The Truth About Protein | Dr. Gabrielle Lyon & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | what would be the amount of protein that you would have everybody eat in terms of a number

00:00:09.720 | of grams per pound or kilogram of body weight? That's actually an easy question. One gram per

00:00:14.020 | pound, ideal body weight. Total body weight, not lean body weight. Ideal body weight, actually,

00:00:17.960 | where you want to be. If an individual is 200 pounds, but would prefer to be 150 pounds,

00:00:25.340 | then I would have them eat towards their ideal body weight. There's no evidence that a higher

00:00:30.940 | protein diet is detrimental to kidney health, to bone health. And we use these terms loosely,

00:00:37.020 | like a high protein diet, when we have to recognize that 0.8 grams per kg is a low protein diet.

00:00:43.340 | So where did the idea come from that if you eat, say, one gram of quality protein per pound of

00:00:49.100 | ideal body weight, that you're going to get gout, you're going to have liver issues,

00:00:55.440 | you're going to have all sorts of issues? Where did that idea come from?

00:00:58.500 | Frankly, I'm not sure. But the conversation around dietary protein has probably been the

00:01:05.060 | most controversial. Why do you think that is? I mean, we're not trying to get political here.

00:01:09.360 | I do have some ideas, but I won't share them. But I do feel as if nutrition is not just science.

00:01:20.680 | Nutrition is complicated because it's something that people tie emotion to. They tie religion to.

00:01:27.500 | There's a lot that goes into dietary protein and food recommendations in general.

00:01:35.060 | But it sounds like we can safely say that if you eat one gram of protein per pound of ideal body

00:01:39.220 | weight, that you're not going to cause liver damage or get gout or increase your risk of cancer,

00:01:44.680 | right? My understanding is that even if it comes from red meat, there's no increase in risk of cancer.

00:01:49.000 | Is that right? Well, here's what I would say to that. I would say that this idea about red meat and

00:01:55.540 | cancer, number one, we would have to even define what kind of cancers that we're talking about.

00:01:59.340 | There's many different types of cancers and there's many different causes. It would be important to

00:02:04.740 | understand what risk factors are. And a primary risk factor to many cancers is obesity.

00:02:10.580 | The question then becomes, how do we design a diet that mitigates obesity? The evidence is also very

00:02:18.920 | clear that a more protein forward diet optimizes body composition. And you combine that with resistance

00:02:26.060 | training and you will see a tremendous amount of change. I worked on some of these early studies

00:02:31.280 | studies. And I'll share with you some of the early studies. And this came out of Don Lehman's lab

00:02:36.660 | with the University of Illinois.

00:02:37.800 | Both you and Lane Norton both worked there.

00:02:40.180 | Yes.

00:02:40.560 | Did you overlap there?

00:02:41.600 | We did.

00:02:42.000 | Okay.

00:02:42.480 | What was he like?

00:02:43.620 | So let's just say he sat in the back of the class and I sat in the front.

00:02:47.300 | Okay. All right. There, you heard it. Shots fired.

00:02:50.640 | And all kidding aside, Lane is a very, he's like my brother. We've known each other for

00:02:54.600 | 20 some years.

00:02:55.260 | Yeah. He's a very popular guest, a former guest on this podcast and a very spirited guy.

00:02:59.260 | And I'd like, I just like to say, I don't know why his skin looks that good, but whatever.

00:03:05.080 | So I worked on-

00:03:06.580 | Love you, Lane.

00:03:07.020 | I worked on, yes, we do. I worked on some of these early studies and this was,

00:03:11.980 | these studies were some of the first studies to come out about dietary protein, nutrition,

00:03:17.640 | and resistance training. In fact, to my knowledge and to, I think, the knowledge of many of my

00:03:23.680 | colleagues, this was the first study. And what it was, it was a 12-month study, 130 overweight men

00:03:32.920 | and women. So it was robust. And basically what they did is they had two groups. One group was a

00:03:40.920 | food guide pyramid diet. So it was 55 grams of carbohydrates, a RDA of protein, which was 0.8

00:03:48.620 | grams per kg, and 30% fat. 30% fat was in both groups. The second group was 40% carbohydrates.

