Disease Proof

From the May 2003 edition of Dr. Fuhrman's Healthy Times:

Q. I went to the gym and started working with a personal trainer. He advocated I eat more protein and advised I consume about 150 grams of protein a day, including the use of protein drinks with whey protein. Is this advisable?

A. Unfortunately, most trainers and bodybuilders are influenced by what they read in exercise and bodybuilding magazines. This is worse than getting nutritional information from comic books. Look through any current bodybuilding magazine; what are the vast majority of advertisements selling? Supplements! Most of the pages in these magazines are devoted to pushing worthless powders and pills. Supplement companies slant the opinions of the magazine article writers. The articles in the magazines are geared to support their advertisers.

Our entire society is on a protein binge, brainwashed with misinformation that we have been hearing since childhood. The educational materials used in most schools have been provided free by the meat, dairy, and egg industries for more than seventy years. These industries have successfully lobbied the government, resulting in favorable laws, subsidies, and advertising propaganda that promote corporate profits at the expense of national health. As a result, Americans have been programmed with dangerous information.

Proteins are made up of amino acids, and help build muscles, blood, skin, hair, nails, and internal organs. There are twenty amino acids required for growth by the human body, and all but eight can be produced in an adult body.

These eight amino acids are called essential amino acids and must be supplied by the foods we eat. The twelve “non-essential” amino acids are manufactured within the body, but both essential and non-essential amino acids are necessary for the synthesis of tissue proteins. Almost all Americans get more than enough protein each day.

Protein myths at work
The average American consumes about fifty percent more protein than the recommended daily amount. Yet we often see—in addition to misinformed athletes, fitness enthusiasts, and bodybuilders—businessmen and women, homemakers, and those seeking to lose weight turning to protein powders, drinks, and nutritional bars in their quest for even more protein.

It is true that resistance training and endurance workouts can break down muscle protein and increase our need for protein to fuel repair and growth. But the increased need of protein is proportional to the increased need for calories burned with the exercise. As your appetite increases, you increase your caloric intake accordingly, and your protein intake increases proportionally. If you meet those increased caloric demands from heavy exercise with an ordinary assortment of natural plant foods—vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts, which contain more than 50 grams of protein per 1000 calories—you will get the precise amount of extra protein you need.

Plant proteins
A typical assortment of vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, and whole grains supplies about 50 grams of protein per 1000 calories. Keep in mind, green vegetables are almost fifty percent protein, and when you eat more vegetables it does not promote cancer or heart disease, like it does when you increase consumption of animal products. Plus, the additional calories from plant food will give you much more than just protein; they will supply you with the antioxidants that can protect against the increased free radicals generated by the exercise.

Whey too much protein
Consider that the maximum muscle mass the human body can typically add in one week is about one pound. That is the upper limit of the muscle fiber’s capacity to make protein into muscle; any protein beyond that is simply converted to fat. It also is not necessarily advisable to gain a pound of muscle per week. Although athletes have a greater protein requirement than sedentary individuals, this is easily obtained through the diet. The use of protein supplements is not merely a waste of money, it is unhealthy.

Studies on supplemental amino acid consumption have not supported claims that such supplementation increases growth hormone or provides other touted benefits. In fact, increased whey protein added to the diet of rats increased tumors and cancers.

Little safety assurance
Nutritional supplements can be marketed without FDA approval of safety or effectiveness. Athletes who choose to ingest these supplements should be concerned with the safety of long-term use. They are low-nutrient, low-fiber, highly-processed, high-calorie “foods,” whose consumption reduces the phytochemical density of your diet.

Ingesting more protein than your body needs is not a small matter. It ages you prematurely and can cause significant harm. The excess protein you do not use is not stored by your body as protein; it is converted to fat or eliminated via the kidneys. Eliminating excess nitrogen via your urine leaches calcium and other minerals from your bones and breeds kidney stones.

Bad amino acid trips
Vegetable foods are alkaline. Animal products are acidic foods that require a huge output of hydrochloric acid from the stomach for digestion. This acid tide in the blood after a high-protein meal requires an equally strong basic response by the body to neutralize the acid. The dietary-derived acid load from high-protein animal foods must be buffered, and to do that your bones dissolve and release phosphates and calcium. The alkaline phosphate then buffers the acid. This is a primary step in bone loss that leads to osteoporosis. High salt intake also contributes to flushing your bone mass down the toilet bowl. Excessive stimulation of bone turnover also causes an increase in bone breakdown and remodeling, which can lead to osteoarthritis and calcium deposits in other tissues. The presence of this bone material in the urinary tract also lays the foundation for calcium-based kidney stones.

Exercise—not extra protein—builds strength, denser bones, and bigger muscles. When you artificially stimulate growth through overfeeding and excessive animal product consumption, you may achieve a heightened body mass index unobtainable by other means, but you will add fat to your body as well. Let me remind you that higher body mass index, even if that additional body mass is a mixture of extra muscle and fat, is a strong indicator of premature death.

Racing to the grave
Out of more than 600 Olympic athletes on the East German 1964 Olympic team, fewer than 10 are still alive today. Promoting muscular growth with supplements and steroids doesn’t seem too wise in that context. Excessive body mass, and even excessive muscular development, gained by gorging on high-protein animal products is a risk factor for heart attacks and other diseases later in life.

