The Truth About Protein and Disease Reversal with David Goldman, MS

Today’s show is about protein. With a specific focus on protein for chronic disease reversal and those who are looking to lose weight.

We cover all of the following topics in today’s show:

• The history of how protein recommendations were established
• Whether or not new science has proven that recommendations should change
• Protein requirements for people who are losing weight
• Protein requirements for older individuals
• The absorption of plant protein vs. animal protein
• And at the end, we did touch on protein requirements for athletes

Click here to visit our website and try some recipes with plenty of protein! https://www.masteringdiabetes.org/recipe/

 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Weight lifting, or resistancetraining, by itself, was by far

(00:03):
the most potent stimulus forgrowth, and that, like
optimizing protein intake formuscle growth specifically added
it was like 27% more muscle massand 9% more strength, which is
like reasonable amounts, butvery, very small compared to

(00:23):
just showing up. And like yousaid, moving your body like
resistance training style.
Welcome to the masteringdiabetes audio experience.
Today's show is all aboutprotein, with a specific focus
on protein for chronic diseasereversal and those who are
looking to lose weight, we coverall of the following topics in

(00:46):
today's show the history of howprotein recommendations were
established, whether or not newscience has proven that those
recommendations should change.Protein requirements for people
who are looking to lose weight,protein requirements for older
individuals, the absorption ofplant protein versus animal
protein. And at the end, we didtouch on protein requirements

(01:08):
for athletes, and we alsocovered a lot of other important
topics about protein. So today'sguest is David Goldman. He's a
registered dietitian, Strengthand Conditioning Specialist and
researcher. His experience spansNCAA division one, strength and
conditioning, clinical obesityand fasting research and
corporate health and performanceat locations including Columbia

(01:31):
University and Facebookheadquarters. He served as chief
science advisor to the gamechangers documentary and is
currently a visiting researcherwith the Faculty of Medicine at
the University of Helsinki andDirector of Research and
Development at metabiteIncorporated. So David is a
prolific researcher, and if youhaven't seen the game changers

(01:55):
movie, highly recommend checkingthat out that's on Netflix.
Really, really high qualitydocumentary opens up a lot of
eyes around protein andathletics, but today's show,
it's really focused mainly onchronic disease reversal. So
with that said, let's get intothe show. David, it's great to

(02:16):
have you on the podcast. How youdoing today?
Thanks, Robby, it's good. It'sgood to be here, and I
appreciate your inviting me.This
is a very controversial topic.People are incredibly confused
hearing so much of the exactopposite right from different
sides. So I'm excited to diginto protein with you today, but
before we get there, why are youpassionate about this topic?

(02:39):
What's your background?
So my background is in exerciseand nutrition and science. So I
have credentials as strength andconditioning specialist. I have
a registered dietitian. I'm afellow of the Academy of
Nutrition and Dietetics. I got aFulbright that aimed me right in
this direction with diet andexercise for Chronic Disease

(03:01):
Prevention and physicalperformance. My master's degree
is in Applied Physiology andnutrition, and I'm getting a PhD
similarly in that same domain,all my work has aimed me here in
obesity research and workingwith the game changers and
working at True North and awhole bunch of medical
facilities and corporatesettings. And so I just, I love

(03:23):
this stuff. This is a super fundomain for me to consider. I
published scientific research inthis capacity, too. So anyway,
this is my background. I alsojust, personally, I'm really
into it. I mean, I I exerciseand I pay attention to what I
eat, and work with patients todo the same and, yeah, I mean, I
just, I love this stuff, so I Ireally can't get enough

(03:48):
of it, and that's one of themain reasons I wanted to bring
you on, is because you are sopassionate about this topic, so
well read when it comes to theresearch, not just what
influencers are saying on socialmedia, right? Like the actual
peer reviewed research, what'sgoing on there? And I do want to
set the stage here that thisconversation today, it's focused

(04:11):
on protein and proteinconsumption for people who would
like to reverse chronicdiseases. All right, so in this
case, we're talking about, youknow, the master diabetes
audience, these are people thatthey've been diagnosed with some
form of diabetes. Most of ushere are not necessarily trying
to be a professional athlete ora professional bodybuilder. You

(04:34):
know, we do have a lot of activepeople in our community here, of
course. I mean, I'm a three timeIronman athlete. I'm passionate
about sports and activity, butthis conversation is really
about people like your everydayperson who's trying to be more
active, trying to get back intobeing healthy, and looking to
making sure they feel confidentabout their protein consumption

(04:58):
and what they need to do. To inthis world. So I want to really
go deep into separating. Okay?This is what your everyday
person does. This is what asomebody trying to become an
Olympian does, right? So beforewe get into all that, though,
let's just talk about thehistory of how did we establish
how much protein people need forfor again, maybe you can break

