Is What Social Media Tells You About Protein… True?
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim. Coming up on Forum, how much protein do we really need? Influencers are inundating social media feeds, encouraging protein-maxing diets that contain many times the federal recommendations. They're pushing supplements, artificial protein sources, and lots of red meat.

We'll talk to New York Times health reporter Alice Callahan about what's driving the so-called protein craze, and we'll hear from nutritionists about how to evaluate your own protein needs. Have you made an effort to eat more protein lately? Tell us why.

Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're in a protein craze, and it's hard to ignore, says New York Times nutrition and health reporter Alice Callahan. Social media feeds are inundated with claims about protein, with many influencers saying we're just not getting enough.

Okay, protein. I just got to talk about it because that's what people care about. Your protein intake is more important than actually going to the gym and getting your workout in. Here's what you exactly need to grab to reach 200 grams of protein to finally lose fat before the summer. The biggest lie that you're telling yourself is that you can't hit your protein goals. I can't eat enough. I can't have that much. I can't do protein shakes. Stop overcomplicating it.

More than 70% of American adults say they're trying to consume more protein, according to last year's survey by the International Food Information Council. So this hour, we talk about how much protein you really need, if it's possible to consume too much. And take your questions at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786.

by emailing forum at kqed.org and by posting on Blue Sky Facebook, Instagram, and threads at kqedforum. We can respond. Alice Callahan is joining me first. She's with The Times and also a PhD in nutrition science from UC Davis. Alice, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. So you've been addressing protein-related questions through your reporting for some time now. What are you noticing about this moment that feels sort of different or new?

Well, I think you mentioned in the intro that we're seeing a ton of interest in protein. And so that survey that said 71% of Americans...

We're trying to consume more protein that's up from 59% in 2022. So we're seeing this big jump and that's also more than the number of people who are worried about how much sugar they're eating or whether they're getting enough fiber or too much sodium. And so it's a really big focus for people right now. And so that's why we definitely wanted to make sure we were covering it. We were looking at some of the claims that are out there

and trying to understand whether there's evidence behind them. Why we're so focused on protein right now, I think is a great question. I'm not sure I have the answer, except that we do have a history in the US of getting hyper-focused on one nutrient at a time. We've been, we've villainized fat, we've villainized carbs, and now protein is in the spotlight. I'm honestly not sure that

the way that we think about nutrition has made us healthier. But right now we're on protein. And, you know, I do think we're always looking for something new. That's a human tendency. And it's all getting amplified by social media. Yeah. We played that clip that our producer Caroline put together about how social media is amplifying interest in protein. Who are the biggest evangelists, the most popular protein people?

Oh my gosh, I probably can't name them all, but we have, I heard in that clip, Gabrielle Lyon, Peter Attia, Stacey Sens is in the space of fitness and nutrition for older women. And there are lots more. And many of these folks on social media are...

Giving us some truth and then sometimes we lose some nuance in the messaging because that's social media. It's a land of soundbites and not nuance. And more extreme messages do tend to get more attention and get picked up by other people and amplified. Yeah. Is that what you feel like is contributing to the messaging being so alluring or convincing? I imagine just the simplification of it and the way that it gets discussed is

Yeah, yeah. I'm also curious about what you've noticed on grocery store shelves in response to this interest in protein, or maybe it's even helping to create it.

Well, oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the food industry is paying attention to the same survey data that we talked about already. If, you know, three quarters of Americans are trying to get more protein, they will give us what we want. And so that's why we're seeing, you know, protein Cheerios and protein waffles and high protein ice cream. They're taking a lot of these processed foods and adding protein to them because that's they know that that's what we're looking for. Yeah.

And, and so yeah, there's, there's more of that around and then that probably reinforces the message that oh if this product, the all of these products are promoting more protein. Maybe that's a good thing and I should buy, you know, the high protein cereal above protein.

The one next to it, which maybe has more fiber or whatever. But yeah, that's where our attention is right now. So that's what's being marketed to us. Well, we've got callers joining us. Let me start with Lynn in Riverside. Hi, Lynn, you're on.

Well, hi, and thanks for taking my call. I studied nutrition only on a kind of low level, but at UC Davis, and I've been having this question for a long time. It's like, we understand if you eat more protein that you'll keep your muscles. This is good. And if you don't get enough protein, you lose muscle mass. Well,

That might be bad. That's my big question, because there's a point where if you eat so little protein, you end up with actual organ damage. And OK, that's bad. I get it. But we're in that gray zone. Does any individual know what they actually need? Yeah.

It's a hard thing to navigate, Lynn, and I'm so glad you are bringing that gray zone up. Well, first of all, Alice, one of the things that we know is that there are federal recommendations for how much protein to consume. What are the recommendations?

