Tag Archive for: protein

Does Protein Decrease Lifespan?

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Just when we’ve accepted that carbohydrates are bad for us and everyone seems to be doing the paleo or ketogenic diets, a new study from an Australian research group created headlines by suggesting that high-protein diets are unhealthy because they decrease longevity.

For years we’ve been told that high-fat diets are bad. Then scientists suggested that it’s carbohydrates that are bad, which led to this keto-everything dietary phase we’re in right now. Now we’re being told that high-protein diets are bad for us as well? What the heck are we supposed to eat? Before we panic, let’s take a look at the research to see if it’s meaningful or not.

Researchers identified an enzyme called eukaryotic elongation factor 2 kinase (eEF2K) that slows the rate of protein synthesis. By so doing, it reduces the number of mistakes made in making or folding proteins. If a long-chain protein such as insulin has mistakes in the location of amino acids, the protein will not work as it should. When you consider the number of proteins the body has to make to function every second, too many mistakes could lead to disease and thus reduce our lifespan.

Is this real? Let’s take a look at how the research was conducted to figure out whether we have to be concerned or not.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Cell Biology 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.01.029/

Gluconeogenesis: Making Sugar

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On Tuesday, I said that blood sugars remained stable in all subjects throughout the study. How can that be when they would most likely use all their stored sugar in 24 hours or so? Their bodies made glucose out of protein and scraps from the breakdown of other substances.

Many hormones and connective tissue are made out of protein and are typically repaired after damage. The liver can use some amino acids from the damaged proteins to make metabolites that can enter the citric-acid cycle. When those remnants become scarce, the Number One source is muscle. Skeletal muscle is our protein storage facility, and while it isn’t preferred to use protein in this way, the body is protective of your blood sugar level and will protect it no matter what; it will make sugar for energy using whatever is available.

Use of fat as a fuel also increases, primarily in the mitochondria. While it’s complicated biochemistry, mitochondria are then stimulated to become more active and produce more free radicals. The good news is that researchers also observed an increase in antioxidant activity. Glutathione levels remained constant but an analog of glutathione called ophthalmic acid increased, keeping the rise in free radicals in check.

There was one more significant set of metabolites that were released. I’ll cover that on Saturday. What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-36674-9

The Bottom Line on Essential Amino Acids

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Essential amino acids are becoming more prevalent in the sport nutrition supplement offerings. Yet there are still questions that remain, and we don’t have a total picture of who will benefit from EAA use. Let’s take a look.

Questions

Even with this new research, there’s so much we still don’t know about EAAs.

  • Is there a special proportion of EAAs that works best? In other words, should the amount of leucine or isoleucine or tryptophan be higher than other EAAs? What’s the best proportion?
  • What’s the best source? Milk, which contains whey and casein? Soy? Rice? Pea? Or a form of meat such as chicken, fish, or beef?
  • Do the EAAs compete for absorption? Does eating a complete protein such as the protein in beef or chicken inhibit the absorption of the EAAs in the protein? After all, just eating more meat could potentially be the best solution, but maybe it’s not as efficient as getting the EAAs in a stand-alone product.
  • How much muscle will athletes build in how long a time? Will it be 1% or 5% better than just eating more protein or will it be the same?
  • Should the EAAs be taken alone or as part of a protein shake?
  • When is the best time to take the EAAs in relation to a workout? Or does it really not matter? What about other nutrients taken at the same time such as carbohydrates or fats? Will they positively or negatively impact the EAAs?

There are some partial answers in the research but nowhere near enough to say “This is how you do it for the best benefit.” That’s not to say that there are no opinions, but it’s based more on limited research or personal experience than anything else.

The Bottom Line

Based on all of the available information, here is the bottom line on EAAs.

  • Everyone needs more EAAs in their diet, especially those of us over 50. (We all need to do more resistance exercise, but that’s a different Memo.) It’s more than just losing muscles mass as we age; it’s also about being able to make all the hormones we need for optimal health.
  • Eat about one gram protein per pound of body weight up to about 150 grams per day. If someone is overweight or oversized, trial and error is the only way to set an upper limit. But it’s critical for athletes and older people to hit that mark. Chicken seems to be the best profile for EAAs next to milk protein, but there’s more research needed.
  • If you get your EAAs from powders, whey protein isolate seems to have the best profile based on the content of branch-chained amino acids, but soy protein has a good profile as well. There doesn’t seem to be a perfect source yet.
  • If you want to take a separate EAA product that has no other amino acids, that’s fine. It will probably be best to take it before you work out or lift weights, but there’s good reason to take it after working out as well. About 15 to 30 minutes later, take your complete protein, whether from powders or food.

