Protein goal

Here is a good article that talks a bit more about protein requirements. The RDA for protein is pretty low. It is basically the bare minimum you should have. But many others benefit from considerably higher intake, especially those losing weight who want to maintain muscle.

There is no one universally agreed upon protein recommendation, but there is quite a bit of evidence that increased protein intake is beneficial.

https://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2015/12/11/how-much-protein-do-you-really-need

MPDean wrote: »

Interesting but the health disclaimer link at the end somewhat dampens my enthusiasm.

Everything today has a disclaimer. A magazine or newspaper isn’t going to say “this is proven medical information you can use to diagnose yourself.” They also aren’t going to say “we independently verified every statement made in the sources we quoted and links we share and guarantee they’re 100% accurate in any way you choose to interpret them. Feel free to Sue our butt off if there’s anything you don’t like.” I’m sure you agree this attitude would be ridiculous, which is why they need a disclaimer. Otherwise someone would try to blame them for something.

Even your doctor makes you sign disclaimers. Buyer beware. It’s just the world we live in.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

I like this, for a pretty even-handed summary with good references:

https://examine.com/nutrition/how-much-protein-do-you-need/

There don't seem to be any references for their assertions about the protein needs of healthy, sedentary adults eating at maintenance.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

lynn_glenmont wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

I like this, for a pretty even-handed summary with good references:

https://examine.com/nutrition/how-much-protein-do-you-need/

There don't seem to be any references for their assertions about the protein needs of healthy, sedentary adults eating at maintenance.

Notes 5 & 6? Both full-texts are paywalled for me, but nature of 5's abstract suggests there may be a reasonable basis for the examine article to be conservative, and recommend a level in excess of the USDA minimum, when there's no evidence that that higher level would be injurious to a healthy adult. They're talking about "optimum", not "minimum".

But that's speculative on my part, since I haven't read the articles: I'd freely admit that I haven't delved nearly as much into the "healthy sedentary adult" data. As an active, sometimes-in-calorie-deficit, aging, vegetarian woman, results respecting other sub-populations are more personally interesting to me, and the article summarizes part of what convinced me to eat more protein than the USDA minimum, just to be cautious. I'm also one of those wacky "strive for 10 daily servings of veg" people (helps that I love veg!), so overall tend to pursue that type of nutritional conservatism. Neither drives out treats from my overall diet, so why not?

I may have an overdeveloped radar for medical assertions based on people in demographics that I am not a part of, after decades of watching women receiving treatment based on studies that only included men. Their studies in support of the RDA being too low for healthy sedentary people looked at healthy young men, older women, and older men. The two older women studies were women over 65 and octogenarians. So no studies in support of their assertion in women younger than 65.

This was the assertion that struck me as taking a giant leap from what the study they were actually saying could support:

A randomized controlled trial that confined healthy, sedentary adults to a metabolic ward for eight weeks provides the final nail in the coffin for the RDA.[7]

The study, as they describe it, required all of the subjects to eat at 40% above maintenance for eight weeks, at various macro distributions. There was no maintenance-level control group. The next time I decide that despite being healthy I want to put on 15 pounds in eight weeks* without even lifting while I'm doing it, I guess I'll go high protein so that almost half of the weight I gain can be lean mass. I don't see how this study could indicate what is best for people who are in maintenance, which would seem to be the situation for the healthy sedentary people they're talking about in this section of the essay, as they have a separate section on protein needs for people trying to gain muscle.

I'm interested in this subject, as in another 10 years or so I expect I am going to have to start working a lot harder (both nutritionally and physically) to maintain muscle. Many of the studies I've seen reported and the few that I've read because they weren't behind pay walls certainly support aiming for more protein than the RDA. Barring people with specific medical issues, it's not going to hurt physically (although it may hurt the wallet), and it seems highly likely that at least some of the additional protein will be beneficial. I'm just skeptical when data from populations that exclude me or from people put in absurd situations --

Whoa, I just noticed that the people on the medium and high protein diets (1.8 g protein/kg BW and 3.0 g protein/kg BW respectively) gained on average about twice as much total weight (fat and lean mass combined) as the people on the low protein diets (0.7 g protein/kg BW). That's weird. It calls into question the idea that CICO rules, unless their random sorting led to significant disparities in starting weight among the groups. Since they were keeping all these subjects in a metabolic ward for eight weeks, it seems likely the number of subjects were pretty small.



*my personal likely result of eating at 40% above maintenance for eight weeks, based on nearly six years of data. YMMV.