Yeah, so the federal recommendation is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. And that's sort of set as like, this is like a basic need that should provide enough for most people in the population. I'm sure that

but some of our other panelists will be happy to weigh in on this value. But one of the things that I ran into when I was reporting on this is that this recommendation has not been updated in about 20 years.

And it is, it does give us one value and it's sort of, it's presented as like, this is the amount that everyone should follow. And there are lots of different interpretations of that. Yeah, like, is it a minimum amount? Is it an optimal amount?

But it's confusing from the outset being given this one value. And the fact that it hasn't been updated for a couple decades makes it really easy to criticize as potentially being out of date. And so, you know, that's where we have social media influencers coming in and saying the government is lying to you about nutrition. Their science is way out of date. And so I really wanted to ask you.

you know, lots of researchers is, is it out of date? You know, do it, is it too low? And I talked to probably 20 different researchers. I got a lot of different answers to that question. And I also just found like,

that we don't have a ton of like really definitive evidence to answer that question with. And so we are in the space where, you know, like your caller, there's not a lot of authoritative guidance. And that definitely leaves a vacuum for influencers and just people with different opinions and different interpretations of the data to come in and recommend different things. And I think that leaves us all very confused. And I was totally overwhelmed in my reporting.

on this topic for that reason. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. Well, let's try to set the record straight with two guests that I want to bring in now. Christopher Gardner is a nutrition scientist and professor of medicine at Stanford at Stanford's Prevention Research Center. Dr. Gardner, thanks so much for being with us.

Well, this will be fun. Thanks, Nina. Stuart Phillips is also here, a muscle physiologist and professor of kinesiology and a nutrition researcher at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. Dr. Phillips, really glad to have you too. My pleasure. Thanks for having me on, Nina. So Christopher, I want to start with you. You think the federal guidelines are about right, if I understand correctly. Could be about right, but sort of moot because most people, according to all the studies that I run, exceed them.

I will point out the way that they were designed is partly misunderstood. So this is true for protein and all nutrients, Nina, that you try to figure out what the average requirement is of someone. And in human physiology, somebody needs more and somebody needs less.

So there's a distribution of that. And the way that the federal guidelines are set up is you're supposed to take the average requirement, it's called the estimated average requirement, and add two standard deviations to it, add a buffer. And so the amount that actually ends up in those guidelines was designed to meet or exceed the needs of 97.5% of the population. So when you see that RDA level of 0.8, it's actually 0.66 for the estimated average.

average requirement. And for those who don't like kilograms, you can also do that in pounds. So it's 0.36 grams protein for every pound of body weight, or the estimated average requirement is 0.30

Can I translate that into grams? It's like 40 or 50 or 60 grams a day. 40 or 50 or 60 grams a day. Oh, well, that's a decent amount of protein. So when we're collecting data for our studies, Nina and Alice, most of our participants are getting 80 or 90 or 100 grams of protein per day. Well, Stuart, do you think, based sort of on what Christopher is saying, that the recommended amount could stand to be upped a little bit?

Yeah, I mean, I think that the methodology is really one where we're talking about something that's a little bit out of date. We've got better methods now, I think, that would give you an estimate of not just what is needed, which is what the original estimates and I think Alice was spot on 22 years ago, if I'm remembering the meta-analysis on which things are based.

that would suggest the protein optimum needs are higher, if not even minimal needs. So yeah, the methodology is old. There's lots of shortcomings with the methodologies used and those could stand to be updated, but it's a difficult question, I think. And Christopher pointed out a lot of, I think, valid points that most people don't understand. I'd probably admit that

You know, I'm Canadian, so I have to say sorry before I say this, that we, our lab, has unwittingly maybe contributed to some of the hype around protein. But I'm a physiologist operating in the Department of Kinesiology, so we always talk about this against a background of exercise. And, you know, in that situation is, and I say this and underscore the word, only the

when you're going to use protein to make new muscle or when you're a kid growing. Once you're an adult eating more protein actually really doesn't help a whole lot to do with muscle. Exercise has got to be there. Yeah.

We're talking about protein this hour, what's driving the protein craze. And with so many claims on social media about how much protein to have, which one should we believe? We're talking about it with Stuart Phillips, a nutrition researcher, muscle physiologist, and professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario. Christopher Gardner, a nutrition scientist and professor of medicine at Stanford Prevention Research Center.

and Alice Callahan, nutrition and health reporter for the New York Times. And of course, with you, our listeners, what are your questions about protein? What have you heard about the benefits of more protein that you want to run by our guests? Have you made an effort to eat more protein or up your protein intake recently? Why? More a forum after the break. I'm Mina Kim.

