The Power (and Pitfalls) of a High-Protein Diet
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This is day 312, eating nothing but meat, eggs, and seafood. Today is officially week six of the carnivore diet. Whatever you think you know about protein, how much to eat, what kind to eat, you might be wrong. Four six-ounce tri-tips or loin steaks, six scrambled eggs, leftover butter and tallow. Typical protein is nasty.

There is no question about it. Protein is having a real moment and food companies have caught on to this. That's why you're now seeing protein in everything from chips to cereal. As I think most of our listeners know by now, whenever there's some sort of health fad trending, we like to take a closer look.

On today's show, we're diving into the world of what's now being called protein mania. We're going to get you some answers to questions like, how much protein do you actually need? And how much is too much? Is all protein created equal? Can you get enough protein as a vegetarian or a vegan? And I'll even give you some specific ideas for your next breakfast.

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, and this is Chasing Life. All right, full disclosure, I approach most trends with some healthy skepticism. But at the same time, don't get me wrong, I think a lot about protein. Protein is essential. So let me give you a few basics.

Our diets are made up of three main macronutrients: protein, fats, and carbohydrates. Now from a purely scientific perspective, we need protein and fat to survive. Carbs, less so. Now what's so special about protein? It is the only macronutrient that supplies us with amino acids, which our bodies need to function.

Amino acids help with everything from building and maintaining muscle, making hormones and neurotransmitters, boosting your immune system, even maintaining healthy skin, hair and nails. So yeah, I want to put that out there because protein goes way beyond just bulking up muscle. But there is another side to this as well. I was in L.A. and I did some interviews there and

Nine out of ten people I asked, "What do you have for breakfast?" It was raw eggs or protein bars or protein smoothies. It was amazing.

They've been sort of brainwashed into thinking that they have to move on to protein because they're somehow deficient and they're not going to be lean and have a six pack and be running marathons. Today's guest is Dr. Tim Spector. He's a genetic epidemiologist, researcher and the author of several books that have shaped the way many of us think about our diets.

Nutrition has gone from being the most boring science, and doctors never used to want to know about it, as you probably remember, to one of the most exciting topics that really we can discuss because it's suddenly caught the public's imagination. Everyone's interested in it. And in the US, the current trend of interest is everyone's obsessed with protein. You know, we talk about nutrition quite a bit. And one of the things that struck me, Dr. Spector, when I started doing this was nutrition.

I felt like people generally know how to eat well. And maybe I'm being a little too conciliatory towards this, but I think as a general rule, you should eat your fruits and vegetables. You shouldn't eat too much. You shouldn't eat too much processed foods. They know that, and yet they don't. Is this a education problem? Is this an access problem? Why, despite the fact that people generally know how to eat well, do they not do it?

I think it's a combination of factors. I think it's fantastic marketing by the big food companies to cloud the issue and make people think they're eating healthy foods when in fact they're not.

And it's also a lack of access. You don't have to go very far in the US to see these food deserts. Or if you're on the road traveling through airports and railway stations, gas stations, you don't have any choice. It's like the only things to eat are rubbish, ultra-processed food. So it's that combination, really, of it being made really difficult to

for the average American to eat well. Plus the fact that although they know the really bad foods are bad for them, they're sort of tempted to have these other foods that have a lot of these health halos on them that are unbeknownst to them, making them overeat. And I think this is where the battleground really is. It's not fighting Coca-Cola or Pepsi.

It's fighting the healthier versions of them, the diet drinks. It's the low-fat foods. It's the high-protein snacks that have brilliant marketing behind them, brilliant food chemists making them taste delicious, and distorting that original view that people know that fruit and vegetables are good, ultra-processed food is bad. And they think, okay, I'm getting this high-protein snack bar

It says it's low in fat. Oh, I've heard that's good. It's high in protein. I've heard that's even better. I'm going to buy it. And the fact that it's packed with 20 chemicals they don't want, it's going to mess up their gut. They don't know that. Never before in history have people been

attacked on all sides to distort what they know is true and twist it so that the companies will use that information. Oh, this snack bar contains real fruit, right? So, oh,

protein. I remember fruit is good for me. That's one of the top three reasons people buy junk food is because they see a little signal in there to say, oh, I'm going to buy that. A little health halo, as you call it. Yeah. And currently protein is the health halo par excellence in the US. We like to simplify things and nothing's truer than this than in nutrition. That's

why we reach for the magic vitamin pill or supplement while we dumb everything a very complex science like nutrition down to a simple thing like what am i going for this okay