00:03:57.180 | This is, remember the zone diet, 40-30-30?

00:03:59.800 | Yeah. I liked that diet.

00:04:01.180 | Okay. I mean, there's evidence-

00:04:02.660 | Ish. I mean, I don't follow it anymore, but I tried it for a little while.

00:04:05.800 | And it works great. And there's some evidence to support that that is a great ratio for people.

00:04:10.340 | Coming off the low-fat era of the late 90s, the zone diet felt like the best thing ever because it

00:04:17.580 | was like, oh, you know, you can enjoy some fats and wow, your satiety has improved and you get

00:04:22.800 | stronger. You just feel better when you're ingesting some ideally quality fats. That's my experience.

00:04:27.980 | Yes. And also we know that it influences hormonal status. You don't want to push fats too low.

00:04:34.260 | So the second group had a 40-30-30 split. So it was 40 grams of carbohydrates, 30 grams of protein,

00:04:40.440 | 30 grams or 30% fat. So these are all percentages.

00:04:43.800 | Yeah. 40%...

00:04:45.500 | Now, we didn't talk so much about the distribution, but what is really important to understand is they

00:04:52.940 | were isocaloric. So they both had the same calories. The difference was the percentage of where the

00:04:58.140 | calories came from and how they were given. And there was actually four different arms to this.

00:05:04.380 | So there was individuals that exercised and individuals that didn't.

00:05:07.980 | Okay. So either zone diet or let's call it, I hate to say this, but more standard American diet.

00:05:12.720 | No, it was. And that's how it was designed.

00:05:13.660 | Standard American versus zone diet.

00:05:15.140 | Yes. So it was designed that way.

00:05:16.600 | And then exercising or non-exercising for each of the...

00:05:19.680 | For this 12-month study.

00:05:21.000 | And by the way, I had to pack a bunch of meals. It was not pretty. And I had to do

00:05:25.000 | urine analysis. It was terrible. But anyway, this is besides the point. So the first group had

00:05:32.300 | a protein distribution of 10 grams in the morning, 15 at lunch, and 45 at dinner.

00:05:40.520 | And this...

00:05:41.680 | Kind of standard American diet.

00:05:42.440 | So that mirrors...

00:05:42.960 | Steak for dinner.

00:05:43.540 | Exactly.

00:05:44.080 | Yeah, some cereal for breakfast with a little bit of milk, and then for lunch, like a sandwich.

00:05:47.500 | Exactly. And so this mirrors what people do. The other group had 45 grams of protein at

00:05:53.680 | that first meal.

00:05:54.320 | Five, six eggs.

00:05:55.540 | Five, six eggs. 35 grams of protein at lunch, and 35 grams of protein at dinner.

00:06:00.960 | So chicken breast and a salad at lunch with a little piece of toast, and then at dinner,

00:06:04.260 | how much?

00:06:04.620 | It was 35 grams.

00:06:06.640 | All right. A piece of fish and some rice and a vegetable.

00:06:08.860 | But it was an even distribution. So what you're seeing here is now these meals are meeting a leucine

00:06:14.160 | threshold of muscle protein synthesis.

00:06:17.320 | Now, it's a hundred and... This is collectively 130 individuals, and they were older. I think that

00:06:23.860 | they were all in their 40s or beyond.

00:06:25.740 | If we just compare first the groups that did not exercise, two different diets, what did

00:06:30.720 | they see? What did you see? You participated in this study.

00:06:33.360 | Yeah. Yes, I did.

00:06:34.520 | And I say, unfortunately, no, I won't. But what was so interesting is that those individuals,

00:06:41.700 | everybody lost weight. So the average weight loss... Gosh, I wish I had better handwriting,

00:06:46.920 | but I'm a doctor, and so it's pretty bad. The average weight loss was 24% greater in the high

00:06:54.340 | protein group. So they lost 24%.