Support for Forum comes from the University of San Francisco School of Management. Celebrating 100 years of partnership with the Bay Area business community, the USF School of Management connects students to the city's vibrant culture, hands-on internships, and a wealth of career opportunities.

where AI and sustainability are integrated into every facet of business education, and where students bring innovation, ethics, and entrepreneurial leadership to a planet in need. The University of San Francisco School of Management. Change the world from here. Support for KQED Podcasts comes from Earthjustice. As a national legal nonprofit, Earthjustice has more than 200 full-time lawyers who fight for a healthy environment.

They wield the power of the law to protect people's health, preserve magnificent places and wildlife, and advance clean energy to combat climate change. Earthjustice fights in court because the Earth needs a good lawyer. Learn more about how you can get involved and become a supporter at earthjustice.org.

Welcome back to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking about protein this hour and how it's been inundating our social media feeds. Well, this hour we want to get advice from three nutritionists. Alice Callahan is nutrition and health reporter for The Times with a PhD in nutrition from UC Davis. Christopher Gardner is with Stanford Prevention Research Center. Stuart Phillips is with Master University in Ontario, Canada. And you, our listeners, are joining the conversation with your questions about protein, maybe best sources, how much you should consume, protein.

of more protein that you've heard and want to run by our guests.

And we'd love to know if you've made an effort to eat more protein and up your protein intake. Why? Something you saw online? Did that influence you at all? The email address is forum at kqed.org. Find us on Blue Sky Facebook, Instagram, or Threads at KQED Forum. Or call us at 866-733-6786. 866-733-6786. So Christopher, protein is beneficial. Just talk about the benefits of it. Why it's such a core and essential thing for us to have.

Oh my gosh, you have to have it. Hair, fingernails, enzymes, hormones, cells, muscle. Yeah. Everybody, if you didn't have enough protein, you'd start to fall apart. You'd start to break down your skeletal muscle. Interestingly, you'd probably break down the hair and fingernails and the bicep and the quadricep before you broke down the heart muscle and the lung muscle, your body would prioritize that. So the interesting thing to me is

that our old method that Stu doesn't like, which I kind of agree is a little wacko, sort of the minimum amount based on something called nitrogen balance. But I do want to hear more from Stu about what the better method is. And I'm going to point out that I was a reviewer, Stu, for the AHRQ update. So a bunch of scientists just looked at all the data and said,

It was 20 years ago. Let's reconsider this. And they went through it amino acid by amino acid, and they went through all the data, and consistently throughout the review, they said, we don't have the evidence to change the old guidelines. There isn't evidence out there to make change, so we're going to recommend you leave it the same. They did ask for more research, and as a reviewer, I actually pointed out and I said, it's been 20 years. You cited all the evidence for 20 years,

And if there's not enough evidence to change it, then probably what we need is a lot more money to do a lot more studies. But why didn't that come out in the last 20 years, that if this was so important? And my comeback was, I don't think it's a priority because people aren't deficient in protein. They're prioritizing other things in the funding world because it's not important.

A problem. Well, let me give Stu a quick chance to answer. Stu, I guess your thoughts on a different methodology that could work better and maybe the reason that we're not getting all the studies that might answer this question more definitively is because it's really not that big of a problem on a deficiency level?

Yeah, so first I'll chuckle because, you know, for people who review these papers, I was a reviewer on that paper too. And so Chris just, you know, so we're both blind to who's reviewing. And I would have to agree with the assessment, you know, so this is discovery moment, right? And so we both agree on the assessment that there isn't the data that would change the requirements. So,

You know, just to be clear, the type of definitive data that would be required would be a clinical trial. So where you intervene to change protein and see something changing as a result. There is observational data to suggest that people who consume more protein than the minimum as they age,

do better in certain measures like mobility, skeletal muscle function tests. So, you know, we can look at that and say, well, that's evidence, but it's not cause and effect. We can't say that. So I think to Christopher's point, and he's spot on here, one of the reasons why there's not a big cry for more research in this area is that we're not getting cases where people show up in hospitals with protein deficiency. Right.

So I think it would be a truism to say that, you know, on general population level, it's not that big a deal. But one of the things that is very difficult to do is to define what is an optimum intake versus what is the minimum intake. And from that standpoint, then the tissue that I've been working in and that's sort of at the center is trying to understand what protein does for muscle and particularly as you age.

And aging is happening everywhere. And it's the same in the United States, Canada, throughout Europe. The aging population is going to need, I think, some redefinition of dietary guidance, maybe with respect to protein. So how would you encourage older adults to think about their protein intake or maybe get more protein than Stuart? Well, I mean, I think, again, the rider is that first I'd encourage them to be more physically active. Yeah.

And then to think about their protein, right? So, you know, as two lifestyle choices. And I mean, I think if there's a priority meal that you might want to think about, it's a breakfast meal. It's the first meal of the day when you break your fast. But I do think it patterns things for a lot of the day. That's where most people consume the smallest amount of protein. And I actually think it's the meal where you probably have the, you can have the greatest impact, particularly in affecting your muscle growth.

