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The science is clear about how much protein you really need: Wisdom Wednesdays · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

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  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. Today's
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  Speaker 1: episode is sparked by a recent social media post from
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  Speaker 1: a brilliant researcher, Professor Stu Phillips. He is one of
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  Speaker 1: the gurus of protein research, and as always, when somebody
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  Speaker 1: of that level of experience in protein metabolism makes a
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  Speaker 1: strong claim, it's worth paying attention. Now, his message was simple,
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  Speaker 1: one point six grams of protein per kilogram per day.
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  Speaker 1: That's the ceiling. And I love this because in a
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  Speaker 1: world where nutrition is often made unnecessarily complicated, this is
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  Speaker 1: pretty clean and it's actually very evidence based, and I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to explore that. Let's dive a little deeper because
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  Speaker 1: behind that statement is actually decades of research and multiple
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  Speaker 1: meta analysis. And let's start with the first one. So
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  Speaker 1: this was a systematic review meta analysis published in the
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  Speaker 1: Journal of Kekexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle, and they reviewed seventy
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  Speaker 1: four different randomized control trials which had a total of
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  Speaker 1: twenty six hundred and sixty five participants. So that's a
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  Speaker 1: pretty good sample size and a meta analysis, as you've
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  Speaker 1: heard me talk about, particularly of randomized control trials, that
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  Speaker 1: sits right at the top of the evidence pull here.
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  Speaker 1: And what the researchers did was they pulled all the
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  Speaker 1: data together from those seventy four control trials looking at
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  Speaker 1: protein supplementation combined with resistance training, and they specifically wanted
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  Speaker 1: to understand how increasing protein intake impacts lean body mass,
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  Speaker 1: impact strength, and impacts functional outcomes. And they did it
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  Speaker 1: importantly across different populations, trained, untrained, younger and older. And
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  Speaker 1: what they found was pretty bloody consistent muscle gains increase
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  Speaker 1: with protein intake up to one point six grams per
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  Speaker 1: kilogram of body weight per day, but beyond that the
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  Speaker 1: curve flattened pretty damn quickly, and there were no meaningful
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  Speaker 1: additional gains in muscle master strength above that intake. So
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  Speaker 1: this is where the idea of this ceiling of one
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  Speaker 1: point six grams. Now, there was when you look at
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  Speaker 1: the paper, a statistical upper confidence limit. So we have
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  Speaker 1: these confidence limits, and that was closer to two point
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  Speaker 1: two grams per kilograms a day. But it's not a recommendation,
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  Speaker 1: it's just a bit of variability in the data. The
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  Speaker 1: practical take home is you hit diminishing returns pretty hard
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  Speaker 1: at one point six grams per kilograms per day. So
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  Speaker 1: let's read round a few years, because this wasn't the
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  Speaker 1: first time that this kind of data showed up. In
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  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, Morching and colleagues did another systematic review in
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  Speaker 1: meta now Assistant that was published in the British Journal
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  Speaker 1: of Sports Medicine. In this there were forty nine studies
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  Speaker 1: and over eighteen hundred participants, and this was one of
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  Speaker 1: the landmark papers in this space. The authors used a
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  Speaker 1: similar concept. They pulled randomized control trials examining protein supplementation
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  Speaker 1: during resistance training, and they analyzed total protein intake, fat
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  Speaker 1: free mass changes and strength outcomes. And importantly, they modeled
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  Speaker 1: the dose response relationship, i e. Does do things get
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  Speaker 1: better as the dose of protein increases? And again there
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  Speaker 1: was almost identical findings to the paper I mentioned previously.