As research continues, I’ll update the recommendations as we get more answers. For now, make sure you get enough protein for health and growth based on what we know today.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Essential Amino Acids for Older Adults

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One of the issues we all face as we get older is the loss of muscle mass; the technical term is sarcopenia. While some of the loss can be attributed to declining hormone levels as well as the decline in physical activity, we tend to eat less protein as we get older. Less protein intake means less muscle and other protein synthesis.

Researchers in Japan wanted to see if increases in muscle mass were related to protein intake, specifically EAAs. Instead of jumping right into supplementing with EAAs, they recruited 10 older men with a mean age of 69 and gathered nutritional information using a three-day dietary record. They put the men on a progressive weight training program, lifting three days per week for 12 weeks.

All men gained muscle mass, about one pound of muscle per leg. In analyzing the diet, the average protein intake was 99 grams of protein per day with 37 grams from EAAs. What they found was that those men with higher EAA intake, especially leucine, had a greater increase in muscle mass. It was even better if they had the EAAs with their breakfast.

This was a small preliminary study that examined current food intake with no intervention other than exercise. It may indicate that in order to be efficient at adding muscle mass, EAAs are important in older adults. What does this mean for you if you’re in that age group or an athlete wanting to add muscle mass? I’ll let you know on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Reference: J Nutr Sci vitaminol (Tokyo). 2017;63(6):379-388. doi: 10.3177/jnsv.63.379.

 

Essential Amino Acids: The Basics

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I’ve been getting many questions about essential amino acids lately. What are they? Why do I need them? Are they only for athletes? What can they do for me? In addition, I came across an interesting study that supports the use of EAAs in a specific population.

The EAAs include the amino acids phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, methionine, lysine, histidine, leucine, isoleucine, and valine. They’re essential because we can’t make them, but we can make other amino acids from these EAAs. In addition, three of the EAAs are designated as branch chain amino acids (BCAAs): leucine, isoleucine, and valine; they’re known as protein-building amino acids and important for building muscle.

Think of the EAAs as the rate-limiting amino acids. If we don’t have enough of them, we can’t make the other amino acids and thus, every protein made in the body can be affected. We often think only in terms of muscle, but the lack of EAAs could affect the manufacture of insulin, human growth hormone, leptin, and adiponectin to name just a few.

BCAAs have been marketed to athletes who are training to make muscle for years. Recently, EAAs have entered the arena because of their ability to make proteins that support muscle building. But that’s not the only group that may benefit as a recent study demonstrated. I’ll cover that on Thursday.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Can We Prevent Sarcopenia?

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Based on the research presented in Thursday’s Memo, the earlier we address the possibility that sarcopenia will affect us, the more likely we’ll succeed (1). I use fudgy words such as “likely” because we don’t know for sure, but based on the current status of research, here’s what we can do to prevent sarcopenia.

Use It or Lose It

In the study I talked about Thursday, the men who exercised regularly had a lower rate of decline in muscle function. The researchers speculate that chronic exercise helps preserve the motor units, thus preserving the ability of the nerve cells to send out nerve fibers to attach to muscle fibers.

That’s all well and good, but how can we make sure that we preserve the potential and perhaps increase our motor unit activity if we’ve lost some? Research shows that weight training will help. In several studies, resistance training increased muscle strength in the elderly; strength will improve balance and quality of life.

What kind of exercise will work best? It seems to be high intensity exercise. In a study on elderly mice, high intensity interval training (HIIT) increased the muscle mass, muscle fibers, and the number of mitochondria (2). This was a small study and it was on rodents, so the application to humans isn’t assured. To me, it means use your muscles as you mean to keep using them. The harder you exercise within your physical limitations, the better.

Focus on Protein

Retaining muscle mass is not only about exercise. For some reason, as we get older, we decrease our protein intake, but research shows that increasing protein intake can help retain muscle mass. If you don’t have protein in muscle cells, retaining or adding connections to those cells won’t matter much.

How much protein should people try to get? The current recommendation is 0.8 grams per kilogram body weight per day or a third of a gram per pound body weight; someone who weighs 200 pounds would need about 66 grams of protein per day. But research shows that bumping that up to 1.1 grams per kilogram body weight or a half gram per pound may be better as we get older. That’s 100 grams for a 200-pound person (3). That’s easy for even those who are math-challenged: whatever your goal weight, divide by 2, and that’s your daily goal for grams of protein.