So, you know, my go-to suggestion has always been Greek style yogurt, good food, nutrient dense, lots of great properties, probiotics, et cetera, and a little bit more protein. And I think, you know, again, to pull it back,

I think I said to somebody the other day, we've overcooked this protein message, as you heard in the intro. If you had seen Christopher and I on camera, we were both sort of chuckling and laughing and thinking, I was like, I don't know who got those clips, but they were a masterpiece in how we've overdone the message. And I think that

I'm embarrassed almost to say is that I probably helped contribute to the narrative, but it's now, of course, like everything does, right? Carbs were great, then they weren't. Fat was great, then it wasn't. Protein's great, and I'm like, ah, where's, you know, the temperature's too hot, it's overdone.

Well, let me go to Colby in Berkeley. Hi, Colby. Thanks for waiting. You're on. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. So I'm an avid lifter. I was a college athlete. I'm actually in the gym right now. And a common figure that we get as athletes is 0.75 to one gram of protein per pound of weight per

to make to grow muscle and then to maintain muscle while we're trying to cut fat. I was wondering if your guests could speak to that. Is that an accurate number? And how much activity do you actually need to be doing to make those protein goals actually effective? Colby, thanks. Stuart, I'll go back to you on this just because you were alluding to this too, just with regard to people who are trying to build muscle and so on what they should do.

Yeah, I mean, so we've done a fair bit of work in this area, and I think the benefits really top out at something like 0.7 grams per pound, which is twice the recommended dietary intake.

You can expect to see some benefits, but above that, it's really hard for me to suggest. So the one gram per pound, which is sort of the often quoted level of intake, I think is well over the top of what most people would begin to see benefits. The cutting part, it seems like everybody's cutting these days, is I want to hang on to muscle while losing fat.

Really hard to do unless you're consuming less energy and really only resistance style or weightlifting training is the thing to get you to hang on to muscle.

How much do you have to do? Probably the guidelines plus plus. In other words, 150 minutes a week, at least two days a week in terms of lifting weights or more, which is, you know, for most mere mortals out there, we know is not what people are doing. Now, Colby, if you're in the gym, you're doing the right thing for starters. So you're dialed in there. And, you know, for some pretty hardcore people that go to the gym five, six, seven days a week,

maybe these are the types of guidelines that would benefit them. But to be clear, you know, for most people out there, I think that everything in terms of proteins benefit stops at a level well below what a lot of people recommend. Let me go. Oh, yeah, go ahead, Christopher, please.

So interestingly, this just came up for me in thinking of some of Stacey Sims' messages about especially postmenopausal women needing after a workout a pretty considerable amount of protein intake. And she sent me some of the articles that she was looking at. I was stunned how many of them involved building muscle while restricting calories.

And I thought, how much of the literature out there is doing that? And for a long time, I'm not a gym rat. And I know lots of people who go to the gym all the time. I was always sort of assuming that they were going to the gym to stay fit. They were working out. So relative to the average American, they were probably burning more calories than the average American and eating more calories to maintain their weight. So not restricting calories,

But if the American public's eating 2,000 calories, I look at Stanford's elite athletes. They're eating 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 calories a day.

And without even trying or thinking about it, they're getting really high levels of protein. And so what confused me a little bit is who is this pocket that's out there who wants to build muscle while losing fat? And so if these protein recommendations are taking that into consideration, if you're not eating enough calories to support your weight, you have to start breaking down things in your body, maybe like your skeletal muscles. So

That group might need a little extra protein because they aren't getting enough calories to support maintaining their weight. But I'm assuming the average listener, like Colby, is at the gym and is working out, eating extra calories and getting plenty of protein. To quote Stu Phillips, if he'll let me, but we'll see if he agrees, he said 90% of the muscle building is working out and 10% is the protein. Yeah.

Yeah, so be skeptical of the claims of trying to build muscle while restricting calories. A sort of related question is from Ron Christopher, who asks, what is a good practice for consuming protein after a workout? Is there an efficient way to guarantee a good balance of the amino acids, especially the essential amino acids? I was eating various brands of fried pigskin because of the amount of protein shown on the labels. And then I noticed on the label of two brands, the words not a good source of protein. So I think this is a source question.

Interesting. I've seen two publications later where people were manipulating in a very scientific way the distribution of protein over the day, and they had null findings for changing muscle strength data.

and muscle size. I really like Stu's point that Americans eat way too many carb on carb on carb breakfast. They'll have a crappy refined grain cereal with sugar. They'll have white bread. They'll have jelly on it and a glass of orange juice. I could see having Greek yogurt instead of that. But Stu, from the papers that I read, they're really nicely designed, changing the distribution over the day. I haven't seen big benefits in the papers that I've looked at.

Let me go to call her Amira in Berkeley. Hi, Amira, you're on.