00:06:56.460 | Okay.

00:06:57.380 | And you said it was isocaloric between the two groups. That's right. But was it subcaloric

00:07:00.680 | overall? I mean, people were ingesting... It was. It was a five... That's a very smart... Yes. It was 500

00:07:04.440 | calories less.

00:07:05.800 | Than what they needed to maintain body weight. Correct.

00:07:08.000 | Okay. Got it. So 24% more weight loss total.

00:07:11.000 | Total.

00:07:11.420 | In the group that distributed their protein evenly and followed the so-called zone diet, 40, 30, 30.

00:07:16.640 | They lost more fat than the high carbohydrate group. So the high protein group lost a total of 16 pounds

00:07:29.480 | versus the calorie controlled group lost 11 pounds.

00:07:33.000 | Of fat.

00:07:33.580 | Of fat, which is great. Everyone's at home thinking, this is wonderful.

00:07:37.260 | Isocaloric.

00:07:37.780 | Isocaloric. But the thing here is the lean body mass change. So again, this was done using DEXA,

00:07:44.040 | and we know DEXA only looks at lean body mass.

00:07:47.220 | You mentioned DEXA earlier. Just very briefly, is DEXA... How does DEXA work? Not at a mechanistic

00:07:53.380 | level. What does it look like? I go into the clinic. Am I floating in water? Am I holding...

00:07:57.400 | No, you're getting scanned.

00:07:57.660 | I'm holding the paddles.

00:07:58.900 | Well, you might be because you're Andrew Huberman, but...

00:08:00.500 | No, no, no. But you hold the paddles and you're standing outside. It's... What's it...

00:08:05.420 | So a DEXA, you just lay on, depending on the machine, you can just lay on this machine and

00:08:09.240 | it's a dual X-ray and it measures bone, fat, and then lean body mass.

00:08:15.760 | Okay. That's sufficient for this conversation. Great.

00:08:17.620 | So the lean body mass lost, and again, this is everything other than bone and body fat.

00:08:24.860 | So that was 34%.

00:08:26.960 | In which group?

00:08:28.000 | In the standard American diet group.

00:08:30.640 | Okay.

00:08:30.920 | Versus 26% in the high protein group.

00:08:34.160 | Now, where it gets fascinating, so what the big takeaway is, is understanding that protein

00:08:41.740 | had a sparing effect.

00:08:42.960 | Protein protected muscle.

00:08:44.940 | Yes.

00:08:45.160 | More body fat loss.

00:08:46.420 | Yes.

00:08:46.680 | At the same caloric amounts.

00:08:48.840 | Yes.

00:08:49.320 | Same amount of deficit relative to body weight.

00:08:52.680 | Right.

00:08:53.120 | In this group, exercise was not introduced.

00:08:55.160 | So this was purely the food guide pyramid, changing protein in the morning versus having it at two

00:09:04.640 | small meals and then having it at dinner.

00:09:06.940 | And did they emphasize what we're calling high-quality protein?

00:09:09.740 | They did.

00:09:10.100 | Okay.

00:09:10.480 | That is also very important.

00:09:11.860 | Meat, fish, eggs, chicken, et cetera.

00:09:13.380 | Yes.

00:09:13.620 | They did.

00:09:14.240 | So then this led to another study.

00:09:16.840 | So then the second study was a two-by-two design.

00:09:19.720 | And this is-

00:09:20.320 | Oh, sorry.

00:09:20.560 | Sorry to interrupt.

00:09:21.360 | In that previous study, what was the effect of exercise between the two groups?

00:09:25.220 | So we didn't, they didn't do exercise.

00:09:26.240 | Got it.

00:09:26.540 | Okay.

00:09:26.740 | Sorry.

00:09:26.920 | That was my fault.

00:09:27.480 | They did not do exercise.

00:09:28.920 | They were just doing whatever that it was that they were doing.

