Our Preoccupation With Protein Intake (substack.com)
- Reference: 0178965964
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/09/01/143252/our-preoccupation-with-protein-intake
- Source link: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/our-preoccupation-with-protein-intake
Recent research from Washington University identified the essential amino acid leucine as activating mTOR in macrophages, promoting atherosclerosis progression. The mechanism was demonstrated in both mouse models and human studies measuring circulating monocyte changes following acute high-protein challenges increasing dietary protein from 22% to 50% of energy intake. Current USDA data indicates 55% of American men and 35% of women already exceed the 0.8 g/kg/day recommendation from the National Academy of Medicine. The protein supplement industry, exemplified by David bars containing 28 grams of protein in 150 calories using a modified plant fat called EPG, projects $180 million in 2025 sales.
[1] https://erictopol.substack.com/p/our-preoccupation-with-protein-intake
Our preoccupation? (Score:2)
Yours perhaps. I have never even considered my protein intake.
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Americans spent $13B on protein supplements last year.
That's about $40 per person.
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Go into any supermarket in the UK and look at the shelves. At least 33% of the pre-packaged food products will be screaming "PROTEIN!" from their labels in big bold letters. You want yoghurt with 50% more protein? How about some soup, now with 34% more protein? Chocolate pudding with 68% added protein! Protein pancakes, protein cereal, protein bars, 500g of protein in every 100g! COME GET YER PROTEIN!
Every product that could possibly
have protein added to it has had it added and used as marketing. Somehow,
Bizarre angle re EAT recommendations (Score:1)
"A review of .. found no evidence supporting intake beyond 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight daily,"
Okay, so there is no evidence supporting intake BEYOND 1.6 grams per day. That kind of implies from the wording that there is evidence supporting UP TO 1.6 grams per day.
However, the EAT commission recommends 100 grams of red meat per week, about 500 grams meat/fish total: [1]https://eatforum.org/lancet-co... [eatforum.org]
500 grams of meat contains roughly about 130 grams of protein.
Unless we are talking a truly gigantic
[1] https://eatforum.org/lancet-commission/eatinghealthyandsustainable/
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> Okay, so there is no evidence supporting intake BEYOND 1.6 grams per day. That kind of implies from the wording that there is evidence supporting UP TO 1.6 grams per day.
No, it does not imply that. Just like ruling out you did not murder your mother in 2024 does not imply you murdered her in 2023.
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They're also making the weird assumption that only meat contains protein.
It's a shame that all of the world's vegans (let alone vegetarians) have spontaneously died of protein deficiency.
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TL;DR: There is limited evidence for eating up to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight daily for increasing muscle mass IF you are younger than middle age and doing a lot of resistance training, but the upper limit of usefulness might actually be lower than 1.6. There is also evidence that eating too much protein increases the risk of atherosclerosis. It's not clear where the threshold for increased risk is; it is probably between 1 and 1.6 g/kg. Meanwhile the protein influencer and supplement industry is
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1.6 grams per kg per day is actually quite a lot of protein. For people who are in a vegetarian (or reduced meat) lifestyle, it's easy to eat much less protein than that.
Re: Bizarre angle re EAT recommendations (Score:2)
EAT does not recommend 100g per week of red meat. They recommend a *maximum* of (no more than) 98g per week. A subtle difference in language but a huge difference in meaning.
To put this in perspective (Score:3)
Thatâ(TM)s like eating 10 chicken breasts per day.
Thatâ(TM)s 7 1/2 pounds of meat per day.
That could also be 14 scoops of a protein shake.
While I appreciate some scientific information here, I think they are talking about a truly excessive amount of protein.
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> Thatâ(TM)s like eating 10 chicken breasts per day. .
At 56 g protein per chicken breast, that's 560g. At the discussed level of intake (1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight daily,) you are talking about someone who weighs 350 kg.
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Try to read the summary again... slowly and it helps to move your lips.
The summary states 0.6 g/kg, not 1.6 g/kg
Math is hard.
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> Try to read the summary again... slowly and it helps to move your lips.
> The summary states 0.6 g/kg, not 1.6 g/kg
Maybe take your own advice? from TFS
> found no evidence supporting intake beyond 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight
In fact, 0.6g/kg is nowhere in the summary, the recommended amount is 0.8g/kg.
> Math is hard.
Especially true when merely reading TFS is hard.
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You haven't been on a fitness forum for a while then.