Hi. My question is another source question. I follow an influencer who promotes the idea or who explains that we really shouldn't be talking about consuming protein at all when it comes to, you know, creating muscle or the other benefits we're looking for from protein. We should be talking about

eating vegetable sources that

go through the metabolic process in the body to create protein. Sorry, I'm not a very scientific person, so hopefully I'm saying that right. Oh, well, Amira, I think that's actually a great question that I think is related to some of the ones that we are getting, but people are definitely asking about plant protein versus animal protein. Does that sort of get at what you're asking, Amira, too, like good sources of protein from vegetables? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The less efficient source from animals versus vegetables. Yeah. Stuart, do you want to weigh in on that? Sure. And I'm going to help Christopher out here. And feel free to quote me. You're right, Christopher. I think, you know, people overestimate the importance of nutrition and what their training does because you have to go to the gym. And if you don't go to the gym, no amount of nutrition is going to make you better.

So ask Stuart Phillips 30 years ago when we first started doing this, you know, how does animal protein compare to plant protein? And you'd have got the answer. Well, clearly animal protein is superior. It's got more essential amino acids, et cetera, et cetera. 15 years ago, not so sure. Today, everything that we've done, everything that I've seen, everything that my good colleagues around the world do when comparing animal

plant to animal source proteins, when you're consuming the types of intakes that people are consuming, and when you're physically active, it doesn't matter. In other words, and Christopher, I'm going to help him out here because a popular notion is that plants are, people say, deficient in amino acids. And that's not true.

Not true. There's no plant that's deficient in anything. It's got every essential amino. Now, it might be low. And so you're going to have to figure out the complementation that everybody around the world has figured out is that grains and legumes tend to pair together well, or you just eat more legumes, which is what a lot of people do. But nothing, and I mean, literally nothing has come out where we have ever seen a difference between plant-based and animal-based legumes.

protein and supporting skeletal muscle growth. So Amira, I don't know who you're following, but I think that that argument has been a little bit overhyped in terms of its relative importance. Yeah. Alice, I'd love to ask you about sort of artificial protein sources. I know you wrote a piece about like protein powder, for example. Is that a good source of protein? The title, I think, may have been, is protein powder a scam? Yeah.

Yeah, that's intentionally provocative framing, I will admit. But yeah, I mean, lots of people are using protein powders. And I think the premise of needing a protein powder probably rests on this idea that you need a ton of protein. And if you really look at how much protein you need and what you're getting from food, I think most people don't need to supplement in any way with a protein powder. Yeah.

But they can be convenient. I buy a simple whey protein powder. It's in the baking aisle of my grocery store, and sometimes I do throw it into smoothies.

But I don't think it's necessary. I don't think I'm protein deficient without it. It just gives, you know, it makes the smoothie a little bit more filling. And, you know, maybe a protein powder could be useful for, say, an older adult who just doesn't have a huge appetite, but they do want to make sure they're getting enough protein and they could stir it into their oatmeal or their yogurt.

um, to add a little bit. Um, but yeah, most of the people I think who are, who are going after protein powders and having them every day, they probably don't need them. Um, and the downside of protein powders is that you're not getting like the whole food package. Um, so you're slugging down this protein shake, but you're missing out on what you would be getting if you were consuming that same protein in a bowl of yogurt or in a, you know, uh, um,

side of hummus or some beans, those foods all come packed with things like fiber or in the case of yogurt, you know, calcium and probiotics. And you get all of these other amazing things from whole foods and you just don't get that from something like protein powder. Yeah. We're coming up on a break, Alice, but Liz writes, what's the formula for the protein recommendation using pounds of body weight or

how many grams. Do you want to just quickly share the tool that the New York Times put out to quickly calculate what your likely protein needs are and how, based on what? Yeah, we did create a calculator. So you can find it on the New York Times website. We can put in your age and your weight, whether you're pregnant or breastfeeding. And we just started with the basic federal recommendation. You know, from my reporting, I think it's still a really useful tool

you know, basic guideline for people, you probably really don't want to be below that amount. So start there. So you can calculate that easily. It is dependent on your body weight. So it's very hard to just like give someone a number on the radio. Right, exactly.

Right. And then, you know, in as part of our calculator, we have, you know, different scenarios, like Stu said, like if you're, you know, regularly strength training and you have a goal of building muscle, then we give you some kind of added calculators for estimating how much more you might need in those scenarios.

It's not perfect. You know, all of these are. It's an imperfect science. Individual needs vary a lot. And also, you know, I think it's good to have guidance like this, but also pay attention to how you feel. I think in my reporting, I talked to people who were aiming for really high protein levels and loved how they felt eating like that and other people didn't.

it added stress and they didn't like how it felt and they were a full all the time and couldn't eat enough vegetables. So I also noticed that tool specifically asked if you're pregnant or breastfeeding and notice just how much the protein recommendation goes up if you are pregnant.

both, either, either, I should say, but especially if you are breastfeeding. We're talking about protein, how much you should get, what to believe online, which doesn't sound like a heck of a lot. And we're taking your protein questions. More after the break. I'm Mina Kim.

