When protein is "too much protein"

MrsNonsense

I keep reading different forums and replies where people go "too much protein will kill your kidneys", "don't do too much protein, it's dangerous"... So my question is: how much protein is too much protein?

I'm on Keto day 6, eating from 90-160g of protein (mostly because I haven't stopped to look for high fat-med protein recipes), 28y/o F, 187lbs, 5' 7", decently active, so do I have anything to worry about?

This "beware of high protein" is everywhere and, for us, newbies, it can get scary when we're still trying to figure out our macros.

wabmester

At your age, there's no risk unless you have kidney disease. But if you start vomiting, call your doc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_toxicity

FIT_Goat

Try 350-600+ grams a day. And, there are body builders who routinely eat up near or into that range without issues.

No sane person, eating whole foods (without protein powders or supplements) is at risk of over consumption of protein. I've eaten 3+ pounds of steak in a day, and been well under the level it would take to concern me.

One of these days I plan on doing the 10,000 calorie mono-food challenge (thinking ground beef patties), that would land me in the 590 grams range for that day. That's almost 8 pounds of meat. I still won't worry about the protein. Because one day isn't going to be an issue. Maybe if I ate that much every single day. But, one day like that won't hurt. Not that I will be able to do it. Honestly, that's too much food.

Anyway, relax. You're not going to hurt yourself if you have healthy kidney already.

Mistizoom

The level of protein you are eating should not be a problem, especially if you are fairly active and don't have any medical issues. From your diary, you also are eating plenty of fat, which is good as well.

JPW1990

This protein scare is a relatively new thing, and mostly unfounded. All the years I've been in low carb communities online, it was only in the past year or so people started freaking out about the mistaken idea that going over their protein goal would cause kidney damage. Unless you already have an existing kidney condition, or are eating twice or more what you already are, you're not going to get close.

I've tried asking around a few times where this notion of "I went 5 over on protein will I die" started, but nobody can ever direct me to an exact source. Nor can they ever explain where they learned it or how much is "too much." Only that they heard it on a blog or reddit.

MrsNonsense

Thank you guys. I wasn't even concerned about the protein intake, I mean, I've been consuming nearly the same amount most of my life and never thought it could hurt me, but since I started reading about Keto, I've noticed many people pull huge danger signs all over the place, just needed to know how real this was. They make it seem like it's fairly easy to get into that danger zone.
I'm relieved now!

FIT_Goat

Just so you know, when Stefansson and Andersen ate nothing but meat for an entire year, Stefansson averaged 138 grams a day and Andersen 128 grams a day. That's for an entire year. Some days were certainly higher and some certainly lower. And, this is as accurate as possible as they ate one half of the animal and the corresponding other half was submitted for nutritional analysis. We can only guess as to the exact content of our food, as it's based on statistics and averages.

At the end of the year, there was no negative effect on their kidneys (or any other body system). Personally, I average a bit higher than that with my protein (although I eat a similar amount of calories as they were--2,650 and 2,620 on average respectively). I experience no problems.

glossbones

It didn't come up yet in this thread so I'll just mention, another reason to not overconsume protein would be the chance that your body will convert the protein to store-able glucose.

Anecdote: I have a coworker who really liked the sound of the low carb diet, because there was no limit on meats. So he ate 12 hot dogs at each sitting. He did not lose weight.

FIT_Goat

octobubbles wrote: »

It didn't come up yet in this thread so I'll just mention, another reason to not overconsume protein would be the chance that your body will convert the protein to store-able glucose.

It didn't come up because it's really not the issue that people pretend it to be. You'd have to eat excessive amounts of excess protein, for a prolonged period of time, to have any effect at all on glucose production. And, that effect would be minimal. The process of turning protein into glucose seems to be primarily demand driven. That is, it happens when glucose is needed and not just because there's excess protein.