Measuring relative physical size is not a good way to measure health. Health must be judged by measuring strength per body weight, resistance to serious illnesses, longevity potential, and maintenance of useful vigor into your later years.

this was a excellent post

So what about soy based protein powders sweetened with sucralose? They're low calories and plant-based.

I'm not buying what you're selling, literally. Check out the link at the top of the article on where it is being published. Once you go there you cannot read anything until you pay the $35 joining fee.Not to mention i'm sure this website gets commission for re-directing us readers to that site. How can you prove science wrong that has been taught for years at the university level? I am a personal trainer so I take offense to the fact that you state that "we" look to bodybuilding magazines for answer to help our clients with. Most perosnal trainers do not make money\commsion on selling supplements but yet we make a career on helping people achieve their goals. So have PT's been wrong over that last 40 yrs or so? That is like me calssifying Doctor Furhman as if he got his degree "online". Most of the information you have written is correct, on the amino acids you are RIGHT ON!. Supplements are exactly what they are called, "supplements", a supplement is defined as to make up for a deficiency. Generally personal trainers recommend 1g of protein per pound of body weight, this is due to your'e body cannot digest every single gram of protein, and like you stated earlier it goes into the toilet, so you must have enough protein in ur system to help "supplement" the loss of undigested protein that goes into the toilet. So you do not need 1G of Protein per lb of body weight, but you are trying to get a excess of protein to help offset the amount that goes undigested. Yes magazines and companies do over hype supplements, but please do not state that we get our information from bodybilding magazines.

I have to agree with Bob here. I have a doctorate in nutrition and I am a supervisor over other Nutritionists and I have to tell you, you lost me at the Protein lobbyists in Washington DC part.

Protein is good for you when taken along with a healthy work out regiment to promote muscle gain and weight loss.

Sounds like the person who wrote this article is misinformed indeed. Also, about the 600 olympic athletes in the 64 Olympics...all I am saying is do a little more research to see what a majority of them died from; Steroids are different than Protein.

Plain and simple, u r what u eat...

What about whey protein drinks. Have you discussed much on the soy alert.

yeah all of us cannot tolerate eating half a dozen eggs and large bowls of rice, wheat and a variety of fruits and vegetables each day. Have to spend all day eating and preparing it and worse cleaning all the dishes.
Better to maintain a standard diet and take supplements until you reached your potential.
anyway wat consider food like burgers sandwiches, beer, alcohol, red meat n wat not is not healthy anyway. Wats the big diff wid supplements then.

I don't know why you people would use such a pathetic argument against what this person wrote.
That was full of plenty of logical information; your argument however was vauge and not descptive.

Einstein said "If you can't explain it simply, than you don't understand it well enough."

Try 1 gram protein per Kilogram per day. Ex Army Airborne, Combat arms field artillery medic, professional and volunteer firefighter/EMT 25 years.What do you do with your big muscles and mighty strength? Navy Seals .6-.8 grams protein per pound!

I THINK THOSE DRINKS AND ALL SUPPLEMENTS SOULD BE CONTROLLED BY THE FDA. TOO MUCH OF THIS IS BEING PUSHED AND IT DRIVES UP HEALTH COST FOR EVERY ONE. THESE DRINKS AND SUPPLEMENTS ARE A REAL DANGER. AND NEED TO BE WATCHED CLOSEY.

protein from supplements contain the amino acids u don't get or loose. Who is this guy anyway?

drink protien shakes if you can't get enough from regular foods or u dont have time to prepare or aquire the food. If Thats not a problem then just have a normal protein filled diet. Simple as that. The author is not you and cannot tell you what you need and don't need. If you still want to take the protein shakes but are skeptical about the effects then consult your physician.

plant food will give you much more than just protein; they will supply you with the antioxidants that can protect against the increased free radicals generated by the exercise....YES THIS IS A TRUE STATEMENT, however, (regular physical exercise enhances the antioxidant defense system and protects against exercise induced free radical damage)Unlike this so called MD, this author provides resources. http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/antiox.html

Found this article and I believe this is relevant.

People are increasingly concerned about adopting healthier diets. However, many are prevented from necessary changes because of myths about certain nutrients. For example, it is the common wisdom that one should eat ample amounts of meat in order to get adequate protein and large amounts of dairy products in order to get adequate calcium to avoid osteoporosis.

But, please consider the following: Countries with the highest consumption of dairy products, such as the United States, Sweden, and Finland, also have the greatest incidence of female osteoporosis. Eskimos, who consume the highest amounts of calcium of any of the world's people, have the highest number of cases of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis occurs relatively infrequently in China, even though they consume very little milk or other dairy products.

The reason is that people on meat- and dairy- based diets are getting far too much protein, generally 2 to 3 times the amount required, and when the excess protein is excreted, calcium and other minerals are drained from the body. A recent study showed that people getting 1400 milligrams per day of calcium along with about 150 grams of protein had a negative calcium balance of 65 units while people getting only 400 milligrams of calcium per day with only 50 grams of protein had a positive calcium balance of 31 units.