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Welcome back to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking this hour about protein, what's driving the so-called protein craze, and with so many claims on social media, how to tell which ones to believe. Alice Callahan is nutrition and health reporter for The New York Times. Christopher Gardner is nutrition scientist and professor of medicine at Stanford. Stuart Phillips is muscle physiologist and professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. And you, our listeners, are joining with your questions about protein and

things that you've heard that you want to run by our docs, stories you have about an effort to eat more protein. And why? The email address forum at kqed.org. Our social channels are at KQED Forum on Blue Sky Facebook, Instagram, or Threads. And you can call us 866-733-6786. A listener writes, Oh no, I didn't realize I'm part of a craze. I use protein in my morning smoothie because I'm aging, do physical work involving lots of walking and lifting, and I've reduced my red meat consumption.

I use whey because I've heard plant-derived protein carries a risk of lead exposure. I use about 40 grams of my smoothie and figure the rest will come from my usual diet. Would you say, Christopher, that there's anything this person is doing wrong?

Sorry, I was distracted. Okay, if you didn't hear, no problem. What I actually want to get into is just this question of, are there concerns or downsides about too much protein? Ron writes, what are the effects of eating too much protein? So that's interesting. I think it's something that most people don't appreciate, Mina, is that there's no place to store it. If I could just go the other direction for a minute, infinite capacity to store fat is

limited capacity to store carbohydrate as glycogen in the liver and in the skeletal muscle, but there isn't any place in our body where we store extra protein. So as soon as you've made your hair and fingernails and enzymes and cells,

You actually turn it into carbs. You have to bust the nitrogen off because that's the unique component of amino acids compared to carbohydrates and fats. You turn that into ammonia. You excrete that in the kidneys. So some nephrologists at one point or another worried that if you ate too much protein, it would be really deleterious to be just excreting that much ammonia

To be honest, humans are pretty resilient. They're actually pretty good at getting rid of that extra ammonia. But just so that nobody's fooled, if you had a whole bunch of extra protein today just to hedge your bets in case you didn't get some tomorrow, you lost it all. At the end of the day, you converted all that extra protein to carbohydrate-free.

Anyway, so getting the extra doesn't give you an edge for tomorrow. And Stuart, are there people with certain health conditions who probably should avoid consuming a lot of protein?

Yeah, I think that Christopher touched on the big bugaboo, which is protein causes something to do with renal disease. And that's a 60-year-old hypothesis now, and we're still waiting for the data on that one. So I think we can cross that one off. But certainly if people have

type 2 diabetes, if they have some type of hypertension, they're at higher risk for kidney damage. And those are people who may want to consider a higher protein diet not being on the schedule. Maybe some people with cardiovascular disease as well. But the previous listener, I don't have a problem with anything that she said that she's doing. I think that's a great approach. I don't have an issue with...

whey protein versus plant protein. And if you're careful about where you get your protein from, that risk of lead contamination, heavy metal contamination is pretty small.

But yeah, you know, get it from the rest of your diet. I think Alice said it earlier. Food has lots of other nutrients, which are really good for you. So an over-obsession around protein powder is really doing yourself a disservice. You're just getting pure protein and not all of the other things. And you're kind of robbing yourself a little bit of the joy of food as well. Yeah. Let me go to Vanessa in Marin. Hi, Vanessa. Thanks for waiting. You're on.

Hi, thank you so much. Yeah, I'm a registered nurse. I do home health and I do a lot of wound care. And I do strongly recommend for a lot of my stage four deep wounds, bed-bound patients and stuff like that who don't have great appetites that they add in some collagen powder, primarily U.S. grass-fed organic collagen peptides. And I've looked up the data and there isn't really a lot of strong data to support the wound healing, but

From an anecdotal and observational point, I do see a lot of improvement in wound healing in that. And it's interesting to hear that we got to be careful with the cardiovascular disease and diabetes, obviously, I knew about renal disease. But what are your guys' thoughts on wound improvement with the addition of protein? Christopher, do you want to start?

Yeah, so you've created an extra demand. If you have to heal your wounds, that's like being pregnant or breastfeeding. Sure, if you're growing or trying to grow muscle, you're going to need extra protein for that. So that's fine. I do take issue with the collagen specifically because my understanding of physiology is that to absorb a protein, you have to break it down to individual amino acids. And when it gets into your intestinal tract and into your bloodstream,

It is agnostic to whether it's a legume or a chicken or a collagen or anything. There's no little tag that says this aspartic acid originally was sourced from... It's like a Scrabble game. Like, you know, when you get the board game out and you get the Scrabble letters out, you really...

