Nutrition Performance - High-Protein Diets: Whatever Happened to Human Intelligence?
“God purposefully made stupid people. Everybody needs something to laugh at." —LT Ebner,
USAF
Pull quote: “I just try to take in a total of 600 grams [of protein] a day with only two
shakes and the rest meat.” –Ronnie Coleman
The High-protein Diet is the One We Evolved to Eat
Living organisms thrive best in the milieu in which, and on the diet to which, they were
evolutionarily adopted. When the chimp came out of the trees three to five million years ago and
started to chase, he was running on a diet of raw meat and that went on for five million years.
About 10,000 years ago, we started to eat those cereal grains. It sounds fishy to me that an
animal (and man is still the same animal) that adapted to a high-protein diet for five million years
suddenly, in 10,000 years, becomes such a great carbohydrate burner. This notion is biologically
nonsensical.
Indeed, a growing consensus indicates that a diet containing high amounts of protein, in
addition to moderate amounts of low-glycemic carbohydrates and good fats, is the most effective
way to achieve and maintain ideal bodyweight. This was the eating pattern of prehistoric humans.
The typical Paleolithic diet compared to the average modern American diet contained two to three
times more fiber, one and a half to two times more polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats,
four times more omega-3 fats and three to four times more protein.
Protein Requirements of Athletes
The term "protein requirement" means the amount of protein that must be consumed to
provide the amino acids needed for the synthesis of those proteins irreversibly catabolized in the
course of the body's metabolism. The recommended daily allowances (RDA) for protein are
based on experiments where the normal requirement is defined as the intake necessary to
achieve zero balance between intake versus output. In other words, the intake of nitrogen from
protein must be sufficient to balance the nitrogen that's excreted; this concept is called nitrogen
balance.
It should be noted, however, that serious gym rats are different animals. They aren’t
concerned with nitrogen balance, but rather, with their absolute gains in muscle mass and
strength. Nevertheless, some nutritionists claim the protein requirements of athletes simply refer
to the minimum amount of dietary protein necessary to sustain health. In my view, this notion
doesn’t make any sense. The term “protein requirement of athletes” should refer to the amount of
protein necessary to optimize exercise performance and/or body composition, while not
compromising other dietary or health aspects.
Drs. Kevin Tipton and Robert Wolfe, world leaders in human protein metabolism, tend to
agree with this contention. Their recent literature review stated that “accepted definitions of
protein requirements are based on nitrogen balance measures in laboratory and may have no
relationship with athletic performance. Athletes and coaches are more interested in optimum
protein intake for athletic success, rather than the actual definition of protein requirement based
on nitrogen balance. There are no nitrogen balance studies that show other than increased
positive nitrogen balance when protein intake is increased. Interpreted this way, it could be
argued that athletes who desire muscle hypertrophy should eat very high protein diets to
maximize their muscle gain.”
In 1991, Dr. Fern and colleagues compared the protein intakes in bodybuilders assigned
to either 3.3 or 1.3 grams per kilogram per day. The results revealed that protein synthesis (i.e.,
anabolism) increased with training regardless of diet. However, the increase in synthesis was
fivefold greater with the higher protein intake. Amino acid burning also increased on the higher
intake, suggesting optimal protein intake was also exceeded. Although more research is certainly
needed, it appears that hard-core gym rats should take in about 2.0 to 2.5 grams of protein per
kilogram of bodyweight.
Many professional bodybuilders take in four or even five grams of protein per kilogram.
Eight-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman recently said, “I just try to take in a total of 600 grams [of
protein] a day with only two shakes and the rest meat.” However, it’s likely that the extremely high
protein intakes consumed by some bodybuilders are only advantageous when combined with
high-doses of anabolic agents. So, it doesn’t make any sense for an average gym rat to follow
such an ultra-high-protein diet.
Retarded Editorial on High-protein Diets
Recently, the prestigious scientific journal, Nature published an editorial entitled, “A
recipe for trouble” criticizing the CSIRO— Australia's publicly funded science agency— for
attaching its name to the high-protein diet book, The CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet, which has
already sold more than 550,000 copies in Australia and 100,000 in Britain and New Zealand. The
publisher of the book, Penguin Books Ltd., says it’s the fastest-selling Australian title of all time,
and probably the outright biggest local non-fiction book.
Not surprisingly, the book has sparked arguments between nutritionists over its
promotion of a high-protein diet at the expense of carbohydrates. For example, Patrick Holford
told Nature that he thought the diet was dangerous in the long term, possibly resulting in higher
levels of breast and prostate cancer, along with stressed kidneys and reduced bone mass.
There’s certainly no scientific evidence supporting these statements, so who the heck is this
Holford guy anyway? Well, according to his website (which is, by the way, full of dubious nutrition
books penned by Holford): “Patrick Holford BSc, Dip ION, FBant is a leading light [sic] in new
approaches to health and nutrition. He is widely regarded as Britain’s best-selling author and
leading spokesman on nutrition, food, environmental and health issues. He started his academic
career in the field of psychology. While completing his bachelor degree in experimental
psychology at the University of York he researched the role of nutrition in mental health and
illness and later tested the effects of improved nutrition on children's IQ.”
Clearly, Holford doesn’t have the credentials to tell us anything about high-protein diets or
protein metabolism in general. As pointed out by Albert Einstein a long time ago, "The height of
stupidity is most clearly demonstrated by the individual who ridicules something he knows nothing
about." Although Holford is a “leading light” of health and nutrition, he doesn’t even know how to
do a proper PubMed search. It takes about 10 seconds to find some scientific papers evaluating
the effects on protein intake on kidney function, bone health, prostate cancer risk, etc.