I'm going for my protein. It sounds like there's two issues that you're sort of raising. One is that they're wrong and that they probably don't need to think of trying to get that much protein into their bodies, but also what they're giving up to do it. They're giving up more fruits and vegetables in search of all that protein. I'm not saying protein's bad.

very little evidence. You have to take a lot of it for it to be harmful. So in general, protein is pretty good, particularly if it's plant protein, but nothing wrong with meat protein in moderation, but it's what it replaces. We need to start thinking much more holistically. And this is what I've been sort of preaching in my books, is the idea that whenever you add too much of something, you can't get the rest of it. So

Studies have shown that Americans have more than enough protein. They're getting a lot. There might be a few exceptions out there, but most people are already on twice the amount. And yet 90% of Americans are deficient in fiber. And yet nobody's fighting the corner of fiber.

Because there's no money in that. Is this a fad, do you think, right now? Or is this something that is sort of a pendulum swing? Or is this something that we're going to see more and more of? Well, I think it's a fad until people realize that you can't store protein. So you either pee it out or it just gets converted to fat.

And so if you're not spending three hours in the gym, which I guess you and I are not, then... You said that just by looking at me? I don't look like a guy? I can't see. You've got a very dark shirt. So you could have huge muscles that are hidden from me at the moment. I can't see them. It could just be two hours, you know. But...

I think it's in part been driven by marketing for particularly teenage boys who are into fitness and bodybuilding. There's a big craze about body awareness and muscles and protein in gyms all across the country. It's a bit of a zeitgeist moment that everyone's thinking about fitness. They're thinking about how do you build muscle? You've got Americans on the Zempik.

They're losing muscle when they lose fat. So they're thinking about protein for good reasons. So I think it's going to be here for a while. It's not just a few months. It'll probably be with us for a few years. And I think it will settle down to people actually slowly getting ready for the truth. And they'll realize that they've been on these high-protein diets for

for a year or so, the rest of that other health will start to suffer. How much protein should we be eating? And I will tell you that I spoke to my own doctor about this recently. I do exercise every day. I'm not a big bodybuilder, but I do exercise every day. And he told me roughly about a gram per kilo. So a gram per roughly two pounds of weight I should be getting in protein. Does that sound right to you? Yes, I think it does.

The US recommendations are actually a bit lower than that. They're about 0.83. Most countries have that, but that's really for more sedentary people. So the more exercise you're doing, I think the more it plays to play safe. And I think for most people, a gram per kilo is about right. As you do more exercise, then it can creep up.

probably to a maximum if you're a professional athlete of around 1.6 where you are doing per kilo. So it's titrating it in a way to your exercise levels. Other people that might need more than one are people who are losing weight. So if you're losing weight, you're not eating much. So the reason you just need one is you're eating a reasonable amount of food and people who eat a reasonable amount of food

whether they choose to or not, are going to get protein. You get protein just from eating spaghetti. It's in wheat, it's in corn, it's in things that you don't necessarily think about, not just eggs and meat.

So if you're eating a lot, you will be getting plenty of protein for you. But if you're not, you're on a diet or you're sick or you're losing weight, you will need extra amounts. So it's complicated. And there are people out there on social media saying you need over two grams per kilo, which is crazy amounts. And that means you'll be eating over 50% of all your food as protein. And it's virtually impossible to...

eat that, it makes you very sick and nauseous to actually have that much protein as well. Anything at excessive levels mean that all your nutritional scores from any proper nutritionist would score them very badly. So that's roughly for the US audience. So it's roughly two pounds, 2.2 pounds in a kilo. So you're saying roughly half a gram of protein per pound. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. So if you weigh 150 pounds, 75 grams, 200 pounds, 100 grams of protein a day. Yeah. And that's being generous because it's slightly under half. So it works out that way. Most people don't have to worry. They're already getting more than enough. And partly this is because the Americans eat more meat than virtually any other country in the world. Twice the European average.

So they're getting a lot of protein already. And it's in a lot of ultra processed foods as well through soybeans and other things that people don't think about. Okay, let's take a short break here. When we come back, I'm going to ask Dr. Spector if where we get our protein matters, meaning whether you're plant-based or a carnivore.