What if you lost a few pieces and you borrowed some from a neighbor and some are red and some are... It doesn't really matter where they came from. You need those letters to make a word in Scrabble and you need the amino acids to make a protein and it is agnostic to where it came from. Mm-hmm.

Well, let me go, unless you have something you want to add around the collagen question, let me go to this next question, which is interesting. Stephanie writes, as a vegan, I'm skeptical about this trend and wondering if the meat industry is behind the push. We know a plant-based diet can easily give 100 grams of protein a day, yet the craze always centers on meat.

Alice, is there an entity that has a financial stake in our increase in protein? Is this something that's being pushed by the meat industry? Do you know? Well, I'm just watching the faces of both Dr. Gardner and Dr. Phillips. So maybe they want to weigh in on this question too. So protein is big business wherever it comes from, but especially meat and dairy, we do see a lot of

industry funding of the research on protein. And that has happened because we haven't had a lot of federal interest in it. So, you know, it's totally understandable that that's where researchers, you know, will get funding if they're interested in these questions. But it does make it harder when you're looking at the literature and trying to interpret things. We know that

Unfortunately, based on experience and analysis of research results that when studies are funded by industry, the results tend to favor the industry that funded them. Not always, and these guys on the call can probably give you exceptions to that rule.

and talk about safeguards for that. But it is an issue, I think, in this area of science, there has been a lot of industry funding invested. And so I don't know how much of that is behind the current craze, but I can certainly think that those industries are enjoying the ride. Stuart, do you want to weigh in next on that?

I'll just start out with a disclosure that I've received funding from the dairy industry, the cattlemen, but also plant protein companies. Like if you do protein, we've tapped into you. But, you know, to come back to the point, I don't know that the trend is being set or paced by one particular commodity group.

I will say, though, that coming back to what I told you before is that, you know, as your person wrote in, there's really no difference. And to Christopher's point, the body's agnostic to where the amino acids come from. So so long as you're getting enough of them, collagen, plant or animal derived amino

You're good to go. But Alice is spot on. It's not like the Cattleman or the Pork Board or whoever else isn't enjoying a surge in probably consumption because of our protein message.

Besides the industry's potentially fueling this surge with research dollars, I'm curious if this protein craze is also tapping into another cultural trend, which seems to be sort of less trust in science, maybe government scientific experts and so on. And I'm curious, Stuart, what you notice at your university with regard to the student population today.

And, you know, where they stand on this. Have you noticed anything that seems to address this question a little bit about the role of information where we're getting it from and not really trusting expert recommendations as much?

Yeah, look, I teach a freshman nutrition class in a kinesiology department, so it's always a little different. But, you know, I've taken a survey, I've been teaching it for 28 years now, and put a number of hands up to say, where do you get your news from? And of course, 28 years ago, it would be the newspaper. That stopped about 15 years ago, and I think...

when I say, you know, where do you get your news from? And I know I'm going to upset Alice here is that they say, you know, first they don't say the New York Times, I'll tell you that. But they get it from social media and mostly from TikTok these days, a few from another, you know, a few sources. But

Really nobody goes to what I think anybody, I'm guessing anybody on this call would call traditional news outlets for their news in the age demographic. So these folks would be, you know, 17 to 21, 22 years old.

So, yeah, maybe they're being taken for a ride a little bit by people who are saying this is the message. And I think probably anybody with kids my ages, my kids' ages, would know that's their source of information. And the verification of fact is lacking, of course.

Let me remind listeners we're talking with muscle physiologist and professor of kinesiology, Stuart Phillips, nutrition scientist and professor of medicine at Stanford Prevention Research Center, Christopher Gardner, and nutrition and health reporter for the New York Times, Alice Callahan, who has a PhD in nutrition from UC Davis. And you are listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. This listener writes...

Doesn't protein keep us fuller, longer, on less food? I want to ask about the weight loss benefits associated with protein intake, Christopher, and your thoughts on that. I do feel like a lot of this is also pushed if you want to lose weight, for example.

Sure. I'm going to start by bringing up a conference that both Stu and I attended just two months ago, why a protein expert, Don Lehman, laid out the satiety issue and said there's no definitive evidence that protein is satiating. So Stu can correct me if he thinks I'm remembering Don's presentation is inaccurate. But let me also bring up a really famous weight loss study. This is the biggest weight loss study for the longest time ever done.

It was the Harvard School of Public Health and the Pennington Lab in Louisiana. And they got 800 men and women for two years. It's a super clever design. There was a low and a high carbohydrate, low and high fat, a low and high protein. And the protein levels were 15 and 25%. The average American probably gets about 20%.

