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Wisdom Wednesdays: How much does the type and timing of your protein matter? · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

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  Speaker 1: Everyone, Welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. Now, you
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  Speaker 1: will have heard me talk ad nauseum about the importance
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  Speaker 1: of adequate protein so that we can sustain our muscle
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  Speaker 1: mass and our bone density as we get older.
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  Speaker 2: And you've also heard me talk about.
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  Speaker 1: As you get older, our ability to turn over protein
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  Speaker 1: what's called muscle protein synthesis, is actually degraded, which is
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  Speaker 1: why as you get older you need more protein intake. Now,
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  Speaker 1: there's lots of research and discussion in the research about
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  Speaker 1: how much protein is actually required, and also the timing
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  Speaker 1: of that protein. Does it need to be spread evenly
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  Speaker 1: throughout the day or can there be big chunks of
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  Speaker 1: it at certain times unless at other times.
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  Speaker 2: And then the other.
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  Speaker 1: Question is about the source of the protein, whether it
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  Speaker 1: is better getting your protein from animal sources, or if
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  Speaker 1: you're vegetarian or vegan, does that protein that you're getting
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  Speaker 1: from plant breas stuff is it enough to stimulate muscle
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  Speaker 1: protein synthesis.
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  Speaker 2: So, just for a.
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  Speaker 1: Little bit of background before I talk about the study
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  Speaker 1: that attempted to answer these questions. Basically, the capacity of
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  Speaker 1: a protein source to stimulate muscle protein synthesis is generally
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  Speaker 1: determined by its content of essential amino acids, all of
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  Speaker 1: which are required to fuel this metabolic process, hence they're
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  Speaker 1: called essential amino acids. And then the next thing is
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  Speaker 1: about its digestibility, or how much of the amino acids
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  Speaker 1: from the protein are made available to scaletal muscle when
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  Speaker 1: they pass through your digestive system. Now, lots of research
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  Speaker 1: has suggested that plant based protein sources are less anabolic
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  Speaker 1: muscle building and than animal based protein sources because they
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  Speaker 1: contain fewer essential amino acids and are often deficient in
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  Speaker 1: at least one essential amino acid. And additionally, evidence from
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  Speaker 1: several studies suggest that plant based proteins are also less digestible. Now,
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  Speaker 1: in some of the studies that provide participants with protein,
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  Speaker 1: whether that's animal based source or plant based sourced, what
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  Speaker 1: they find is that the post prandial that's after you've
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  Speaker 1: eaten and muscle protein synthesis rates were higher when the
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  Speaker 1: animal based protein source was ingested. However, the dose of
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  Speaker 1: protein in these studies was generally and less than the
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  Speaker 1: third grams that were kind of thinking might be a
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  Speaker 1: bit of a cut off for stimulating muscle protein synthesis,
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  Speaker 1: and was derived from a single source, which is typically
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  Speaker 1: not what we tend to do when we're eating, especially
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  Speaker 1: eating meals. You don't just have your protein from one source,
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  Speaker 1: particularly if you're vegetarian or vegan. Now, there is also
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  Speaker 1: evidence from other studies that indicates that when the dose
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  Speaker 1: of protein is at least thirty grams in one meal,
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  Speaker 1: the muscle protein synthesis and then the activation of what's
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  Speaker 1: called m tors signaling pathway that basically drives that anabolic process.
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  Speaker 1: The suggestion is it doesn't differ between plant based and
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  Speaker 1: animal pre sources if you're eating at least thirty grams
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  Speaker 1: in one go. And also studies have shown that muscle
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  Speaker 1: protein synthesis was found not to differ between plant based
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  Speaker 1: and anoma based sources when the protein was derived from
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  Speaker 1: multiple plant be its sources, which is important because as
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  Speaker 1: I alluded to you earlier, and that is more representative
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  Speaker 1: of how people eat in practice. So here was a
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  Speaker 1: study that I found very interesting which looked at different
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  Speaker 1: groups of people in a nine day randomized control trial,
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  Speaker 1: all consisting of young adults that concerned either a vegan
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  Speaker 1: or omnivorous diet with a balanced or an unbalanced protein
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  Speaker 1: distribution throughout the day, right, And what that basically means
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  Speaker 1: is that there was one group who had an omnivorous
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  Speaker 1: diet including some animal stuff and some plant stuff. The
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  Speaker 1: protein source from for these guys throughout the day seventy
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  Speaker 1: percent from what it was from meat, and they at
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  Speaker 1: five small meals a day to spread that protein out
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  Speaker 1: throughout the day, and basically they had twenty percent of
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  Speaker 1: the total daily protein in each meal. So these were
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  Speaker 1: the guys that were in the omnivorous balanced group. Then
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  Speaker 1: they had an omnivorous unbalanced group. So again seventy percent
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  Speaker 1: of their protein source was for meat. They got the
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  Speaker 1: same amount of total protein, but it was spread over
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  Speaker 1: three meals a day, and instead of being thirty three
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  Speaker 1: percent in each meal, they had ten percent of breakfast,
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  Speaker 1: which is often really what happens. People need a very
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  Speaker 1: low quality protein or low protein breakfast, and then thirty
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  Speaker 1: percent from lunch and then sixty percent from dinner. And
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  Speaker 1: that's what you see quite often is people what we
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  Speaker 1: call they battload their protein, eat most of their protein
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  Speaker 1: at dinner.