00:09:32.720 | But what was so important to understand was that this set the stage for this idea that protein

00:09:41.080 | had a sparing effect.

00:09:42.080 | And then following that, the other study, so then there was a series of a few other studies.

00:09:50.220 | The second study looked at diet and exercise.

00:09:54.320 | So this combined effect.

00:09:55.740 | So this was one of the first studies, and this was 48 women with a BMI of 33, 46 years

00:10:01.400 | old.

00:10:01.600 | So this is your post-peri, post-menopausal woman who was either in one of four treatment

00:10:08.680 | groups, a low-protein group, low-protein with exercise, high-protein, high-protein with

00:10:14.800 | exercise.

00:10:15.260 | The low-protein group was defined as the RDA, 0.8 grams.

00:10:19.840 | The high-protein group was defined as 1.6 grams kg.

00:10:25.860 | So starting to approach that one gram per pound.

00:10:28.920 | It's about 0.7 grams per pound.

00:10:31.160 | Yeah.

00:10:31.280 | So starting to get there, but not quite there.

00:10:33.180 | So this was a 16-week study, and what they found overall was that the high-protein group

00:10:43.660 | lost 18% more body fat and 25% less lean mass overall, and 12% more total body weight.

00:10:53.720 | And so now we start moving into this synergistic effect of dietary protein and resistance training.

00:11:02.440 | And it was the type of exercise that they performed there resistance training?

00:11:06.220 | This is the good news.

00:11:08.000 | It didn't take much.

00:11:09.520 | It was five days a week of walking 30 minutes and two days a week of resistance training with

00:11:16.060 | just body weight.

00:11:17.140 | It was like yoga activity.

00:11:19.120 | So air squats, down dogs, some warrior poses, maybe some handstand attempts.

00:11:24.840 | So yeah, no one is doing handstands.

00:11:26.960 | Rob, are you doing handstands?

00:11:28.040 | No one's doing handstands.

00:11:28.440 | I've been to some yoga classes where I look to the sides of me, and people are doing some

00:11:32.420 | pretty difficult things.

00:11:33.340 | Very impressive.

00:11:33.760 | Planches and things like that.

00:11:35.020 | Definitely not me.

00:11:35.920 | Do not invite me.

00:11:36.760 | Life is better this way.

00:11:37.760 | I'm not going to those classes.

00:11:38.820 | But 16 weeks, they did a high-protein with protein and exercise.

00:11:45.860 | Those individuals, so now, so the study, the group that I just mentioned, this was dietary

00:11:54.140 | intervention alone.

00:11:55.060 | With exercise, high-protein plus exercise, very simple exercise.

00:12:00.620 | So if someone is listening to this and they're thinking, what can I do to make very practical

00:12:05.740 | changes to massively impact my life outside of hormone replacement, outside of any super

00:12:11.640 | subliminal, outside of anything, diet and exercise has a dramatic effect.

00:12:16.120 | Those individuals that were doing 1.6 grams per kg, which is 0.7 grams per pound of body

00:12:24.000 | weight plus exercise, lost 46% more body weight.

00:12:28.480 | That's substantial.

00:12:31.260 | 60% more fat and 40% less fat-free mass from organs, muscle, whatever that is, compared

00:12:43.680 | to the low-protein group plus exercise.

00:12:46.660 | And was it subcaloric?

00:12:48.380 | Were they below maintenance weight?

00:12:50.360 | It was.

00:12:50.800 | It was.

00:12:51.080 | So they're eating to ideal body weight, but still 500 calories or so below their current

00:12:56.940 | caloric needs to maintain body weight.

00:12:58.640 | Yes.

00:12:58.700 | They're eating to ideal body weight.

00:13:02.700 | They're eating to ideal body weight.

00:13:03.700 | They're eating to ideal body weight.

00:13:04.700 | They're eating to ideal body weight.

00:13:05.700 | They're eating to ideal body weight.

The Truth About Protein | Dr. Gabrielle Lyon & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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