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  Speaker 1: Protein supple supplementation does absolutely help, especially in people not
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  Speaker 1: already consuming enough, but the benefits plateaued at that one
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  Speaker 1: point six grunds per kilograms per day, and there was
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  Speaker 1: no additional muscle gain in hypertrophy beyond that point. But interestingly,
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  Speaker 1: they also showed that you're training status matters and total
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  Speaker 1: training stimulus matters more than protein. Beyond that adequate amount,
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  Speaker 1: and that ties directly into Stu Phillips's point is what
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  Speaker 1: he said. He said lifting eye strength training is the
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  Speaker 1: main driver. Protein just supports it. Now, the question everyone asks,
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  Speaker 1: and Stu actually addressed this in this post, what about
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  Speaker 1: what I'm cutting? So this is you know bodybuilders who
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  Speaker 1: tend to put on a lot of way at first,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of muscle and extra calories to build a muscle,
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  Speaker 1: and then they cut the fat down they go and
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  Speaker 1: restricted diets. The modern version of cutting is about the
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  Speaker 1: question is what if I'm taking GLP one medication for
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  Speaker 1: weight loss and essentially cutting like bodybuilders do. This is
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  Speaker 1: where things get interesting. So the third study that Stu
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  Speaker 1: mentioned that I've read as part of this was published
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  Speaker 1: by Longland and colleagues in twenty sixteen. It was published
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  Speaker 1: in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This was a
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  Speaker 1: single randomized control trial and it was in forty young men.
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  Speaker 1: Now that is important it's in young young men. But
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  Speaker 1: it was, and I'll make a mention of that a
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  Speaker 1: little bit later on. It was, however, a tightly controlled
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  Speaker 1: short term intervention, and what they found that put the
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  Speaker 1: participants in a forty percent caloric deficit, right so kind
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  Speaker 1: of what bodybuilders do and kind of what you'd see
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  Speaker 1: on people on GLP wants, and they combined that with
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  Speaker 1: intense resistance training and high intensity interval training, and then
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  Speaker 1: they divided people into two groups. One was a high
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  Speaker 1: protein group on two point four grams per kilograms per day.
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  Speaker 1: The other was a moderate protein group on one point
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  Speaker 1: two grams per kilograms to day, and it lasted for
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  Speaker 1: four weeks. What they find was in the high protein
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  Speaker 1: group they actually put on an extra one point two
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  Speaker 1: kilogram of mass and they lost four point eight almost
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  Speaker 1: five kilograms of fat mass. So this blows up another
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  Speaker 1: myth that I've heard talked about for years. You can't
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  Speaker 1: put on muscle and lose fat at the same time.
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  Speaker 1: You absolutely can if your protein is enough and you're
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  Speaker 1: doing a ship to tourne of lifting. But the lower
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  Speaker 1: protein group, remember this is one point two grams per
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  Speaker 1: kilograms a day, which is one and a half times
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  Speaker 1: the current datary recommendations of not point eight. So that
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  Speaker 1: lower protein group, they actually maintained their lean mass and
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  Speaker 1: they lost fat. They improved strength and performance, and this
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  Speaker 1: is where the nuanced matters. Yes, higher protein gave a
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  Speaker 1: small advantage in lean mass gain during that cut. But
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  Speaker 1: the lower protein group, they didn't lose muscle and they
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  Speaker 1: still got stronger, they still improved. So again the idea
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  Speaker 1: that you need ridiculous amounts of protein to save your
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  Speaker 1: muscle is just not supported. No, let's talk about the
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  Speaker 1: fourth study, which is for me, the final piece. This
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  Speaker 1: is where understanding the mechanism comes in. So this is
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  Speaker 1: published by Mirror and colleagues and it's back in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twelve in the Journal of Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism,
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  Speaker 1: and it was a review paper and they looked at
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  Speaker 1: muscle protein synthesis in response to protein intake. And the
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  Speaker 1: concept here was that there is a dose dependent stimulation
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  Speaker 1: of muscle protein synthesis, but it plateaus pretty quickly. What
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  Speaker 1: they found, and you've probably heard a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: talk about this on social media, about twenty to twenty
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  Speaker 1: five grams of high quality protein per mel maximally stimulates
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  Speaker 1: muscle protein synthesis in young adults. Nope, it wasn't older adults.