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  Speaker 2: So this was looking at kind of real world stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Then you had two vegan groups that were pretty much
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  Speaker 1: the same as those two groups one hundred percent of
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  Speaker 1: their protein source was from plants. The first group was
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  Speaker 1: spread over five mills a day, twenty percent of the
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  Speaker 1: protein in each meal, and then the second group, the
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  Speaker 1: same as the other group in the omnivorous diet, was
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  Speaker 1: three meals a day, ten percent of breakfast, thirty percent
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  Speaker 1: at lunch, and sixty percent at dinner.
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  Speaker 2: And they also completed.
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  Speaker 1: Three bouts of supervised resistance training during the study over
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  Speaker 1: the nine days, and they measured their muscle protein synthesis
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  Speaker 1: to see if they were any changes. Now, there were
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  Speaker 1: forty participants in this study. The average age was twenty five,
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  Speaker 1: their average BMI was twenty four, so they were healthy
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  Speaker 1: young people, and the diets were designed to maintain their
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  Speaker 1: body weight and contained one point one to one point
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  Speaker 1: two grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day.
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  Speaker 2: So that's probably just enough.
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  Speaker 1: Actually from the recommendations you've heard me talk about the
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  Speaker 1: old nzero point eight grams is just not enough, but
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  Speaker 1: certainly in young people that one point one to one
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  Speaker 1: point two seems to be enough.
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  Speaker 2: Now, I'm never start.
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  Speaker 1: Their protein was from a mix of beef, chicken, dirry,
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  Speaker 1: and pork, and they didn't actually mention the sources of
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  Speaker 1: protein in a vegan.
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  Speaker 2: Diet, which I'm really not sure why.
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  Speaker 1: And then, as I said, they followed them for a
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  Speaker 1: total of.
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  Speaker 2: Nine days and they analyzed.
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  Speaker 1: Their muscle protein synthesis at rates between the different groups,
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  Speaker 1: and what they find was that there was no difference
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  Speaker 1: between any of the groups in their muscle protein synthesis.
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  Speaker 1: And basically this is in agreement with some later research
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  Speaker 1: that actually shows that it doesn't really matter whether you
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  Speaker 1: spread that protein out evenly as long as you're consuming
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  Speaker 1: adequate amounts of protein throughout the day. And this is
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  Speaker 1: contrary to some of the early research that came out
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  Speaker 1: that said, actually you need to make sure that in
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  Speaker 1: every meal you're getting thirty grams of protein. And I've
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  Speaker 1: actually talked about that before. So this is a little
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  Speaker 1: bit surprising but encouraging because that's typically the way that
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  Speaker 1: people eat, is they tend to backload their protein into
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  Speaker 1: liater in the day. So this is actually supportive of
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  Speaker 1: some of the newer evidence. As I said earlier on,
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  Speaker 1: So the thinking for a while in the last few
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  Speaker 1: years is that muscle protein synthesis is a saturable process,
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  Speaker 1: in other words, ingesting a certain amount of protein maximizes
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  Speaker 1: the muscle protein synthesis response, and that was about thirty
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  Speaker 1: grams from the recent search, and ingesting a larger amount
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  Speaker 1: of protein doesn't actually give you any further benefit, and
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  Speaker 1: that's why people had said, if you're having more than
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  Speaker 1: thirty grams, you're probably wasting some of your protein, so
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  Speaker 1: you need to spread that evenly throughout the day. And
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  Speaker 1: the evidence from this comes from studies where participants consume
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  Speaker 1: protein and then they measure muscle protein census for a
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  Speaker 1: few hours, and it was fine that zero point two
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  Speaker 1: four to zero point four grams of protein per kilogram
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  Speaker 1: of body weight on averages, which kind of equates to
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  Speaker 1: around thirty grams when you average it. Rind that that
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  Speaker 1: seemed to maximize the muscle protein response, and that, in
