can be stored, apart from the labile pool, by being bonded to some other molecule (I forget the details, and have lost the link to the paper describing the process, sorry). But all told, the bodyâs ability to store amino acids (protein) is quite limited.
Furthermore, there is an irreducible daily protein loss, which is why protein is so important to our diet. Some of the amino acids are used, as needed, for the process of gluconeogenesis, and some amino acids are deaminated for the purpose of freeing nitrogen to be turned into nitric oxide (NO), the key regulator of blood pressure.
Any excess nitrogen is put through the uric acid cycle and turned into urea for excretion in the urine. Any excess deamination products are either metabolised or excreted. Sometimes proteins escape autophagy and get excreted in the urine, a condition called proteinuria, which is usually a sign of some kind of health problem.
TMI: Proteins are so complex because they are not merely assemblages of amino acids, they are folded in particular ways that are essential to their proper functioning in the body. Not only that, but every protein has a lifespan, some of those lifespans being measured in years, others in minutes and even seconds.
The article just talks about glucose being endogenously produced (GNG) but it fails to cover that it is also engaging insulin (protein is high on the insulin index) which may not be a bad thing but is also no different than over-eating carbohydrates or dietary fats, when you over-eat protein which is pretty self-defeating and self-explanatory i.e. when you over-eat and only eat protein it makes you further intolerant to oxidizing glucose/carbohydrates. (thatâs a hard to dispute fact)
Very sad when I see people doing that because it is this mirage of thinking eating only protein is whatâs making them better which is in fact the case when they donât over-eat it in one sitting, then when they donât see this rise in glucose they think hey I can eat more when it is the insulin thatâs bringing down the glucose from GNG, that is no different than over-eating carbohydrates?
It is not the protein that makes people better it is the fact they are going on and off into fasting type of autophagy ketosis when only eating protein, that has nothing to do with the meat and all the non-scientific gobble de goop they try to spill and spin about protein and amino acids is a very weak argument about making their health betterâŚlol
When you eat that pasta without that dietary fat thatâs when you run into problems it is not because your eating only meat or more of it.
Eating only protein and no carbohydrates proves one thing, that autophagy is real and only therapeutic and not a permanant solution.
You have to remember if your not eating carbohydrates and only eating animal protein or otherwise that you are fasting or mimicking a person that is fasting extensively and transitioning through the different phases of autophagy.
The human body does not know the difference between dietary protein or itâs own protein so it basically eats itself in the absence of carbohydrates so your basically still burning GNG sugar and using insulin especially when you fast too much or over-eat protein.
Dr Benjamin Bikman discusses in this video about how people on keto shouldnât fear overeating protein. Well worth the watch.
