Milk Blend For An Elderly Person : Amino Acid Profile

[yerrag]

I've been using a goat milk-based blend for my mom for her morning and evening meals, as I don't believe in using Ensure or Glucerna or what not, being that they are expensive. Also, they do not use the right oils and their reliance on starch and less use of fructose-based sugar makes their carbohydrate content less than ideal. Their selection of protein sources are likely based on the cheapest available in the market, and the amino acid profile is lacking in glycine, for example, and may not provide the ideal amino acid profile needed by mature and especially elderly people. For example, tryptophan may be higher than needed and would be serotogenic.

It's challenging to create this milk-based blend because for one, I don't know what kind of amino acid profile would be ideal. Secondly, I don't have many choices for protein. Vegetable-based protein is out, and so what remains to choose from is animal-based.

For purposes of simplication, I'm only focusing on the amino acid profile of this milk-based blend. I'm leaving out the carb portion and the fat portion. I'm hoping that once the amino acid profile is determined, I could then work out the fat and carb portion of this milk blend.

I've made a spreadsheet and plugged in values to my protein inputs of goat's milk, egg, whey protein, collagen hydrolysate, and colostrum. I know that whey protein isn't an ideal input as it is high in tryptophan but it seems it can't be helped. All I can do is to balance it with use of collagen hydrolysate. And I know also that egg has plenty of PUFAs, but I'm hoping I can use VCO later on to at least increase the ratio of saturated fat over PUFA.

Below is the amino acid profile I'm starting out with. Would appreciate your comments on what I need to lessen or increase. If you have more protein sources to suggest, I would appreciate it just so long as its addition would not make this milk blend awful to the taste.

Without having access to the spreadsheet, you may be limited in knowing that certain amino acids may end up being a necessary evil, and that minimizing or eliminating it may be impractical at best. If you need access to the spreadsheet, I will readily provide it. But for now, I'm not putting it out there just to simplify the discussion.

Thanks!

Amino Acid Profile of Initial Milk Blend (in percent composition)

Isoleucine 4.61
Leucine 7.79
Valine 5.75
Alanine 5.42
Arginine 5.11
Aspartic Acid 8.24
Cystine 1.16
Glutamic Acid 14.35
Glycine 6.67
Histidine 2.04
Hydroxyproline 2.47
Lysine 6.74
Methionine 2.06
Phenylalanine 4.08
Proline 8.45
Serine 5.79
Threonine 4.52
Tryptophan 0.99
Tyrosine 3.58
Hydroxylysine 0.19

 

[sladerunner69]

I wouldn't be too concerned about the break down amino acid profile of the foods she is eating as long as you are including dairy and gelatin as primary sources of protein. A little tryptophan heavy muscle meat is essentially harmless if balanced out with glycine and calcium, and the high quality animal protein is likely very beneficial especially for an elderly person under a lot of stress.

You could have her try some supplemental tyrosine to se eif it increased dopamergenic effects.

However I tend to stay away from "purified" amino acids because they tend to give me brain fog and Dr. Peat claims that purity is hopeless when it comes to supplements and especially aminos.

 

[yerrag]

Oh very good! Thanks for the reminder to add calcium to the blend. In addition to calcium, I have magnesium, salt, and niacinamide together with virgin coconut oil (for the fat) and either honey or coco nectar.

I'm hoping to get some ideas about additonal protein sources as I'm afraid I'm missing something. Spirulina comes to mind, but I'm afraid even a slight amount makes it smell different.

 

[Trambak]

Why don't you use casein protein instead of whey protein? Much less tryptophan and methionine, more ideal amino profile.

 

[yerrag]

Thanks! I didn't even consider that. I totally overlooked it and realized I forgot there's such a thing. Now I'm looking at the amino acid profile of Naked Casein at Amazon. Certainly looks better amino acid profile-wise, especially with tryptophan being much less.

Now I'm looking for goat casein instead of cow casein, as I have to need the cows to be the A2 type as my mom might form mucus with using A2 cow-sourced casein. Goat casein has no such problem. Problem is, goat casein is hard to find.