It also seems better to stretch protein intake out throughout the day rather than a big slug at one time. Balanced intake will produce a sustained level of amino acids available for muscle repair throughout the day.

The research is far from complete in this area but it seems that as we age, our protein needs revert to when we were younger: we need more of it.

The Bottom Line

Sarcopenia can result in loss of strength and mass, but more important is the loss of quality of life. We don’t think balance while standing or moving is important until we fall; we don’t think brute strength is important until we need to move something and can’t. This week’s Memos give you an idea of how to prevent and perhaps improve nerve and muscle function.

Don’t think this is for only retirees; once you hit 40, it’s a downward trend. Starting early may help minimize the decline. One thing is clear: if you expect to be mobile when you get older, you need to work on it earlier rather than later.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

References:
1. J Physiol. 2018 Mar 11. doi: 10.1113/JP275520.
2. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2018 Mar 14;73(4):429-437.
3. Nutrients 2018, 10, 360; doi:10.3390/nu10030360.

 

Does More CO2 Create More Carbohydrates?

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Why do you eat broccoli? Why do you eat blueberries? How about sweet potatoes? While you might simply like them, an important reason we eat them in modern countries is for the nutrients they have, such as vitamin C, beta-carotene, and of course those phytonutrients. They’re a source of calories, for sure, but also minerals. But what if the increasing levels of CO2 reduced the amount of those nutrients?

If you remember your high school biology, plants use CO2 and water (H2O) to make sugars and starches in a process known as photosynthesis. As the H2O is broken down for use in making sugars, the oxygen is released into the atmosphere. Then photosynthesis continues, with CO2 and the remaining ions combining with energy from the sun to make sugar.

Here’s the issue. When CO2 levels increase, as they have since the Industrial Revolution, the plants can convert more CO2 to sugar. Why is that a problem? Because it may be at the expense of other nutrients such as minerals. In addition, the protein content of the plants may also be reduced. Plants provide protein for most of the earth’s population, so if the protein content of plants is reduced and the carbs increase, people may get plenty of a grain such as rice but little nutrition other than calories.

But is it true? Does the research support the hypothesis? That’s what Dr. Loladze and others attempted to find out for the past 20 years. I’ll cover the research on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Reference: www.politico.com. The Great Nutrient Collapse. 09-13-2017.

 

Can Vegetarian Protein Help You Build Muscle?

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People often ask me which is the best type of protein to build muscle when weight training. The reason for the question is bodybuilder and weight-training websites that condemn vegetarian protein as not good enough to build muscle. In the same issue of Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise as the paper from Tuesday, a research study examined that question.

Researchers divided 54 men into three groups. One group got a vegetarian protein blend of soy and dairy, a second group got dairy-only protein, while the third received a maltodextrin placebo. They all performed the same weight training program for 12 weeks. The researchers then tested their strength as well as evidence of muscle growth after taking muscle biopsies.

All participants gained strength and muscle. Those who took the protein supplements gained slightly more muscle than the placebo group, but there were no differences in muscle gains between the soy-dairy blend and the whey-protein group.

This contributes to the body of research showing that it’s the protein that makes the difference, not whether it’s a vegetable or animal source of the protein. Use whichever fits your lifestyle better, but it’s doing the lifting that makes the real difference.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Reference: MSSE. 2017 Feb 13. DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000001224

 

Sports Nutrition After Your Workout

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The objective of post-workout sports nutrition is to recover as quickly as possible; that means providing nutrients that will replace fuel, help the repair process, and reduce inflammation. These are natural by-products of exercise, especially intense exercise. Nutrition can help the recovery process, and we’re learning more about it all the time.

The first priority is to replace muscle glycogen; that helps the muscle, but it also seems to help the immune system as well. Second is to provide protein for any repair that needs to take place, especially after a hard weight-training workout. Whether from . . .

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Gaining Muscle and Losing Fat with Protein

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Can you gain muscle while losing weight? Let’s take a look at the final study in this week’s Research Update on protein.

Researchers recruited 40 young overweight men to participate in a four-week diet and exercise weight loss program with an average age of 23 and average BMI of 29.7. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups. The control group had a diet that reduced calories by 40% and provided 1.2 grams of protein per kg of body weight per day. The protein group had their intake reduced by 40% but were given 2 . . .

We're sorry, but this content is available to Members and Insiders only.

If you're already a DrChet.com Member or Insider, click on the Membership Login link on the top menu. Members may upgrade to Insider by going to the Store and clicking Membership; your membership fee will be prorated automatically.