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  Speaker 1: I'll mention that later. Now they find that more protein
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  Speaker 1: beyond that does not further increase muscle protein synthesis, and
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  Speaker 1: the excess amino acids are simply oxidized used elsewhere. So
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  Speaker 1: even at the MAD level we see the same story.
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  Speaker 1: There is a cap and which then scales up to
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  Speaker 1: daily intake. And again this lands us around that one
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  Speaker 1: point six gram per kilogram per day. Now I did
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  Speaker 1: mention and a couple of times the younger adults. We
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  Speaker 1: do know now it is being well established that as
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  Speaker 1: you get older, muscle protein synthesis degredes, right, and that's
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  Speaker 1: probably there's no clear number for that, but it's probably
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  Speaker 1: when hormones start to change. And for females, obviously they'll
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  Speaker 1: know what that is. That's perry and menopause, perimenopause and postmenopause.
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  Speaker 1: But for males it's kind of that andropause, which tends
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  Speaker 1: to happen in your forties and and and again it's
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  Speaker 1: different for different people, but for me, that's where there there.
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  Speaker 1: If you want to be optimal, slightly more protein might
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  Speaker 1: well be useful. And instead of that twenty to twenty
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  Speaker 1: five grams of high quality protein per meal, that's where
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  Speaker 1: some people suggest nudging it up to about thirty grams
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  Speaker 1: per per meal. But if we zoom out and we
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  Speaker 1: look at all of this together and look at the
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  Speaker 1: studies around muscle protein synthesis. Short term interventions like mentioned
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  Speaker 1: earlier on in the larger meta analysis, the two of
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  Speaker 1: which I've mentioned, they all converge on the same conclusion.
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  Speaker 1: And that's why Shoe Phillips can say with confidence one
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  Speaker 1: point six grams per kilogram that's pretty much the ceiling. Now,
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  Speaker 1: a couple of important little caveats, because this is where
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  Speaker 1: people often misinterpret things. First, lean mass is not the
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  Speaker 1: same as muscle mass, so there's limitations in measurement, dexa,
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  Speaker 1: bowing pains, all of those things. Second, context matters are
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  Speaker 1: you in deficit, are you highly trained? Are you an
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  Speaker 1: older adult? These can shift the requirements slightly but not
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  Speaker 1: dramatically right. Third, and I think this is the big one.
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  Speaker 1: Protein does not build muscle. Training does lifting heavy shit
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  Speaker 1: builds the muscle. Protein enables the process, it supports the recovery,
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  Speaker 1: and it provides the building blocks. But without progressive resistance
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  Speaker 1: training nothing happens. So let me bring you back to
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  Speaker 1: the practical takeaways, which are very much inlign with that
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  Speaker 1: original post from Stuve Phillips about one point six grams
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  Speaker 1: per kilogram per day that is optimal for muscle growth.
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  Speaker 1: Two point two to two point four kilograms per day,
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  Speaker 1: potentially helpful in aggressive caloric deficits, or if you're on
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  Speaker 1: a GLP one medication, and if you're over fifty or
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  Speaker 1: so and you want some extra insurance, about two grams
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  Speaker 1: per kilogram per day. That's pretty much the upper limit,
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  Speaker 1: no meaningful benefit for muscle strength or function when you
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  Speaker 1: go beyond that. And the real message here, the one
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  Speaker 1: that doesn't sell supplements is the protein you need is
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  Speaker 1: it's way more than you think if you just listen
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  Speaker 1: to the dictry guidelines of not pointy at grounds per
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  Speaker 1: kilar grounds of bodyweight per day, but it's less than
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  Speaker 1: you think if you listen to some health influencers or
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  Speaker 1: bodybuilding magazines, and the training you need is probably more
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  Speaker 1: than you think. And that is the whole story, and
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  Speaker 1: its evidence based, no fluff, decades of research distilled into
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  Speaker 1: something that's actually quite useful. So that is it for
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  Speaker 1: this week, folks, Catch you next time.