(05:23):
it down to different levels ofhelp. How much do we need to
just survive? How much do weneed to thrive? How much do we
need to be, you know, an Olympicathlete.
So in the beginning of the gamechangers, we talk about this
German chemist named justice vonLiebig, and this was in the
1800s and this dude theorizedthat protein was the primary

(05:44):
fuel for muscles, and so heoverestimated daily protein
needs. He basically, like,doubled what it turned out we
actually probably require. Sothat was, like, that was a long
time ago, and then in the early1900s researchers started using
nitrogen balance studies, andthey're basically looking at

(06:05):
nitrogen, which is unique toprotein. You know, in that fat
and carbohydrates don't containnitrogen. So you can basically
take a look at protein balanceby looking at nitrogen balance.
And so they use this to estimateprotein requirements. And it's
useful, but it has problems. Forexample, if you're building
muscle, you're going to beamassing more protein. There's

(06:27):
not going to be this perfectbalance in versus out. So
anyway, there are some issueswith it, but this is what has
been used. Like I said, in theearly 1900s this really became
prominent, and then this waswhat was used in the 1940s and
50s nitrogen balance research toit was used to determine how
much protein we actually need.So the at the time, there's a an

(06:49):
organization, the institutes ofmedicine, and now it's the
National Academies of Sciences,Engineering and medicine. I
think, I think I got that right.And so they are the ones who
establish this recommended dailyallowance. And so let me just
back up a second first, theyfigured out, what are the
estimated average requirements?So how much protein would be

(07:10):
required to meet the needs of50% of healthy physically active
No, I'm not talking aboutathletes, just like healthy
physically active people, whatwould be required to meet those
needs? And it turns out, thenumber they figured out was
point six, six grams of proteinper kilogram of body weight. And
then they thought, Okay, well,50% that's not really gonna be
enough for us to really help thepopulation at large. So they

(07:32):
took that amount, and then theylooked two standard deviations
out to basically cover the needsof almost everyone. It was, it's
literally 97.5% of thepopulation, and that's what the
recommended daily allowance. Sothe RDA is for protein, and
that's point eight grams ofprotein per kilogram of body
weight. So that was in the 40sand 50s, and then, more
recently, other methods havecome about in the My early I was

(07:56):
born in the early 80s, and aresearcher, Henry Bailey, came
up with the indicator amino acidoxidation method. And this is,
you know, you basically requirea full complement of amino acids
in order to synthesize protein.And if one of those essential or
indispensable, you can calleither one amino acids is

(08:19):
deficient, you can't actuallybuild muscle, and then your body
oxidizes, or basically justturns into fuel those other
indispensable amino acids. Andso you can trace this, you can
track it, and you can see howmuch do you actually need. And
so there's this method, andthere's other methods too, but
relatively recently, peoplestarted to become increasingly
concerned about amino acidcomposition and digestibility.

(08:42):
And so I think I want to saylate 80s, but it was popularized
in the very, very early 90s. Ithink around 91 there's a method
called PD cast proteindigestibility corrected amino
acid score, and this evaluatesprotein quality based on amino
acid composition anddigestibility. I mean, I'm

(09:03):
really in the weeds right now,but I
think this is great now. It'sjust fascinating. Keep going,
cool. So they use this. It wasbased on animal based
digestibility studies, andbasically you get a score from
zero to one. So they cut it offat one. It was truncated or cut
off at one. That's the highestyou could get. And it basically
tells you which amino acid is islimiting, you know, and keeping

(09:23):
it from getting an even higherscore. And then maybe 10 years
ago, ish, the DS, D, I, a s ordigestible, indispensable amino
acid score really became evenmore prominent, and this
evaluates protein quality basedon digestibility of individual
amino acids, the kind that yourbody can't make, indispensable

(09:47):
amino acids. And it specificallylooked at it measured this at
the end of the small intestineor the ileum, and actually very,
very, very proudly published orco authored a paper on limit.
Conversations of this particularmethod of evaluating protein
quality with respect to plantbased diets. So increasingly,

(10:09):
people are using this, thisscore, this tool, this DS, as a
way to explain why proteinquality from plant foods and
plant based diets is really justsubpar and inadequate, and
they're really completelymissing the forest for the
trees. And so some co authors ofmine, some awesome people in

(10:29):
Australia and I, we wrote thispaper. It's been referenced a
bunch of times, and I'm reallyproud to have contributed it to
the world, because I think a lotof people just see these big
words and they they're like, Oh,well, I don't know what that
means, but they must be right.So I guess plant protein quality
is inadequate. So anyway, that'sthat's my long way of answering
your question about the historyof how these establishments

(10:50):
were, were developed.
I think you brought up a coupleimportant points there, the last
one being that there aredifferent scientific
methodologies used to discussprotein requirements, protein
needs, and they're they'recomplex, but they're also
controversial. And so this iswhere I think people get very

