Optimal Protein Intake Is Likely 20g-30g Per Meal

[haidut]

Please keep in mind that by "optimal" these studies consider what is the optimal dose of protein per meal for muscle protein synthesis. The dosage may be different for other people depending on the circumstances. Malnourished, hypothyroid or liver-disease people may need more or less depending on the condition. But for relatively healthy people it seems that more than 30g of protein per meal may end end up getting wasted and may be even triggering cortisol to convert the extra protein to glucose.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25026454
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19056590

 

[RPDiciple]

Cool. But what about frequency then? like how long does this "dose" last for?

 

[Dean]

Malnourished, hypothyroid or liver-disease people may need more or less depending on the condition.

What would be the criteria for determining whether you need more or less? Is it as simple as gauging how you feel on different amounts?

 

[haidut]

Malnourished, hypothyroid or liver-disease people may need more or less depending on the condition.

What would be the criteria for determining whether you need more or less? Is it as simple as gauging how you feel on different amounts?

In the absence of blood tests, the only other gauges would be temperature and pulse. These studies used healthy people with no liver or kidney problems, but even less healthy people react well to such regimen. If you are trying to lose weight I'd say taking this dose every 3 hours would be fine.

 

[haidut]

Cool. But what about frequency then? like how long does this "dose" last for?

Probably 3-4 hours. Most studies show decline in muscle synthesis after 3 hours following a protein-rich meal.

 

[RPDiciple]

thanx

 

[cantstoppeating]

Malnourished, hypothyroid or liver-disease people may need more or less depending on the condition.

What would be the criteria for determining whether you need more or less? Is it as simple as gauging how you feel on different amounts?

In the absence of blood tests, the only other gauges would be temperature and pulse. These studies used healthy people with no liver or kidney problems, but even less healthy people react well to such regimen. If you are trying to lose weight I'd say taking this dose every 3 hours would be fine.

Can you expand on what you'd look for in the blood tests to gauge protein intake?

 

[haidut]

Malnourished, hypothyroid or liver-disease people may need more or less depending on the condition.

What would be the criteria for determining whether you need more or less? Is it as simple as gauging how you feel on different amounts?

In the absence of blood tests, the only other gauges would be temperature and pulse. These studies used healthy people with no liver or kidney problems, but even less healthy people react well to such regimen. If you are trying to lose weight I'd say taking this dose every 3 hours would be fine.

Can you expand on what you'd look for in the blood tests to gauge protein intake?

If albumin and/or BUN start getting close to the top range or exceed it then it means your protein intake is at a level that's probably burdening the kidneys. It could also be due to dehydration, which may be common in the Peat world since hypothyroid people tend to purposefully lower liquid intake.
Other numbers to watch for are total protein, globulin and of course blood ammonia. The last one is probably most directly indicating of too much protein but most doctor's office refuse to test for it since it requires frozen blood specimen and even if you test for ammonia the test may not be very reliable since the bulk of the ammonia accumulates in the brain. However, if you do get a high ammonia blood reading several times in a row I'd take it seriously and lower protein intake or do some investigations into kidney/liver function.

 

[Dean]

In the absence of blood tests, the only other gauges would be temperature and pulse.

I'm familiar with using temperatures and pulse as a way to test thyroid and blood sugar, but how do you use it in determining if your protein intake per day and/or per feeding is sufficient and/or not excessive (burdensome to the kidneys, etc.)?

 

[haidut]

In the absence of blood tests, the only other gauges would be temperature and pulse.

I'm familiar with using temperatures and pulse as a way to test thyroid and blood sugar, but how do you use it in determining if your protein intake per day and/or per feeding is sufficient and/or not excessive (burdensome to the kidneys, etc.)?

Inadequate protein will prevent you from making T3, so metabolism will crash. Also, too much protein and not enough sugar will increase ammonia and also inhibit metabolism. So, cold extremities and poor metabolism probably mean protein is too low or too high.

 

[James IV]

im not really seeing how the studies show the conclusion of the thread title?

Another issue with these studies is that they often use liquid meals. This is going to change the rate of digestion and therefore absorption quite dramatically. You chug down 40g of whey isolate shake, and it's likely much of that may be oxidized. However you eat 5oz of steak, and that same 40g is going to trickle into your system or a number of hours as the meat is digested. Maybe Even longer if it's a mixed meal. So it's likely the protein will all be utilized.

I do think real world food type variables are important to take into account.

 

[haidut]

post 111076 im not really seeing how the studies show the conclusion of the thread title?

Another issue with these studies is that they often use liquid meals. This is going to change the rate of digestion and therefore absorption quite dramatically. You chug down 40g of whey isolate shake, and it's likely much of that may be oxidized. However you eat 5oz of steak, and that same 40g is going to trickle into your system or a number of hours as the meat is digested. Maybe Even longer if it's a mixed meal. So it's likely the protein will all be utilized.

I do think real world food type variables are important to take into account.

The studies did indeed look at recovery from exercise, so that is not applicable to everybody. However, the the goal of both studies was to find the optimal amount of protein intake to trigger muscle synthesis. Any amount beyond that is likely not beneficial and will probably get oxidized as fuel, which is not good. So, the conclusion of both studies:
"...CONCLUSIONS: Ingesting 23 g of protein with 5 g of added leucine achieved near-maximal FSR after endurance exercise, an effect unlikely attributable to mTORC1-S6K-rpS6 signaling, insulin, or amino acids. Translating the effects of protein-leucine quantity on protein synthesis to optimizing adaptation and performance requires further research."