The obsession with protein by some (many?) is kind of insane, trying to get 40g+ each meal, plus shakes on top of that, exceeding 200g per day.
Also, don't forget protein recommendations are for lean body mass, not total body mass. There are online calculators for this, and your lean body mass is a lot lower than you'd think, meaning you really don't need all that much protein, even for athletes.
Glad to see this research coming out, I've been wondering wha
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Incidentally, it's relatively easy to know if you are eating excess protein, because the excess mostly comes out in your urine. If your urine gets slightly thick, then you've been eating too much protein, and have been peeing it out.
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Your math sucks. Let's say you weigh 200 pounds, which (per the above) means you need a maximum of 0.73g * 200 = 146 grams of protein.
According to Google, chicken has 123g of protein per pound ... which means that at 200 lbs. a person only needs about 1.15 lbs. of chicken to hit the daily max.
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Why are you using grams per pound? I mean, I understand not using the SI measurements, but at least stick to only one system. The original article cites 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. I make that to be 0.0256 ounces per pound. Though I have no idea what unit of measure you use for stuff smaller than an ounce over there. 25.6 milliounces?
Worth noting (Score:2)
It's worth noting that current nutrition guidelines pegs recommended protein @ ~50 grams a day for an adult male, which is far below the 1.6 grams discussed in this article.
Let's take your average 160lb dude. That's around 72kgs. The article says there's no benefit beyond 1.6 grams per kg, so he should be eating 115.2 grams per day, far exceeding the "recommended" amount of ~50 grams.
My observations (Score:2)
Here comes a data-point of one, which makes this simply an anecdote...
When I work out hard (resistance training to beyond failure) I find that consuming protein at around 1.6-1.8g per kilo of body weight significantly improves my recovery time -- perhaps because of the effect on muscle-protein synthesis which seems to be optimal at this level.
Working out hard with lower levels of protein intake adds at least a day to my recovery so it's easy to see why, given the fixation on strength and fitness that abound
It's never been about protein (Score:2)
Carbs, Fats, Fiber and Proteins. That is about all we eat.
Carbs and fats are the things we love to overeat. Nobody really likes fiber.
That leaves protein. We can eat more protein without ballooning up. So people make all protein diets. It's something we an eat and lose weight.
Do you want protein with that? (Score:2)
What really bugs me is that when I go to a restaurant and order some vegan type entree, the waitperson will often ask if I want to add some "protein with that" by offering to put a slab of meat on top of it.
This is profound ignorance of the protein content of plant food (or maybe just commercial up selling greed).
Huh? (Score:3)
Was this written by a human? I understand that the language used by experts in a sector can be rather terse, but this doesn't seem to be formatted in a way meant to be understood by anyone else than a specialist. And even then I'd have my doubts on whether it is actually meant to convey an actual message.
Re: Huh? (Score:3)
Excess protein is not necessary and can be harmful by up-regulating things (mTOR) that can lead to vascular disease. Americans overdosing on protein.
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There's also this weird notion among a large percentage of the population that a high-protein diet is "natural" and is what our ancestors ate. Certainly *some* hunter-gatherers ate a lot of protein (there's a great deal of diversity in traditional diets), but the mean hunter-gatherer society did not. In areas rich in sago, for example, it's common for ~75% of calories to be from sago alone (nearly pure carbs), and in extreme cases up to 90% - not counting other plants on top of that - with much of the prot
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"Americans overdosing on protein."
Nothing in the summary or the article supports that claim.
The article makes one claim in this regard: "Yet the most recent data from USDA says the federal protein recommendation is exceeded by more than 55% of men and 35% of women. "
It then provides a single link to support that claim: [1]https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUs... [usda.gov]
Seems legit, until you look at the citation. In the data, first, the time frame is pre pandemic and the subjects are filtered against an unstated BMI, then
[1] https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80400530/pdf/usual/Usual_Intake_gender_WWEIA_2017_March%202020.pdf
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There is certainly argot but it is clear to me as a non-specialist.
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The summary is quoting actual science. I know this may be unfamiliar to you since it is so rare.
Most nutrition advice is "popularized" by skipping the details and actual science and posting extreme clickbait titles which draw views but distort the science.
Let me put it this way:
- Most people eat too much protein.
- Eating too much protein is bad for you.
- The protein supplement industry is a scam.
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I thought it was an attempt to be subtle about advertising David bars, whatever they are. (Yes, I could Google it. No, I don't see the need).