(11:13):
confused, because you're onsocial media, you're reading
articles, and you're hearingsomebody say this scientific
article, this group ofresearchers found x, y and z,
and therefore, like you weresaying, Oh, maybe this
particular plant protein is notnot good, like, therefore you
need to include these otherfoods if you want to meet your
protein requirements. And thenthe general lay person who did

(11:35):
not go to school for this getsvery confused, and they
everybody's fighting and saying,Oh, I have all this evidence
based research pointing towardsthis need, and people just get,
get confused.
Yeah, yeah. I agree with youcompletely. I think it's really
easy when it's not your domain,when you enjoy learning about
it, maybe casually, and thensomeone else just dumps this,

(11:56):
like, polysyllabic word ofauthority on you, and you're
like, oh, man, that person,they're talking above me. They
clearly know what they'retalking about. I think it's
unfortunate when that happens.It's like, can be a flex of
sorts. That makes me a bit sad,because it can cause people to
really question things when theyshouldn't. And there's so many
things that we need to work onin life. It's just such a shame

(12:17):
when something like proteinintake, which is almost never an
issue in economically developednations. It's just so
unfortunate that now people aregoing to divert their attention
from something that couldactually support their own well
being towards this, which, Imean, I was hoping, I was hoping
we could have moved on from thisas a population.

(12:37):
Unfortunately, we haven't. Wereally, really haven't this
topic is as hot as ever. Sobased on that history and the
research you've done, is thegovernment recommendations right
now, are those solid? Or hasthere been new science to
demonstrate that they're notsolid?
Yeah. I mean, anytime we throw asingle number at a population,

(13:02):
we're going to miss a wholebunch of nuance. And I think, as
a general recommendation, Ithink what they projected was as
good information as one couldpossibly do with the information
they had available. So I don'tthink that there was some, like
massive conspiracy, or evenminor conspiracy, or anything
that led to these, you know,wrong numbers or just bad

(13:24):
information, no, like we did thebest we could at the time. But
there certainly are more nuancesto the issue. You know, it's not
that things have changed in thelast, say, 20 years. It's just
that, you know, there's moremore data now that we have
access to that that can shedlight on some of the the finer
points. So just as an example,is that point eight grams of

(13:45):
protein per kilogram body massappropriate for for older
adults. So this is, this is agood example of like, where the
gray area comes in, becauselet's take lifting weights out
of the equation. As people getolder, very often they lose
muscle. We call that sarcopenia,and they lose bone mass, bone

(14:07):
density. And if that gets realbad, or if it gets bad, or, you
know, starts the head real fardownhill, it can become
osteopenia or osteoporosis,depending on the amount of bone
that has been lost and remains.Now, if people were to lift
weights, they could really,really mitigate that decline in

(14:30):
bone mass, I mean powerfully andmuscle mass. I mean they could
really make sure that in almostall cases, that they don't have
to worry about reductions inactivity, activities of daily
living, or hip fractures oranything like that. I mean, as
long as people are not evendoing a ton of weightlifting,
just like what the currentrecommendations are, it's like

(14:53):
twice a week for, say, 30minutes a shot of weightlifting,
if people were to do that, you.They would stimulate growth of
the muscle and the bone, becausewhen you lift weights, the
muscle tugs on the bone, and ifthe bone doesn't fortify, then
you would fracture your own boneby lifting weights. And so your
body has no interest in doingthat. So as the muscle gets
stronger, it strengthens thebone along with it. If people

(15:16):
were to do this even just like areasonable amount, nothing
crazy, no, like pro bodybuilderstuff, then what I'm about to
say in terms of protein wouldprobably be irrelevant from a
functional perspective, in termsof like, I want to live a long,
healthy, happy life that wouldprovide this anabolic or growth
oriented stimulus. But sinceweightlifting is relatively rare

(15:38):
in the general population, itseems that protein requirements
might be higher for those peoplewho you know, the aging
population, who's not liftingweights, maybe they need more,
like one to 1.2 grams of proteinper kilogram of body weight. It
seems like that confers aprotective effect against this

(15:58):
loss of tissue. But my ownpersonal plan is just to end my
recommendation for my for mypatients is just continue to or
begin to lift weights, and thenyour protein requirements may be
it's possible you're gettinglikely, I would say that you're
getting all that you need, sothat you don't actually need to
bump up those those intakes. So

(16:19):
the simple solution here is tostay active into your older
years, you know, eat well, tohave enough energy to want to be
active, to be to be part of acommunity, and at that point, as
long as you're sticking it withthat point eight number, you're
going to be fine,
yeah, and just absolutely and byjust your very nature of being

(16:41):
more active, you're going toburn more calories. You're going
to eat more calories so that youcan just maintain your own body
weight, because your bodysignals that you should do that
usually. And so you eat morefood. And if you're getting the
same percentage of calories fromprotein on a plant based diet,
it's what like 12, 13% ish ofcalories from protein. So that

