Why you are probably not eating enough protein a day
We need to double our daily protein intake to about 100g a day, says a leading scientist. John Naish reports
A 30g chicken breast for lunch is ideal.
Suddenly we’re being told that we’re not eating half as much protein as we should each day. Professor Stuart Phillips, an expert in muscle growth from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, said on Radio 4’s Food Programme that the UK’s official recommended level of protein intake in midlife must be at least doubled to save us from frailty and premature death.
Doubled? As a health journalist of more than 30 years’ standing my lip curled at the news. Countless times I’ve heard medical-expert evangelists declare that we’re perilously deficient in some vitamin X or nutrient Y, only to discover that they’re quietly taking money from a supplement company or have a mad fad diet plan about to hit the shelves. Moreover, how on earth would we manage to double our protein intake without spending our whole time eating or developing an extortionate dependency on bodybuilders’ powders?
I canvassed some of Britain’s leading dietitians, eager to hear their derision. Oh, but hang on. “Professor Phillips is quite right,” they tell me. Science is indeed revealing the sad fact that once we hit our forties our body’s ability to turn dietary protein into vital muscle starts to wither. The official guidelines, the dietitians add, haven’t caught up. This leaves the UK’s recommended nutritional intake looking worryingly insufficient. The guidance says that in general we should consume 0.8g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight per day — about 55g on average for men and 45g for women.
A salmon fillet (27g) is recommended for dinner.
Phillips says we need twice that amount. “My advice is that if you are in midlife or older, aim for at least double: 1.6g per kg per day. That’s optimal,” he argues.
To achieve that you’d be looking at at least two scrambled eggs for breakfast (12g protein); a large chicken breast (30g) for lunch and salmon fillet for supper (27g), plus high-protein snacks such as nuts and hummus throughout the day.
It had long been thought that eating too much protein could cause harm by damaging our kidney function and softening our bones. Phillips, who has spent 20 years researching the field, argues: “The hype about kidneys and bones is not true. There is no harm.” He cites as examples two of the world’s biggest habitual consumers of protein: bodybuilders and Inuit. “There’s not a pandemic of bodybuilders getting kidney failure or bone fractures from consuming protein powder. Canadian Inuit are big consumers of marine protein. They are not dropping like flies.”
So why are our recommended protein intakes so wrong? First, Phillips says the idea that protein harms kidneys originates from a single journal report that is more than 40 years old, and which has not been backed by subsequent studies. Meanwhile, our official protein-intake guidance is founded on studies performed in the 1970s, using techniques that measured the amount of nitrogen in volunteers’ sweat and urine. Modern techniques track the body’s conversion of protein into muscle by monitoring food that’s tagged with radioactive dye. These more accurate tests indicate that we need more protein than was conventionally thought.
Dr Oliver Witard, a senior lecturer in exercise metabolism and nutrition at King’s College London, supports Phillips’s ideas. “The crux of the matter is that the current recommended nutritional intake for protein is not going to be sufficient as we get older,” he says. “For this we can blame anabolic resistance, which gets worse as we age.”
Have at least two scrambled eggs for breakfast.
Anabolic means muscle-building. Eating protein naturally stimulates our body to create muscle tissues. But the response is impaired by anabolic resistance. “This starts to set in earlier than people anticipate — in one’s forties,” Witard says.
The answer is to eat more protein, to push the muscle-building response harder, Witard explains. The way to do that, he says, is to ensure that there’s plenty of protein in every meal. “We need about 30g of protein in each meal — equivalent to a large chicken breast or 6oz of high-quality steak, although it can also be high-quality plant proteins such as lentils, beans, tofu or oat porridge,” he says.
“The only problem is that as we age our appetite diminishes. And protein is the most satiating nutrient, more so than carbs or fats. It makes you fuller faster,” Witard adds. “So we need to be consuming protein through the day — in every meal, including breakfast.”
The fact that high-protein meals make us feel satiated earlier means we may consume fewer calories overall (indeed, many of us have come in recent years to think of high-protein diets in the context of weight loss). The difference is unlikely to help us to lose weight significantly, but it should lower our chances of piling on the pounds when we double our protein intake.
Hummus has 4g of protein per serving.
Meanwhile, if anabolic resistance isn’t enough to make you consider upping your protein level, here’s another morale-busting medical term: sarcopenia. This describes the age-related loss of muscle mass and strength that can start setting in naturally as early as our thirties.
Consuming adequate protein will help to keep sarcopenia at bay — but not on its own, says Chris Cashin, the masters of sports nutrition programme manager at the University of Wales Trinity St David.
“While the evidence is beginning to emerge that older people definitely need to up their protein, they will also definitely need to up their exercise,” she says. “If you can get exercising in midlife then that’s going to have significant benefits in helping your muscles to stay responsive to dietary protein.”
Resistance training — primarily using weights — is key, Cashin says. “We all need to be doing resistance exercise. I recommend 30 minutes twice a week using comparatively light weights.”
A handful of nuts contains about 7g of protein.
As for ensuring that you have a helping of protein in every meal, Cashin recommends a sneakier approach. “We don’t want to have people eating too much red meat,” she argues. “Instead you have to be quite creative in increasing protein. I recommend adding skimmed milk powder to milk, so that you can double the protein content. Adding cheese to soup works well too. I also suggest you consume between a half-pint and a pint of milk or equivalent dairy or plant-based protein drink each day — although dairy is guaranteed to have calcium.”
It doesn’t all have to be animal-based protein. “Try veggie alternatives twice a week so that you have a wide variety of protein sources,” she says. While vegetable-derived proteins are less intense they can still be used to maintain and even build muscle — witness a host of self-proclaimed rippling vegans such as Torre Washington, a 2013 Musclemania Universe bodybuilding champion.
Their veg-power claims are supported by a study in the journal Sports Medicine last year by Brazilian scientists at the University of Sao Paulo. The three-month comparison of people working out while on diets that were omnivorous or vegan and high in soya-based protein showed that they achieved the same increases in strength and muscle bulk.
Meanwhile, in Canada, Phillips is exploring whether it may be appropriate to develop specially formulated age-specific protein supplements to foster greater consumption. He’s no fan of protein powders, though.
“Get protein from food first. Food trumps a supplement,” he says.
If you’re worried about your muscle power, Phillips has this test. Sit in a chair without arms and stand up using the power of your legs and core alone. “If you can do this without leaning forward, fine. But if you’re in your fifties and you can’t, then at some point if you are in your sixties, seventies, eighties, you’ll find yourself in full-time institutionalised care.”
I’m happy to report that I passed the test. But now that I’m standing, perhaps a trip to the kitchen for a cheese sandwich.
Reference
John Naish- Saturday August 13 2022, 12.01am, - The Times