Where it is thought possible is when you're dealing with truly excessive amounts of extra protein (again in the 350+g/day range). And, that will cause a slight increase in the amount of glucose created. Not something I would be concerned about, especially since the entire process is extremely expensive. The amount of fat that can be produced from protein is, optimistically, estimated to be around 30%. So, 100g of excess protein that converts to glucose and then gets stored as fat might result in 13g of fat being stored (around 120 calories).

Anecdote: I have a coworker who really liked the sound of the low carb diet, because there was no limit on meats. So he ate 12 hot dogs at each sitting. He did not lose weight.

This anecdote doesn't prove much about protein. Hot dogs aren't exactly a high-protein source.

Standard hot dog nutrition (wikipedia): 151 calories, 13g fat, 5g protein, 2.2g carbs.
Fat/Protein/Carbs: 80.24% / 13.71% / 6.03%

That's not a bad macro breakdown. And, 12 of them would only be 60g of protein. It would also be 26.4g of carbs and 1800 calories. For some people, that's basically an ideal situation for a keto food. Not that I would recommend it. You say this was "each sitting" which makes me think he ate that 2-3 times a day. That would be 3,600- 5,400 calories a day (plus 53-79g of carbs). That's a reason someone wouldn't lose weight. And, at two sittings a day, he was only hitting 120g of protein. That's well within the reasonable amounts most keto dieters stick with. Three meals of 12 dogs each would be 180g. It's higher than normal, but only about 30-50g of that is really excess protein. It's more likely the nearly 80g of carbs and 5,400 calories are the problem and not the potential 50g of excess protein.

Edit: Although some dogs have less carbs than the reference dog, the amount is still fairly high when you're talking 24-36. But, more importantly even the higher protein franks (which might be 7-9g) don't really get excessive with protein until the calories and/or carbs are already massively over sane amounts.

glossbones

FIT_Goat wrote: »

That is, it happens when glucose is needed and not just because there's excess protein.

That's good to hear. What I'd been told was that if you eat a protein source larger than your palm, you weren't going to need all that protein and it was going to get converted to glucose.

FIT_Goat wrote: »

This anecdote doesn't prove much about protein. Hot dogs aren't exactly a high-protein source.

It was more a mentality about people who misunderstand the concepts as presented to them. He didn't check the nutrition label to see what else was in there, he just ate a lot of them "because he could." And he probably had a few yoplait for breakfast "because yogurt is healthy."

It's amazing how much reprogramming of the brain is necessary to switch to a LC lifestyle.

Lrdoflamancha

It's amazing how much reprogramming of the brain is necessary to switch to a LC lifestyle.
[/quote]

This is definitely the truth... I am still having trouble getting my brain around high fat.... Too many warnings for too many years, I guess.

FIT_Goat

Yeah, people often don't understand and don't want to learn. I'm not sure I would want to eat only hotdogs, even if they have a pretty good macro breakdown. I saw one with an 80%/19.5%/0.5% split when I was at the grocery store last night.

I've done personal blood testing with high amounts of protein. Talking excessive amounts of protein. In one sitting, I ate a 12 oz steak, 8 oz of hamburger, and two eggs. Estimated protein: 140g (and that's on top of the 70+ grams I had already had that day). That one meal is more protein than many keto people will allow in a whole day. My glucose went up by maybe 10-15 pts? I recorded a rise of only 3 points after the meal, but my glucose was already elevated above my fasting level from my earlier meal. At no point did it rise over 100. A couple hours after this meal, my ketones were a 0.7. Nothing super high, but solidly into the range expected for ketosis (anything above 0.5).

Is excessive protein beneficial? Almost certainly not. Almost every test shows an upper limit on the utility of protein beyond which you don't benefit from it. Is excessive protein harmful? Not in the amounts a normal person, in normal conditions, would be able to eat. Is excessive protein completely benign? This is up to some debate.

Some people report deeper levels of ketosis when under-consuming protein. If you absolutely must maintain very high levels of ketosis, then limiting protein may be best for you. They are obviously beneficial and wisely sought after if treating seizures or other medical conditions with ketosis. I remain skeptical of the purported benefits of very high levels of ketosis when it comes to weight loss. What's the worst thing that can happen if I am wrong, in regards to the weight loss benefits? A slightly reduced rate of weight loss. I see that risk as preferable to losing lean body mass if you are not getting enough.