(17:01):
ends up amounting to a greaterabsolute amount of protein
because you're you're movingmore. So if you're super
sedentary, and that, by the way,that's where the protein intakes
end up being really inadequate,is when total calories is too
low. So if someone's reallylosing weight fast, or you know
that, whether deliberately ornot, that's where protein

(17:21):
intakes tend to be really low,is in these settings of
scarcity, of total dietaryscarcity, it's really rare when
people for people to get enoughtotal calories eating like a
reasonably balanced diet,without even really trying to
just getting enough totalcalories, the protein comes
along with it. And yeah, I agreewith you completely that or I
mean, you're agreeing with meand I'm agreeing with you

(17:42):
agreeing with me that just someresistance training. And it
seems to me that the amount thatmaximizes reduction in premature
death, and this is based off ofthree meta analyzes that have
been published in the last fewyears, is something like an hour
a week total of weightlifting.It's like not much at all. I

(18:06):
personally have been doing thisever since I came across these
data. And it's like, for me,it's like 15 minutes a day, four
days a week of weightlifting.It's like, not prohibitive at
all. You could do three days aweek at 20 minutes a shot, two
days a week at 30 like, Iwouldn't do less than two days a
week here, but like, there's somany ways of doing it that are
accessible, that make it so thatyou can just forget about

(18:27):
protein and just eat healthyfood that you enjoy. So that
simplifies things. I
like that energy. Would bodyweight exercises count for
people who are trying to do moreresistance training?
Absolutely, absolutely, bodyweight exercises are excellent.
I would actually argue thatthey're generally superior to
like machines and things likethat. I mean, if you think about

(18:49):
it, doing a body weightexercise, like a squat or a step
up or a lunge would carry over,to quote, real life, more
effectively than, I don't know,using a machine to do leg
extensions or something likethat, that if you're practicing
these things on two legs or oneleg in freeze, you know, in
space, you have to balance nowand that that's also really

(19:11):
important as we age. Balance issuper, super important, I would
say, even more important thanyour bone mineral density in
terms of preventing fractures.So, yeah, I think body weight
stuff is awesome. Push ups, pullups or assisted pull ups using a
band. Yeah, planks, squats,lunges, things like that are
awesome. And and I don't belongto a gym, I I'd much prefer to

(19:35):
do it in my own garage or in myliving room. And so just for the
convenience sake, definitelyjust, I hope that people do it
in a way that that is asminimally prohibitive as
possible.
That's really interesting tohear from somebody who is so
into, you know, performance, andthat you don't even belong to a
gym. And you know, inside ourcoaching program, we have people
doing very simple at homeexercises that require zero

(19:59):
equipment. Right? And just like,I think what you're saying is
you got to do it consistently,though that's the key thing
here. And when it comes to myunderstanding of the most recent
literature is that when it comesto sarcopenia, the most
important part is doingresistance training and moving
your body. It's more of this,it's if you meet your protein

(20:23):
requirements and you move yourbody, you're going to be just
fine,
yeah. And the resistancetraining is a far more potent
stimulus for muscle growth andprotection from sarcopenia than
the protein requirements, right?There's, um, a meta regression.
This was published, like, Idon't know, maybe seven years
ago now, the first author's lastname is Morton, M, o r, t o n,

(20:46):
and they were looking at weightlifting for muscle growth and
the effects of optimizingprotein intake for muscle
growth, and sort of seeing what,how much does that actually
contribute? First of all, howmuch protein is actually
required. And then what is thateffect of getting that optimal
amount of protein on strengthand muscle mass? And weight

(21:08):
lifting, or resistance training,by itself, was by far the most
potent stimulus for growth, andthat like optimizing protein
intake for muscle growth,specifically added it was like
27% more muscle mass and 9% morestrength, which is like
reasonable amounts, but very,very small compared to just

(21:32):
showing up. And like you said,moving your body like resistance
training style, right? So yeah,I mean, 100% like to get
consistent with this goes areally long way. And it's such
little that's required. It'slike, so high yield that, I
mean, I can't think of almost ofa better use of, like, one hour
a week. Absolutely
okay. So I actually, I just,let's put some real numbers to

(21:55):
this. I actually talked to awoman yesterday, signed up for
the coaching program. All right.She's five feet, four inches
tall. She weighs 180 pounds, andher goal was to get down to 140
pounds. So if we're talkingabout protein consumption, for
that individual, she's actually48 years old. Okay, she's 48

(22:15):
years old. What do you tell thatperson about protein
requirements? If they Gen let'ssay that's separate from just
being like, hey, you get enoughcat. You need enough calories
from Whole Foods. You're gonnaget enough protein. Let's just
say they really wanted tocalculate it. They wanted to put
it into the Coronavirus, thefood logging software, and just
really give themselvesreassurance they're consuming

