Is Protein Overhyped? What the Research Actually Says - Dr. Barrett Deubert

And for decades, low fat diets were dominating the market. We saw calories, right, calories in, calories out dominating the market. We saw people were fearing meat consumption, right? It's like, hey, don't eat red meat. It's gonna it's gonna cause heart disease.

And now it's like, hey. Everyone just eat cow for the rest of your life. Carnivore. Right? It's like total extreme from no red meat to carnivore, from no cows to just eat the cow for the rest of your life, nose to tail.

Welcome back to another episode of the Real Health Podcast. Today, we are talking all things protein. Overhyped? oO are you actually not eating enough protein? It feels like everyone's talking about it and we need to bring some clarity behind it. Everywhere you look right now, protein is the conversation, right?

Protein coffee, protein cereal, protein chips, protein bars, protein ice cream. It's like we're infusing protein, all these things and then we're saying, hey, you need more of it, right? And it's what we do as a society. It's like we take something that is, I think good and then we overhype it and we sell you on it, right? Sell you something.

And so it almost feels like the wellness industry replaced this low fat culture with high protein culture. And is it right? You know, are truly protein deficient? That's the conversation today. That's what we're gonna dive into is protein becoming overhyped.

Hey, we have a brain workshop coming up and we're gonna be doing it at our West office at The Real Health Co. Make sure you get into our social media, find out the time, the dates, and sign up for our brain health workshop from kids to adults, from ADD to Alzheimer's. We're gonna talk about how to create brain health. Alright. Today, I wanna break down what the research actually says about protein.

How much do you really need, and where the Internet gets it wrong, and why this conversation matters more than just, muscle building. Right? So why is everyone talking about protein? And it's a cultural shift, right? I think it's a good cultural shift, but it's a cultural shift.

And for decades, low fat diets were dominating the market. We saw calories, right? Calories in, calories out dominating the market. We saw people were fearing meat consumption, right? It's like, hey, don't eat red meat.

It's gonna cause heart disease. And now it's like, hey, everyone just eat cow for the rest of your life. Carnivore, right? It's like total extreme from no red meat to carnivore, from no cows to just eat the cow for the rest of your life, nose to tail. And people even feared eggs, right?

They said, Hey, that egg is gonna raise your cholesterol. It's gonna cause heart disease. And there's just so much wrong with those conversations. So much wrong. So then we go to the extreme and we say, Hey, carnivore is the way to go and I'm gonna sell a book from it, right?

And I'm gonna sell all my products and you're gonna take all these supplements. So is that right? Is carnivore? Is the route for me? And now muscle mass is being recognized as protective.

Research is coming out more and more that metabolic health is declining, obesity rates are climbing, GLP-1s are now accelerating even more muscle mass decline in some individuals. And so the conversation has really shifted from just weight loss to body composition and metabolic resilience. So modern health conversation is finally realizing something important. Being skinny is not the same thing as being healthy. And so today's episode is all about being healthy and that protein is not just for muscles.

Let's talk about what protein actually is. And really protein is the alpha it's like it's, protein is like a sentence and the sentence is made up of a bunch of letters and those letters are what we call amino acids. And if you stack a bunch of amino acids together, if you stack a bunch of letters together, get a word, you get phrases, and you get a sentence. Amino acids when stacked together in different sequences create proteins and those proteins are essential for muscle tissue, for brain health, for hormones, for neurotransmitters, immune system regulation, to build connective tissue. It's why everyone was taking collagen so much, right, for recovery and, sleep improvement.

Amino acids are at the core of building blocks for your body and your body is literally built out of those amino acids. And so when you look at, muscle, muscle fundamentally is a metabolic organ. It is essential in a healthy metabolism And actually, there is data that shows muscle is a metabolic organ and it's a longevity organ. And we're gonna dive into detail of why muscle is a longevity organ and why amino acids are essential at building healthy muscle. More muscle generally shows better blood glucose handling.

So for those people that are trying to regulate their blood sugar, if you build muscle, you're typically healthier for it. And aging adults lose muscle decade over decade. And it usually isn't intentional. It's just part of the aging process. And one of the greatest predictors of healthy aging is not body weight.

It's muscle mass and strength. Hear me again. I'm going to say it to you again. One of the greatest predictors of healthy aging longevity is not body weight. It's not your BMI.