"...CONCLUSIONS: Ingestion of 20 g intact protein is sufficient to maximally stimulate MPS and APS after resistance exercise. Phosphorylation of candidate signaling proteins was not enhanced with any dose of protein ingested, which suggested that the stimulation of MPS after resistance exercise may be related to amino acid availability. Finally, dietary protein consumed after exercise in excess of the rate at which it can be incorporated into tissue protein stimulates irreversible oxidation."

How is that not supporting the title of the thread? I supposed I should have added "after exercise" to the title but the Discussion section of both studies says that the findings would likely apply in any situation, not just after exercise.

 

[James IV]

I suppose it's a semantics issue. Simply because you are "ingesting" more than 20g of protein in a sitting, does not mean you are assimilating all of that protein in a static way. Meal composition, meal frequency, digestion rate, etc, are going to dictate how much of that protein gets digested and therefore assimilated in the hours after the meal. When the studies use liquid meals and powders, it's going to move through the digestive system quickly, and dump a lot of amino acids into the bloodstream right away. As opposed to eating a steak, which will take many hours to digest and assimilate, and will trickle amino acids into the bloodstream for many hours after the meal.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but the title states 20-30g of protein per meal is optimal. And that is a bit vague. What if a person eats 2 meals a day, or 10? Or What if a person eats 80g of protein In a huge meal that takes 10 hours to digest,dumping a continuous flow of amino acids into thier blood stream for those 10 hours , does that still count as one meal? Or what if a person has fasted, which had been shown to upregulate protein synthesis, potentially allowing more protein synthesis per hour.

Maybe I'm just being nit picky.

 

[Jsaute21]

Thoughts on the notion that meal frequency alters total testosterone levels? I assume this is false and that testosterone does clearly lower each time we eat but meal frequency does not alter overall hormone levels.

 

[Tenacity]

If albumin and/or BUN start getting close to the top range or exceed it then it means your protein intake is at a level that's probably burdening the kidneys. It could also be due to dehydration, which may be common in the Peat world since hypothyroid people tend to purposefully lower liquid intake.
Other numbers to watch for are total protein, globulin and of course blood ammonia. The last one is probably most directly indicating of too much protein but most doctor's office refuse to test for it since it requires frozen blood specimen and even if you test for ammonia the test may not be very reliable since the bulk of the ammonia accumulates in the brain. However, if you do get a high ammonia blood reading several times in a row I'd take it seriously and lower protein intake or do some investigations into kidney/liver function.

Would being in a fasted state increase albumin or total protein levels? I had a blood test a while ago when I had poor appetite, and I got this:

Serum albumin - 44 g/L - Range: 35-50 g/L
Serum total protein - 79 g/L - Range: 63-82 g/L

At the time I imagine I was getting only about 70g of protein daily. Are these results useless with regard to what I should 'normally' be eating? I was in a pretty catabolic state at the time.

EDIT: I'm reading that fasting or protein deficiency can decrease albumin. What gives? Is my body just really poor at handling protein?

 

[haidut]

Would being in a fasted state increase albumin or total protein levels? I had a blood test a while ago when I had poor appetite, and I got this:

Serum albumin - 44 g/L - Range: 35-50 g/L
Serum total protein - 79 g/L - Range: 63-82 g/L

At the time I imagine I was getting only about 70g of protein daily. Are these results useless with regard to what I should 'normally' be eating? I was in a pretty catabolic state at the time.

EDIT: I'm reading that fasting or protein deficiency can decrease albumin. What gives? Is my body just really poor at handling protein?

If cortisol and serotonin rise enough due to the fasting to create a catabolic state then yes. BUN is often one of the best indicators of dieting/fasting. However, when the fasting/starvation becomes too severe the blood proteins and BUN would drop below range. People with Kwashiorkor syndrome usually have low BUN and blood proteins.

 

[lvysaur]

So basically, eating more than 5 oz. of meat at a time is bad for your health, right?

Do you think it could feed bacteria instead of being converted to glucose?

 

[miles]

Would gelatin be included within the 30g?

 

[cyclops]

I suppose it's a semantics issue. Simply because you are "ingesting" more than 20g of protein in a sitting, does not mean you are assimilating all of that protein in a static way. Meal composition, meal frequency, digestion rate, etc, are going to dictate how much of that protein gets digested and therefore assimilated in the hours after the meal. When the studies use liquid meals and powders, it's going to move through the digestive system quickly, and dump a lot of amino acids into the bloodstream right away. As opposed to eating a steak, which will take many hours to digest and assimilate, and will trickle amino acids into the bloodstream for many hours after the meal.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but the title states 20-30g of protein per meal is optimal. And that is a bit vague. What if a person eats 2 meals a day, or 10? Or What if a person eats 80g of protein In a huge meal that takes 10 hours to digest,dumping a continuous flow of amino acids into thier blood stream for those 10 hours , does that still count as one meal? Or what if a person has fasted, which had been shown to upregulate protein synthesis, potentially allowing more protein synthesis per hour.

Maybe I'm just being nit picky.

I agree. I'm currently eating 2x per day and I lift weights frequently. I also weigh 250 pounds. I could probably do well eating 100+ grams of protein per meal then.

 

[AyurvedaMGerson]

So basically, eating more than 5 oz. of meat at a time is bad for your health, right?

Do you think it could feed bacteria instead of being converted to glucose?

Protein inside digestive tract begins to break in the stomach and after in small bowel. This break free aminoacids from protein. This aminoacids can enter the bowel wall (enterocite) to bloodstream or can turn into food for bacteria.

Aminoacids are converted in glucose in the Liver. Aminoacids must lose nitrogen, resulting ketoacids, and some ketoacids are converted to glucose, and anothers to acetil-coa.