(22:36):
enough protein. Do you thatpoint eight number is that based
on their goal weight or theircurrent weight, and else would
you advise them?
Yeah, I'm a fan of chronometerand using it, not so much for
Pro. I mean, I rarely see peoplenot hit their requirements on
protein, but I think it's greatto see what micronutrients might
be missing, and sometimesthey'll help people see that

(22:57):
they're eating like, way moresalt than they thought that they
were. But yeah, you'd calculatethat off of their ideal body
weight. So I didn't write downthe numbers that you shared. And
I'm super visual, so I regret.Okay, they're
starting at 180 and they want toget to 140 cool.
So if 140 is their ideal bodyweight, and you can calculate
this off, there's somethingcalled the ham we equation.
There's like which is notparticularly scientifically

(23:19):
validated, but still, youbasically figure out if 140 is
where they need to end up, thenit would be 140 divided by 2.2
to get their body weight, ortheir body mass in kilograms.
So that would be basically 64kilograms. Okay, so 64
kilograms,
and then you just multiply thattimes point eight, and then that
would be the amount of proteinrequired. Now the thing is, if

(23:40):
they're losing weight fast, likeif they're doing this
aggressively, super fast,increasing protein intake is
going to protect against leanmass loss. So there are a few
other factors that play intothis, like, is this person? Have
they been resistance trainingfor their whole lives, or just
recently? Are they going tostart now and step it up.

(24:01):
Let's say they're going to startdoing three resistance training
workouts a week. They're goingto watch the videos inside our
online course. They're going tostart doing them. They're mainly
body weight exercises at homeand that they hadn't been doing
that for the past two years.
Okay, so they're going to beputting on muscle, which is kind
of cool, because usually,usually it's really hard to put

(24:22):
on muscle and lose fatconcurrently. It's doable. But
this is one of those contextswhere it really, actually is,
because if they had exercised inthe past and then they stopped,
and so they've lost a bunch ofmuscle, and now they're going to
put it back on so they actuallyhave the potential to put on
that muscle. I guess one of thethings I would say is, from an
esthetic standpoint, does thisis, this, are we aiming purely
at health, or is this personalso looking to

(24:43):
like this person in particular,they are 100% focused on their
health. Okay, they want toincrease their insulin
sensitivity and they want toreduce their risk of developing
Alzheimer's disease.
Oh, cool. Okay, that's great. Soyeah, I would say. Say that
point eight off of their bodymass in kilograms would be

(25:04):
great, and plenty, and they'realmost certainly going to get
more than that if they're eatinga bunch of greens and beans and
whole grains and things that aregoing to be higher in in
protein. So yeah, I think that Iwould be surprised if this
person didn't hit that amount,but I would also recommend that

(25:25):
they lose this body weightslowly because, well, for a
bunch of reasons. One is you'reless likely to slower loss of
body weight. Decreases thechances of losing more muscle.
It also mitigates metabolicslowdown. So basically, you're
you're going to have a fastermetabolism at your lower body

(25:46):
mass, so it's just going to makeit easier to maintain that
weight loss. So yeah, as long asthey're losing weight relatively
slowly and exercising, yeah, Ithink that that point it would
be totally fine. And if whatwould
you say is a good weight lossper week that is slow enough
for this person, I think, like,I mean, it just depends on what

(26:09):
they're comfortable with. But ifthey were cool with like half a
pound or a pound a week, I thinkthat'd be great, right?
Absolutely. Yeah, we say shootfor like about a pound a week.
Yeah, some some some, some, keepit consistently coming down.
Yeah. And if the person was like300 pounds, I'd be totally
comfortable increasing the rateof weight loss at the beginning.

(26:32):
You're really when there's somuch body fat, you're really not
gonna lose muscle in thoseearlier stages it as they start
to approach their goal weight.That's where I would really slow
it down, which is nice, becauseit slows down anyway, right?
Okay,
so in absolute numbers, we'retalking approximately 52 grams
of protein. So on a plant baseddiet, is that hard to get? Is

(26:53):
that easy to get? From yourperspective,
I've tried, personally, toundershoot. I've been like, is
it possible for me to undershootthe E, A, R, that point, six,
six. It's really hard. The onlyway I can do it is if I cut out
vegetables and beans almostentirely. I can do it if I just
ate, like, rice and fruit onlythat. I don't want to do that.