 

[yerrag]

I went back to this thread "How Much Gelatin Is Safe How Much Gelatin Is Safe? " and @Mittir says Ray Peat "RP mentioned that for an adult gelatin can be 50 percent of total protein intake." Using that as basis, I rejiggered my spreadsheet so that gelatin (in the form of collagen hydrolysate) would contribute to 50% of the protein intake.

This is the resulting amino acid profile (in percentage) I got:

Isoleucine 3.24
Leucine 5.44
Valine 4.52
Alanine 6.76
Arginine 6.1
Aspartic Acid 6.48
Cystine 0.67
Glutamic Acid 12.27
Glycine 13.80
Histidine 1.57
Hydroxyproline 6.38
Lysine 5.34
Methionine 1.42
Phenylalanine 3.27
Proline 11.37
Serine 4.55
Threonine 3.14
Tryptophan 0.49
Tyrosine 2.64
Hydroxylysine 0.53

With this, glycine, proline, and serine has increased significantly, while tryptophan and cystine and aspartic acid has decreased a lot as well. Glutamic acid remains significantly high, but I'm not sure if it still needs working on.

On the other hand, I'm now concerned that the daily intake might go below needed intake for some "essential amino acid," noting that the basis for essentiality is very much targeted towards growth and not preservation, so this needs to be taken in context. Just the same, as far as the essential amino acids go, here is what I get in terms of daily intake and compared with recommended daily intake (as based on an article I chose randomly) https://www.bodyworld.ch/media/products/0366021001350046912.pdf


Isoleucine- 30 calculated vs 22 mg/lb bodyweight minimum required
Leucine- 51 vs 31
Lysine- 50 vs 26
Methionine - 13 vs 29
Phenylalanine- 31 vs 31
Threonine - 29 vs 15
Tryptophan - 5 vs 8
Valine - 42 vs 22

I put in boldface the amino acids methionine and tryptophan. These amino acids end up being less in my calculation for the formulation. I could just rejigger my formula so these end up going meeting the daily requirements as stated, just to be safe.

But I wonder, if I didn't know methionine and tryptophan would end up being "deficient," would it really be a deficiency given that the amino acid requirements I based on are based on achieving growth, rather than for preservation?

p.s. Actually I did some rejiggering and it's dfficult to increase methionine and tryptophan to those minimum levels without drastically reducing the percentage makeup of gelatin (collagen hydrolysate), so the real question is do I need to still stick to the stated minimum for both methionine and tryptophan?

 

[yerrag]

I found this table that lists the essential protein requirements for various age groups:
ay
TABLE 6-1, Estimates of Amino Acid Requirements - Recommended Dietary Allowances - NCBI Bookshelf

from Protein and Amino Acids - Recommended Dietary Allowances - NCBI Bookshelf

It would be okay to have methionine and tryptophan at those levels I boldfaced earlier, methionine being listed at 13 mg/kg and tryptophan at 3.5 mg/kg for adults (not merely elderly). This is quite a revelation to me as I can benefit from this research I did as well. This translates to a minimum reqt. of 6 mg and 1.6 mg/lb of body weight, respectively for methionine and tryptophan, which is way below the calculated contents of same in my protein mix for the milk blend, where half of protein content is supplied by collagen hydrolysate.

I can now proceed to use my milk blend and I'll share what my milk blend is later.

And I should end this post with the untired cliche "Ray Peat is right again!" Droundpushpin:

 

[A.R]

I found this table that lists the essential protein requirements for various age groups:
ay
TABLE 6-1, Estimates of Amino Acid Requirements - Recommended Dietary Allowances - NCBI Bookshelf

from Protein and Amino Acids - Recommended Dietary Allowances - NCBI Bookshelf

It would be okay to have methionine and tryptophan at those levels I boldfaced earlier, methionine being listed at 13 mg/kg and tryptophan at 3.5 mg/kg for adults (not merely elderly). This is quite a revelation to me as I can benefit from this research I did as well. This translates to a minimum reqt. of 6 mg and 1.6 mg/lb of body weight, respectively for methionine and tryptophan, which is way below the calculated contents of same in my protein mix for the milk blend, where half of protein content is supplied by collagen hydrolysate.

I can now proceed to use my milk blend and I'll share what my milk blend is later.

And I should end this post with the untired cliche "Ray Peat is right again!" Droundpushpin:

How have you been getting on with this milk blend. Do you use amino acids in powder form?