It is muscle mass and strength, relative strength. The stronger you are, typically the longer you'll live. So are people actually deficient in protein? Well, when you look at protein deficiency as defined by like the World Health Organization, severe protein deficiency is very uncommon in America. We really don't see it.

We see it in other countries, but in America, severe protein deficiency doesn't really exist. Optimal protein is more uncommon. So we're kind of somewhere in the middle. Most people are not getting optimal amount of protein. Most people are not, if very few, truly deficient in protein.

And so we're just kind of sitting in this gray where we are protein inadequate, but we're not protein deficient. The RDA, the recommended daily average is zero point eight grams per kilogram. So what would that equate to? Right? So 2.2 per kilogram.

If you're one hundred and eighty pounds, you need about 60 to 65 grams of protein. You say, Hey, I checked that box. But remember, that is the RDA. You typically need much more than that. That's like the RDA for a particular mineral or vitamin is usually to prevent a deficiency, a true deficiency, but it's not necessarily a guideline for optimization.

And so research supported ranges show that in sedentary adults that don't move, they sit at the desk all day, need about zero point eight grams per kilogram. When you're active, moving around, walking around, you need about one point two to 1.6 per kilogram. And strength athletes, people that are building muscle are gonna need closer to two grams per kilogram. So what would that equate to? Well, a hundred pound individual would need a 100 grams of protein.

Two hundred pound individual who's trying to build strength and lean muscle would need about 200 grams of protein. So is the protein conversation overhyped? Oh, maybe, but maybe not. Maybe we are truly that inadequate in our protein intake. And so the research consistently shows that higher protein intake improves satiation, it preserves lean muscle mass during fat loss, and it supports healthy recovering and aging.

And so is the Internet overdoing it? It may be a little bit. Right? Yes. Probably to some degree.

Protein is being commercialized because it's protein donuts, protein candy, protein shakes, protein chips, protein everything. And just because it says high protein, it doesn't actually mean it's healthy. Most protein products are still ultra processed and they're really just a glorified candy bar, right? Just because it says 20 grams of protein on it doesn't mean it's a healthy bar. Typically, those Barbell bars for instance that I see, I mean, gosh, have you ever had one?

Tastes like a Snickers bar, but there's 20 grams of protein, so it's gotta be healthy, right? No, not necessarily. This is where the extremes come in, right? That not everyone needs two fifty grams of protein a day. More is not always better.

And you have to factor in things like age, muscle mass. Are you trying to build muscle? What are your goals? What's your metabolic health? What's your appetite?

Do you have any chronic health issues in your kidneys? And the internet obviously, it tends to take good things and makes them into extreme identities, right? So what does a healthy protein diet look like for us, right? What's the framework for protein intake? So again, sedentary adult, 0.8 grams per kilogram, active adults, 1.2 to 1.6.

When you start getting into strength training, probably need closer to two grams per kilogram. So let's keep this really simple. Most active adults would probably benefit from protein intake of about 25 to 40 grams of protein per meal. What does that functionally look like? Well, if you look at your palm, the amount the size of your palm, the that's about the amount of protein you should consume per meal.

So chicken breast, the size of your palm or a steak, the size of your palm, that's gonna give you usually around thirty, thirty five grams of protein. But there's great sources of protein that's not just chicken and beef. There's eggs, there's grass fed beef, obviously, you know, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, fish. Whey protein is a really good supplemental option if you're trying to get to that 180, 200 gram protein mark. And collagen is a good addition, but it's not a complete protein.

So it's a great addition, but not a replacement. And when you look at plant proteins, they're usually not a good viable option as it doesn't contain the amino acid sequence that you really need to build protein. So I don't think there's necessarily a magic solution, to everything, but I do think that most people underestimate how much protein intake they need. So is it is it overhyped? It it probably is, but it needs to be because of how inadequate our protein intake is.

So this is just your, you know, public service announcement. Consume more protein. How much? Three meals a day, 25 to 40 grams per meal, trying to get to that point of maybe it's 1.5 to two grams per kilogram. Build as much lean muscle mass as you can.

It's a longevity organ, and it is essential at living longer. The more muscle you have, the longer you're gonna live. So build it while you can because it's harder as you age. Hey. Thanks again for listening to another episode of the Real Health Podcast.