So 15 is low and 25 is high. And Mina, they started out enthusiastically and then at six months they weren't really following the 15 and 25. And at the two years, the group trying to follow 15 was at 20% and the group trying to follow 25 was at 21%. Basically, there was no difference between them. They did achieve differences in fat and carbohydrate,

But their conclusion was it really doesn't matter what your macros are. You really just have to cut back on calories. And my conclusion was you never actually tested the protein hypothesis. You didn't get them to eat different levels of protein. And this is actually where the field becomes quite confusing, Mina, because there are ways to do this in very short-term studies that are very controlled but that are also...

contrived and not very generalizable. They tend to be very rigorous and it's a great way to answer a scientific question. But when Stu and I do our studies, you also have to take that back to the public and see if we have this advice, can the public follow it? And this particular weight loss study, I thought

answered the question that if you got 800 people and you asked them to eat high or low, they couldn't. They ended up in the same place and they lost the same amount of weight. Barbara Rawls did a fantastic study with casseroles where she hid the amount of protein in the casseroles. They either had 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, or 35% protein. And everybody ate all the different casseroles and they counted how many calories they ate

Barbara Rose is a phenomenal investigator at Penn State. They ate the same number of calories, even though the protein content of the meal differed threefold. And so there isn't a lot of strong evidence that protein is satiating. The flip of that is if you're just eating carbs and sugar, that is not satiating. Quick, add some Greek yogurt, throw in some nuts and seeds, and have some eggs. That'll be way more satiating than carb on carb on carb. But

protein per se, the evidence isn't really out there that it is uniquely satiating and helps with weight loss. Interesting. Let me go to Mohan in Mountain View. Hi, Mohan. You're on. Hi. I wanted to comment when we're thinking about what protein sources to choose, we should think about sustainability and mainly that when you consume animal proteins, you

You're using between 5 to 25 times as much land, water, fertilizer, etc., and you're producing an enormous amount of waste. And that's just because the metabolism of animals is so inefficient. And when you think about eating a chicken, you're really eating the amino acids that that chicken ate. So all the protein originates in plants. And if we want to be the most sustainable, we should go directly to the plants because that's where we can get all our protein. It's enormously wasteful to get it through the animals.

I appreciate that reminder, Mohan. And I think our guests would probably agree with you, especially Christopher. So,

Here's what I, we're coming up at the end of the hour and I kind of want to end where we started, which is how and where should we seek out our information about protein? And Stuart, I understand that you have tried actually to go on social media. Is that one of the answers? Like, have you tried to kind of, if you can't beat them, join them and try to put good information out there? And what's been your experience? And if so, how do we differentiate good information from bad in that social media space?

MIKE GREEN: Yeah, look, when I first started on social media, I was just playing around. It was mostly Twitter at the time. Instagram wasn't a thing. Facebook was still important, but clearly now, the current generation, the millennials and et cetera would say, well, Facebook is for old people. I like TikTok better. So I do try and get information out on those platforms.

the algorithm prefers people who have lots of followers and lots of likes. So it's hard to launch yourself into the stratosphere of, you know, people in that space without consistent, consistent,

day-to-day algorithm-loving efforts and posts and reels and videos. It's almost a full-time job, right? There are people who, they are influencers. That wasn't a job as far as I know a few years ago. But there are people who make a living doing this. So it's difficult to bust through. But I think it's worth trying because I think that's where a lot of people are getting their information from.

um, without any verification. And so, you know, it's a little bit of, I don't know if it's the death of expertise, but it's definitely a slowing of expertise and a replacement with an unfiltered message. So I'd encourage anybody that's involved in science and, you know, if you want to get your message out and communicate, that's where you have to play. Alice, would you have any recommendations? I know you work for the times, but just wondering, I'm sure you

as you were pointing out, just how hard it is for, you know, the average consumer and the average user of online sources to sort this out. I do think it's really challenging. I would say if you're on social media, looking for information about health and nutrition, look for folks like Stuart Phillips and Christopher Gardner, who are

Christopher has been, you know, on some pod, both of you have been on podcasts lately, like we need more scientists who are meeting people where they are and bringing accurate information to the audiences, you know, where they're looking for it on social media, on podcasts, um,

You know, we try to do our part and sometimes I get messages or comments from readers who say, why are you paying so much attention to what the influencers are saying and spending time, you know, responding to this claim? But it's it's part of our job to be on social media and see what people what information people are paying attention to. Yeah, people are paying attention to it. And also, wow, the number of comments and questions that we weren't able to get to, we could have done a whole nother hour on protein.

Thank you so much, Alice. Alice Callahan of the New York Times for being with us. And also thank you, Christopher Gardner, nutrition scientist and professor of medicine at Stanford Prevention Research Center and Stuart Phillips, muscle physiologist and professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario. And also my thanks to Caroline Smith for producing today's segment. And thank you as always, listeners, for your questions that really drive our conversations. You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

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