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These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Dr. Spector has mentioned a couple of times that most of us aren't getting enough fiber, and he's definitely right about that. Federal guidelines call for adult men to get around 28 to 34 grams of fiber, for women, between 25 to 28 grams. For some context, that's roughly the amount of fiber in a can of black beans.

Now, if you are looking to get more fiber, one thing that you're probably doing is turning to plants. But can plants help us meet our fiber goals and at the same time our protein goals? I asked Dr. Spector, are all proteins created equal? You mentioned soy, for example. So soy versus a piece of meat. So meat and eggs have...

pretty much the perfect balance of the amino acids for your body. So we have these proteins made up of these building blocks, which are amino acids, and we have a certain number of them called essential ones, which we can only get through our diet. The rest we can make in our cells and our body. And meat has the perfect balance of these.

But plants have all of them, but the balance in any one plant is slightly different. But if you have a range of plants, you will get the equivalent amounts and range and everything adequate as you would by having meat. But the misconception is that

If you take one plant, say like soy or you take rice or one bean, it's not going to have the perfect balance of all those amino acids. So if you only ate that one food exclusively, you might end up being deficient eventually in one of these. So that's why...

It's a rather strange debate because nobody actually eats like this. If you're sensible and you're eating a varied plant diet, you don't necessarily need meat to get all the protein you need. But you do need a variety of plants. You can get enough protein. Absolutely, yes. You can get enough protein on a plant-based diet if you get a variety of plants. And the nice thing is that there are lots of plants that are very rich in proteins, particularly things like the legumes, most of the beans and lentils,

And they have very high levels of protein in them as well. But the bonus is you're also getting fiber. So when you eat meat, which is packed with protein, you're getting no fiber. So you're not really getting things that are going to improve your gut health, your immune system, etc. So it's a big misconception. It's why...

The meat lobby in the U.S. is so big, the carnivore diet people, they just say, well, plants are inferior. Well, any one plant might be, but you add them all together and they're far superior. Would you give us a sense of what your diet's like? What did you eat for breakfast or lunch today? So I had my normal breakfast of a full-fat Greek yogurt,

with full fat kefir, which is a fermented milk, 50-50 mix. So I get all my microbes in there early on. And then I had some sprinkled on some berries. I had some nuts and seeds, which I have as a mix.

to give me a variety of, and there's plenty of protein in nuts and seeds. People forget that huge, really healthy fats and proteins there, small amount of carbs. That tends to be what I eat. I tend to have meat once or twice a month and fish maybe once a week. And that's for a variety of reasons, but mainly it's the main thing I can do for the environment and the planet, which I feel we should do. But I think it's also important for my health. What I'm trying to do is

give myself the room so I can have 30 different plants during my week. And that's that diversity of plants, which I think is probably the most crucial rule for nutrition. And I think a little bit of everything is probably a pretty good rule. And we shouldn't be demonizing things like saying, well, meat is deadly or protein's either good or bad, you know, or fiber is bad for you. We need to take this global approach.

You say protein has this sort of health halo. One of the other health halos is low-fat foods. Low-fat. Are those good things to seek out then? No, they're things to avoid. Low-fat. Okay. Low-fat foods. And you go to any store and you see these huge aisles, especially in the dairy section of low-fat foods. And...

Most of them are heavily processed. They've replaced the fat with sugary starches, corn starches and extracts, emulsifiers, glues, all kinds of chemical trickery to make you think you're getting that mouthfeel of real fat on your tongue. And these cause more sugar spikes. They're bad for your gut microbes.

and really should be avoided. They're the worst excesses of ultra-processed food, and they're designed to make you overeat them. So again, they're a sort of trick by the food industry. It provides a cheaper product that they can make a bigger margin on. There's no health benefit, and so it ends up being bad for your metabolism. So they're sort of fake foods, really, and basically low-fat foods are there to be avoided.

There's been a big debate going on in the United States, as you may know, about seed oils versus animal fat oils, such as beef tallow and even butter and things like that. For me personally,

Because of the family history of heart disease, I think I was warded off these saturated fat oils. That was something that just became part of my way of life. I'm not somebody who cooks with a lot of butter, for example, or certainly we don't use beef tallow. But now it's becoming a thing. Those types of plant-based oils versus the saturated fat oils, how do you think about that? Well, there's been a lot of hype on social media about these seed oils being

mainly from people who aren't experts in the area. And I'm not an expert in the area, but I work with a colleague called Dr. Sarah Berry, who is a world expert in fats and health. And I listened to what she says. And she says, there is no real evidence that seed oils are bad for you in good, high quality human clinical trials.