(27:17):
So, like, I think there'sactually a diet with a Kempner
diet that did that. But
whatever, it doesn't matter,absolutely. But rice, fruit
time, yeah, yeah. So
I think it's really easy to hitthose numbers. I used to be,
like, really focused on hittingspecific numbers. And when, by
the way, you're, you know,you're asking, has, how has
science sort of changed in thelast 20 years? And one of the

(27:38):
things is protein timing, youknow, pre and post exercise. Am
I supposed to have protein aprotein shake as soon as I
finish and and so I used to timethese things. I used to be like,
really on the clock. And I don'tknow it's really meticulous. And
I guess as I've gotten older, myinterests have changed. But
also, the research has shownthat we don't need to be as
tight with these things. Like,it's not as you know, there's an

(28:01):
anabolic window, and if youdon't eat right after you're
you're going down, you've justwasted your whole workout. And
it's really hard to not getenough. And if you're getting
the vegetables and the beans,which I think are really the
healthiest foods that we caneat, it's like, really, really
hard to not get what you'dactually require. So, yeah, it's
just not something. I mean, I'veworked with 1000s of patients. I

(28:25):
have not, you know, even whenI've when I had entered their
their dietary data intochronometer, eating whole food,
plant based diets. I just neversee them fall short of that.
RDA, I just don't see it. Imean, you just think maybe if
there's someone who has, like,an eating disorder, I would say
in the context that we'retalking about here, it's just
not, it's not going to happen.

(28:45):
Yeah, okay, so there's a lot oftalk about plant protein not
being absorbed in the same waythat animal protein is absorbed.
What does the science say aboutthis topic?
So this is where that that thatDS research comes in, I would
say that the discrepancy ismuch, much, much less than

(29:10):
people tend to believe. Youknow, it's like a few percentage
points. It's like basicallynothing. But so if the same
total amount of protein wasconsumed, but the quality of the
protein is, let's say, lower ona plant based diet than an
animal, you know, animal foods,then you would think you would

(29:31):
digest and absorb less eatingplant based foods than you would
from animal based foods, right?So that's the thought process,
correct? If the thought processis, let's say, for example, this
woman, she wants to get her 52her minimum is 52 grams of
protein. One day she eats like53 but the teaching point is,
you're not actually getting the53 grams, because you're not

(29:53):
going to absorb it, because thatprotein came from plants, so
therefore you should eat more.Right? Is that true or false?
Wow,
got it. It gets really nuanced.I have to remember that we're
going back to non athleticsituations, by the way. I don't
want to say that that 52 or 50or whatever we figured out was
is the minimum. I want to saythat that's most likely greater

(30:14):
than most people are going toneed. So I just want to put that
out. This is like overkill, twostandard deviations out from the
average requirement. But no,it's not going to be a problem
for this person. It's not likeyou're going to have to eat more
in order to compensate. Therewas a paper that was published
like I said. It was just like amonth ago. The first author's

(30:34):
last name is aren't Lance. Andthis was actually funded by the
beef industry, and they tookhealthy women in their 50s, so
hopefully this applies reallywell to the individual year or
sample person. And this is arandomized crossover study. So
they took, you know, everyoneexperiences more than one

(30:55):
condition, and they'rerandomized really well, well
done research. And so theoptions, or the different
conditions that peopleexperienced, was one, they
either had, it was lean beef, 23grams of protein from lean beef.
Another option was beans andwhole wheat bread, again, 23
grams of protein. Another onewas beans or whole wheat bread.

(31:18):
And then they also had a controlcondition, which was just five
grams of protein. So theresearchers were looking to see,
well, hey, lean beef is, quote,high quality protein. It has all
the essential amino acids. Beansand whole wheat bread, those
have complementary amino acidprofiles. So you know, you're
going to get all the essentialamino acids. It's just going to

(31:38):
come from different foods. Butlike you were saying, the
digestibility should be lowerbecause it's coming from plant
foods. And then the third optionwas beans or whole wheat bread,
and that's quote, incompleteprotein, even though that's not
really true, because it containsall of the these foods contain
all of the essential aminoacids, just in different
proportions than would be,quote, optimal for building

(31:58):
muscle. But basically, Ibelieve, given the funding
source, that the expectation,and I think it was the
hypothesis, don't quote me onit, but I think it was
explicitly stated as thehypothesis, that they were
expecting that the beef wouldpromote more protein synthesis
than those other conditions. Andso they measured this, and they
evaluated something called thefractional synthetic rate. It's

(32:19):
like, sort of the rate of muscleprotein synthesis after
breakfast. They measured it.They measured it after 24 hours,
and there was no difference atall between the groups. So it
really kind of takes what a lotof people think and sort of
flips it on its head in that itwas 23 grams of protein, and if
it came from plants or animals,it stimulated growth in a

(32:40):
similar capacity. Now, when youget really, really low with
protein intakes, let's say wewere to repeat this study with
10 grams of protein, I think youmight see a difference. If you
were to repeat it with 50 gramsof protein, you'd probably see
even less of a difference. Therewas no difference, as it was,
but so at very, very lowintakes, it's my understanding
that that's where you seedifferences between like whey

(33:01):
protein and soy protein forstimulating muscle growth, but
at these like moderate or highdoses, it just doesn't seem to
really make any difference. So Iguess this is my long way of
saying that the protein qualityhas been overblown in
economically developed contexts,that if someone was living in

(33:22):
Sub Saharan Africa and hadreally, really low act, I mean,
let's just say they had to eatone stable crop as, like, 90% of
their calories, and that's allthat they had access to. That's
where it might start to make adifference. But here where we
have, like, even a small varietyof foods that we can I mean, we
have a huge variety, in truth.But like, even if we only had a

(33:42):
small variety, that qualitybecomes really inconsequential
in terms of protein quality,because we easily get what we
need. I mean, it's like hard toundershoot that did that answer
your question?
It certainly did. What aboutrecycling protein does the human
body recycle amino acids. Anddoes that impact protein needs?