Mistizoom

One item to note is that Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution and his book The Diabetes Diet do limit protein a bit more than other low carb plans, and prescribe the amount eaten at each meal. I have both books (DH is type 2) but haven't looked at them recently (and they are not accessible at the moment) but for diabetics he does seem to think a tighter control on protein amount is optimal. He also recommends a bit lower fat intake, IIRC, so it's not the standard LCHF plan. Just thought I'd throw that out there as a potential area of examination for anyone with diabetes.

Dragonwolf

JPW1990 wrote: »

This protein scare is a relatively new thing, and mostly unfounded. All the years I've been in low carb communities online, it was only in the past year or so people started freaking out about the mistaken idea that going over their protein goal would cause kidney damage. Unless you already have an existing kidney condition, or are eating twice or more what you already are, you're not going to get close.

I've tried asking around a few times where this notion of "I went 5 over on protein will I die" started, but nobody can ever direct me to an exact source. Nor can they ever explain where they learned it or how much is "too much." Only that they heard it on a blog or reddit.

It's not entirely unfounded, but rather, the concern is usually misapplied.

Protein toxicity (aka rabbit starvation) is a thing, but it requires eating protein pretty much exclusively (ie - not a keto or LCHF diet).

The issue I often see is that people conflate the old low fat way of thinking with the "newer" low carb stuff. The result of often low carb, low fat, high protein (because if fats are bad, and carbs are bad, there's nothing else left). Combine that with the conventional wisdom of calorie restriction often to the point of severity, and you start getting into "bad idea" territory. In situations like this, you're talking more about compliance issues (insatiable cravings) and the beginnings of GI upset (diarrhea and/or constipation, mainly), but the fact remains that those things are the early signs of protein toxicity and your body telling you "hey stupid, eat some real fuel. This is not a good path to continue going down."

Protein levels in addition to adequate amounts of some combination of the fuel macros? Not really an issue if you don't have kidney problems already. As I recall, the body can actually tolerate more protein in that case than it can if the protein were alone (ie - if the limit for protein toxicity when protein is the only thing consumed is 500g, then the limit when adequate fuel macros are included can go beyond that).

But yeah, eating real food and not stuffing protein powder down your throat? You're not going to feasibly hit anywhere near those upper limits.

glossbones

Dragonwolf wrote: »

The issue I often see is that people conflate the old low fat way of thinking with the "newer" low carb stuff. The result of often low carb, low fat, high protein (because if fats are bad, and carbs are bad, there's nothing else left). Combine that with the conventional wisdom of calorie restriction often to the point of severity, and you start getting into "bad idea" territory. In situations like this, you're talking more about compliance issues (insatiable cravings) and the beginnings of GI upset (diarrhea and/or constipation, mainly), but the fact remains that those things are the early signs of protein toxicity and your body telling you "hey stupid, eat some real fuel. This is not a good path to continue going down."

Yes, and unfortunately this is how my husband would eat when he would try low carb. He would always want to pair it with cutting the fat. Thankfully I doubt his protein intake was ever high enough to damage, but he was hungry all the time and felt ill constantly.

FIT_Goat

Mistizoom wrote: »

One item to note is that Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution and his book The Diabetes Diet do limit protein a bit more than other low carb plans, and prescribe the amount eaten at each meal. I have both books (DH is type 2) but haven't looked at them recently (and they are not accessible at the moment) but for diabetics he does seem to think a tighter control on protein amount is optimal. He also recommends a bit lower fat intake, IIRC, so it's not the standard LCHF plan. Just thought I'd throw that out there as a potential area of examination for anyone with diabetes.

This is a good point. Gluconeogenesis is not as tightly controlled in diabetics and diabetics often see a greater rise in blood glucose from protein compared to non-diabetic people. This would be an area to watch more closely, if that applies to someone.