All the evidence is based on very poor data in animals and in test tube studies, which you can prove anything if you want to. So we should go with a big epidemiological evidence. We should go with the clinical trials. And when we do, we don't see anything particularly wrong with these seed oils. So they shouldn't be demonized in that way. But within them, there's obviously differences. You always want to go for the higher quality ones.

But you shouldn't just throw everything out because you've seen something on TikTok saying that they're deadly. That's just yet another fad that's going to go. We should be worried about getting everyone to go back to eating beef tallow. I think that is very much too much saturated fat, and there's no evidence that is good for you. And

Butter, I do like butter. But if you had a choice, you should cook and eat with extra virgin olive oil because...

that has proven health benefits beyond any doubt. So again, it's always a question of instead of what? Yeah. Which never gets the nuance on a 60-second TikTok. You know, it's like, we're just demonizing this because of one study done in Taiwan 10 years ago in a test tube and some big influencer is getting on their high horse about it. It's all really nonsense. So CEDAWs are not deadly, but...

But we should be worrying about the ones that are in our ultra-processed foods, the really cheap stuff, the palm oils, eating too much coconut oil. They are the wrong side of saturated fats you should be avoiding.

We need to react, not overreact when someone says this particular product is deadly. Usually that's wrong. It's much more nuanced than that. And we need to rely on the experts rather than just listening to influencers. So that's, but it's very hard. It is very hard for the public though.

Because they're bombarded with all this stuff. Yes. And like you said, these health halo messages and all that, people have a hard time finding sources of good information about this stuff that's based on data presented with humility, as I think you're alluding to as well. I mean, none of this is absolutely straightforward. And I notice you're not dogmatic about any of this stuff that you talk about. No, I've changed my mind.

several times. And I think it is a journey that myself and the companies are led by science. And so if a new study comes out that changes our way of thinking, we change things. And we've just got a new score coming out about ultra processed food that was used to be scored in a very crude way, just with additives.

But you realize that not all ultra processed foods are bad. And some of them, just because they contain one little chemical additive, like ascorbic acid, people are labeling it as deadly, but actually it's not true. And that's just vitamin C. And that's the biggest obstacle to health in the US is this bombardment with all this signaling about vitamins and protein and low fat and low calorie and all this. It's a minefield to work through. So I think

We realize this is the time. Everyone wants to learn about nutrition. They're no longer going to their doctor saying, I'll just do whatever he or she says. I think people want to learn themselves. So I think this is an exciting time really for us to change the way we think about food. And that's really my mission is just think about it differently. And I've certainly...

gone full circle since I was a doctor. I got it completely wrong then. And I'm very happy to keep saying I'm happy to keep making mistakes as long as I get it right again. Keep learning. I think that last point is really key. There's a lot of information out there on social media, especially. Some of it is really good. Some of it, not so much. That's part of the reason this show exists, to try and help you make sense of it.

So we want to hear from you. Do you have any questions about the latest health trends? If so, give me a call 470-396-0832. Leave a voicemail. We'll do our best to answer your question. You can also record a voice memo and email me at asksanjay at cnn.com. As always, thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next week.

Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio. Our podcast is produced by Aaron Mathewson, Jennifer Lai, Grace Walker, Lori Gallaretta, Jesse Remedios, Sophia Sanchez, and Kira Dering. Andrea Kane is our medical writer. Our senior producer is Dan Bloom. Amanda Seeley is our showrunner. Dan DeZula is our technical director. And the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Liktai.

With support from Jamis Andrest, John D'Annura, Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, Lainey Steinhardt, Nicole Pesaru, and Lisa Namura. Special thanks to Ben Tinker and Nadia Kanang of CNN Health and Katie Hinman.

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And now, for a limited time, Sleep Number smart beds start at $849. Prices higher in Alaska and Hawaii. Exclusively at a Sleep Number store near you. See store or sleepnumber.com for details.

This week on The Assignment with me, Adi Kornish. People often say these models suffer hallucinations. They make stuff up. Well, actually, they're designed to make things up, right? We want them to tell us something that we don't know. The CEO of Microsoft AI, Mustafa Suleiman, on the next era of the tech industry and about what it means to hold on to your values when the industry is moving faster than the rules meant to govern it.

Listen to The Assignment with me, Audie Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast app.