(34:05):
Yeah, for sure, in a big, bigway. We recycle like 250, to 300
grams of protein per day. It'slike broken down from our
muscle, and we slough it offfrom our GI tract, and it's
rebuilt every day. And so that'sthat's way more protein than
anyone consumes in a day. It'sreally helpful, because we would
have to eat way more protein ina day if we couldn't do this.
And so this helps us produce theenzymes we need, and have been

(34:28):
a, you know, an adequate immuneresponse and repair tissue. It
definitely, as a whole,decreases the amount of protein
we require in a given day. Andthis recycling of protein is
factored into the requirementsthat have been established over
the years 100%
okay, so
let's talk about athletes. Howmuch more protein does the and

(34:52):
again, I love how you addressnuance. You said that earlier in
the show, and that's a huge partof you know why we do this
personalized coaching. Forpeople living with all forms of
diabetes, there are nuances forjust about everybody when it
comes to lifestyle change. Butin general, okay, let's say
somebody is trying to become aCrossFit athlete, or there's

(35:14):
like this Hirose activity that'svery popular, so hybrid
endurance plus strength, is thatgoing to be different than the
person who's just trying to dobodybuilding? What about the
person who's just doingendurance or just running
marathons?
Yeah, so protein requirementsare going to be different for
athletes of different sports.The Academy of Nutrition and
Dietetics, dietitians of Canadaand American College of Sports

(35:35):
Medicine, throw in their mostrecent position paper on food
for sport about 1.2 to two gramsof protein per kilogram body
weight, or body mass as a sortof general recommendation. So
endurance athletes are going toneed less more like, let's say
1.2 to 1.4 and then let's say abodybuilder would need more

(35:57):
like, let's say 1.6 so thatpaper I mentioned earlier from
last name Morton, that metaanalysis threw about it was like
1.6 or, I think it wasspecifically like 1.62 grams of
protein per kilogram body mass,was the amount required to
maximize muscle mass andstrength gains in the context of
weight lifting. That was sort ofthe mean value. And just

(36:19):
throwing it out there. I justthis year, published three
papers looking at sort ofmodeling, whether people eating
plant based diets, just eatingmore total food, but not really
messing with the diet quality,just like larger portions of the
same meals they would otherwisenormally eat, and just seeing
would they hit this targetwithout paying any extra

(36:41):
attention to protein. I lookedat this in American football
players, professionalbodybuilders and or, I'm sorry,
amateur bodybuilders and rugbyplayers, and in each of these
cases, they got the dataindicated that they got the
amount of protein that theywould they would have gotten the
amount of protein that theywould need to maximize this
response. So definitely moreprotein would be required. And

(37:02):
even more, actually, if you weretrying to cut weight, maybe
you'd need a gram of protein perpound of body weight at that
point. But yeah, I think theredefinitely are going to be
different requirements. Andplant based endurance athletes
tend to fall right around that1.2 maybe 1.3 grams of protein
per kilogram body mass. So likea triathlete or a runner,

(37:23):
they're just eating so much foodbecause they're hungry from
their exercise that thatdelivers additional protein, and
then they fall in that in thatrange, and then the the
bodybuilder, like I said, they'drequire a little bit more, but,
you know, they're training more,and also you're trying to add
mass, so that means you'reconsuming even more calories
because you're trying to put onweight. So what

(37:45):
I'm hearing you say is, whetheryou're a committed athlete or an
everyday person who is lookingto be more active and do that,
that strength training that'snecessary for long term health,
you're in either one of thosecategories. If you choose to eat
enough whole plant based foods,and you're meeting your caloric

(38:11):
requirements, by default, you'regoing to get the protein you
need to thrive,
to thrive. Yes, I mean, forsure, to be, to be a healthy
person, and then if it's in anathletic context, then sometimes
a little bit of tweaking can behelpful. And that's where the
chronometer would come in. Butat this point I can eyeball,

(38:31):
and, you know, using like GregorDr greger's Daily Dozen app, for
example, just to see are peoplegetting roughly the amount of
servings of whole grains andvegetables and berries and all
this stuff. You know, if peopleare generally hitting that Daily
Dozen, yeah, they're gonna getthe protein that they require
for for health in most cases,again, like there are totally
exceptions, like burn victimsare gonna require a whole lot