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  Speaker 1: combination with the idea that activation of muscle protein synthesis
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  Speaker 1: is relatively short lived, that led to the recommendation to
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  Speaker 1: consume an amount of protein every four or five hours
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  Speaker 1: when you're awake to maximize your muscle protein synthesis rates
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  Speaker 1: throughout the day. However, more recent research is actually consistent
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  Speaker 1: with this study, because, for example, there's a study by
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  Speaker 1: Brad Schoenenberg who's he's probably the lead researcher in this
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  Speaker 1: and what he does is he in this study, he
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  Speaker 1: fed participants either twenty five grams or one hundred grams
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  Speaker 1: of protein, and that's a lot undergraunds of proteins, a lot,
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  Speaker 1: and he thought then measured their muscle protein synthesis rate
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  Speaker 1: and he found that after four hours there was no difference,
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  Speaker 1: and that's typically when the studies ended.
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  Speaker 2: But he then followed.
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  Speaker 1: Up for a total of twelve hours post consumption and
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  Speaker 1: found that the muscle protein synthesis rate was forty percent
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  Speaker 1: higher in that twelve hours overall when people consumed one
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  Speaker 1: hundred grams of protein. So that study, along with the
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  Speaker 1: one that I just mentioned, this current one and probably
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  Speaker 1: no tweaks the recommendations and certainly how I am thinking
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  Speaker 1: about the protein and the protein spread and as well
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  Speaker 1: as that has implications for intermittent fasting.
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  Speaker 2: So some of the.
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  Speaker 1: I guess the anti intermitting fasting brigade and I certainly
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  Speaker 1: had had some of this line of thinking was that basically,
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  Speaker 1: if you're fast until midday, that you're probably going to
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  Speaker 1: be cannibalizing your muscle. And look, this is true if
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  Speaker 1: you haven't had enough protein at dinner. So what these
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  Speaker 1: bits of research suggests collectively is that the typical eating
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  Speaker 1: pattern that we've had of backloading our protein throughout to
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  Speaker 1: the end of the day, as in having the most
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  Speaker 1: a bit at dinner is actually not a bad idea
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  Speaker 1: because with Brad Schoenenberg's research, it's going to sustain you
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  Speaker 1: over that at least twelve hour period after you've eaten,
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  Speaker 1: and you'll not be cannibalizing your muscle. So I think
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  Speaker 1: the take comes from this study and the other ones
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  Speaker 1: that I've mentioned as well, is it really if you're
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  Speaker 1: just a normal human, not an elite athlete or not
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  Speaker 1: a bodybuilder, who just wants to make sure that they
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  Speaker 1: are are not cannibalizing their muscle, then what type of
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  Speaker 1: protein you eat, whether it's vegetarian, vegan, or from animal products,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't really matter that much, and how you spread it
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  Speaker 1: doesn't matter that much as long as you are consuming
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  Speaker 1: adequate stuff, adequate amounts of protein throughout the day. And
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  Speaker 1: my reading of the research in order to be safe
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  Speaker 1: is that if you are younger i below, about fifty
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  Speaker 1: one point four to one point six grams of protein
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  Speaker 1: per kilogram of body weight will be sufficient unless you're
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  Speaker 1: doing a lot of endurance training, and then your needs
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  Speaker 1: actually go up. They don't go up so much if
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  Speaker 1: you're doing strength training, which is a bit counterintuitive, but
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  Speaker 1: you just become more efficient. And then when you get
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  Speaker 1: older post fifty, and I think definitely you need to
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  Speaker 1: be upping that to around the two grams of protein
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  Speaker 1: per kilogram per day. So there you have it, and
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  Speaker 1: I guess the other takeout from this study is that
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  Speaker 1: the research is always changing, so never say absolutely and
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  Speaker 1: never say never you look like an absolute dickhead in
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  Speaker 1: six months or a year from now. That's it for
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  Speaker 1: this week, folks, catch you next time.