(38:53):
more protein. You know, thereare certain situations where
just things change. But broadly,yeah, it's just not it does not
need to be a concern for theregular person who wants to be
healthy and happy and fit andplay a sport recreationally. But
yeah, if you're trying to be acompetitive bodybuilder or a
football player, you know, like,if you're cutting weight,

(39:13):
especially, like, it's somethingto just measure, you know, track
a couple times, see if you'regenerally on point, and then if
you are move on to the nextthing in life. And
you know, it's great to hear yousay that, David, but I can't
really let you go and the showwithout just asking your opinion
on why is this topic soconfusing? Even amongst the

(39:39):
plant based community, there'sthis new emphasis towards high
protein recipes, high proteinmeals, and, you know, directly
associated with strength andbeing fit and being strong. Why
is there so much confusionaround this topic? I'll
just guess at it. I'm surethere's a bunch of reasons. I
would say one of them is, you. Ithink some of this is rooted in

(40:01):
in value, and some of it isrooted in nonsense. So when,
like, the Atkins dietpopularized high protein diets,
people saw that people weregenuinely losing weight, and
they were like, oh, that'sthat's appealing. Like, I want
that too. And why is thathappening? And so the concept of
protein leverage, which is alegitimate concept, is that as
protein intake goes up, intakeof fat and carbohydrates goes

(40:23):
down, and so you can produceweight loss. So I think there
are a lot of people who aretrying to lose weight, and
they're like, Okay, well, Ithink that eating more protein
will help me lose weight. Ithink that they're again,
missing the forest for the treeshere in that they're sort of
mortgaging their long termhealth for these short term
weight loss experience. But Ithink that that's, you know, so
there is, like, a piece of truthin that they also probably feel

(40:45):
more more full when they eatmore protein. And that's also
true, like, it's very satiating,but it kind of, again, I think
it misses the point, and alsoforgets that waterlogged foods
that are, you know, high infiber, like whole plant foods,
are also extremely satiating,and they don't cause us to
choose between our short termand long term ambitions. So

(41:07):
again, I think it's anincomplete picture. But then I
also think that there's thisreally crazy, like excessively
linear, way that we think aboutthings, where it's like, if I
eat muscle, I'll grow muscle. IfI eat protein, I'll grow that.
And it seems kind of crazy tome, like I wonder if people
think if they ate brains, ifthey would get smarter. Maybe
this is inappropriate for apodcast, but I remember learning

(41:30):
when I lived in Colorado aboutRocky Mountain Oysters, where
people would eat bull testicles.Sorry to listen. Wow, that's too
much, but that people talkedabout that for, like, libido,
and it just, to me, it justseems like so, so silly. I mean,
I'm sure you see this too inwith mastering diabetes, where
people are like, well, diabetes,too much carbs, so I have to

(41:52):
have less carbs. It's so obviousand linear, right? And it's
like, no, no. It's actually morecomplicated than that than our
bodies are brilliant,extraordinary, complex machines
that don't just function in thisone to one ratio, like we can
convert things, right? And soanyway, yeah, I think that
there's some of it is sensibleand some of it is completely
insane. But I would love for forfor the world to just move

(42:14):
forward, because it's so suchthe wrong focus for us to really
make the headway that we wantto. Well,
Dave, I just want to thank youfor your time, and I agree. I
wish the world could also justmove forward on this topic. But
this is not going to be the lastof you on our podcast to come
and discuss this topic. I'm surethere'll be some new research,
and we'll want to have you back,because the topic is not going

(42:37):
anywhere, and I think it'simportant for people to gain
confidence that what they'redoing is okay for their short
term and their long term health.So last question here, for
anybody listening to the showwho is really to just want to
make sure they're getting enoughprotein, what would you say? I
mean,

(42:58):
I would say, if you really wantto see the numbers, throw it
into chronometer. It's free C,R, O, N, O, M, E, T, E R. It's a
free app. It's a free website.If you really just need to see
it on paper, then totally dothat or work with a dietitian
who can help you see that. But,like, I really don't think, I
think you're going to bepleasantly, maybe surprised, but
hopefully not too surprised thatyou're going to be pretty great,

(43:19):
pretty spot on. It's gonna be,like I said, really hard to
undershoot. And so hopefully youcan breathe easy and redirect
that focus towards perfectingthe taste of the dishes that
you're eating instead, and andjust really loving everything
that is going in your mouth. Andjust, yeah, redirecting your
attention in that in thatcapacity. So yeah, chronometer,
if you need to, but hopefullyyou don't even need

(43:44):
to. There you have it. I hopeyou learned some new information
in this episode. If you'relooking for some great recipes
with plenty of protein, headover to masteringdiabetes.org
and you'll see lots of low fat,plant based whole food recipes.
Thanks for listening, and we'llcatch you in the next show. You.