The main problem is the consumption of animal protein; studies have shown that protein from non-animal sources has health benefits. So the answer to preventing osteoporosis is not to consume a lot of dairy products, but to reduce animal protein consumption through a balanced, nutritious diet centered on the "New Four Food Groups": fruits, vegetables (especially broccoli, a very calcium-rich food, without the negatives of animal products), grains, and legumes.

Researchers have found that the consumption of high-fat dairy products is a leading cause of atherosclerosis, heart attacks, and strokes.
• 2% Milk
• Cheese
• Cottage Cheese
• Sour Cream
• Mayo?



While lower-fat dairy products represent an improvement, they are higher in protein, and this contributes to osteoporosis, kidney problems, and some forms of cancer. Dairy products are also the leading culprits in food allergies. Actually, milk is a wonderful product, but it was designed for rapid weight gain in calves. One might wonder if drinking milk is natural to human beings when we recognize that no other mammal on earth consumes the milk of another species or consumes it after a weaning period.

Many plant foods are good sources of calcium. Especially good sources are

• dark leafy greens (such as kale and mustard, collard, and turnip greens)
• broccoli
• beans
• dried figs
• sunflower seeds
• calcium-fortified cereals and juices.

Dairy products are good sources of calcium, but they also contain large amounts of fat and protein.
According to an American Dietary Association paper, vegans (who consume no animal products at all) can obtain the calcium they need from plant foods alone, and studies have shown that vegetarians can absorb and retain more calcium from foods and have lower rates of osteoporosis than non-vegetarians.
The question most frequently asked of vegetarians is "How do you get enough protein?" However, the amount of protein that a person needs (as a percent of total calories) is actually relatively low: 4.5%, according to the World Health Organization of the United Nations, 6%, according to the Food and Nutrition Board of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and 8%, according to the U. S. National Research Council. It is extremely significant that during infancy, the period when humans have the most rapid growth, mother's breast milk provides only 5% of its calories as protein.
Adequate protein can easily be obtained from vegetarian, even vegan (no animal products at all) diets. Protein is found in most plant foods as well as in animal foods. Potatoes, for example have 11% of their calories from protein, and spinach has 49%.
While an average working man needs about 37 grams of protein per day. 3,000 calories of rice alone would provide 60 grams of highly usable protein (for 3,000 calories of potatoes, 80 grams of protein would be provided). It is almost impossible not to get adequate protein, even on a plant-based diet, providing that one is getting enough calories and consumes a reasonable variety of foods. If this is true, how is it that we have gone so far wrong and so many people think that getting sufficient protein is a major dietary concern. The reason is that much of our nutrition information has come from experiments on rats, and rats require far more protein than humans do, as seen from the fact that a rat mother's milk has almost 50% of its calories from protein.
Consuming excessive amounts of protein can seriously damage human health. As indicated, it can result in a negative calcium balance and osteoporosis, because calcium and other minerals are lost in the urine, along with the excess protein.
Calcium lost due to high protein diets must be handled by the kidneys, which contributes to the formation of painful kidney stones. Excess protein causes destruction of kidney tissue and progressive deterioration of kidney function. Many people in affluent societies have lost 75 percent of their kidney function by the eighth decade of their lives. Extra kidney capacity enables the kidney to carry out its function in otherwise healthy people, but for people who suffer from additional diseases related to the kidney, such as diabetes, surgical loss, or injury from toxic substances, damage due to the excess protein may be fatal. When people with partial loss or damage to their kidneys are placed on low-protein diets, they are able to maintain much of their remaining kidney function.
People on meat-based diets not only get excessive protein, but also large amounts of
® Hormones
® fat
® Cholesterol
® Pesticides
® Antibiotics
® and other harmful ingredients that place major burdens on the consumer's kidneys, liver, and digestive system.
Do vegetarians have to "complement" proteins, that is, get a combination of different foods containing proteins, to make sure that they get complete protein? This was a theory first advocated by Frances Moore Lappe, who mistakenly argued in the first edition of her very influential book, Diet for a Small Planet , that vegetarians should combine proteins in order to get the same "protein value" as meat. However, nutritionists no longer agree with that theory. The American Dietary Association stated in its 1992 paper, "Eating Well - The Vegetarian Way", "Vegetarians do not need to combine specific foods within a meal as the old 'complementary protein' theory advised. The paper states: "The body makes its own complete proteins if a variety of plant foods - fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds - and enough calories are eaten during the day." Even Frances Moore Lappe agreed with this assessment in later editions of her book.
In summary, more and more scientific studies are finding that the best health results are obtained by shifting to completely plant diets, rather than shifting from red meat to poultry, dairy, and other animal products.

Another very relevant article.

Protein Overview
There are nine amino acids that must be supplied by our food intake. Out of more than 20 identified, our bodies cannot manufacture these and thus protein restriction will have its consequences

The body will only use the precise amount of protein it needs. The rest will be excreted in the urine and excess amount may even cause liver and kidney strain. It can also cause an increase in calcium loss in the urine as well as dehydration.

Protein

It's estimated that over 50 % of the dry weight of your body is protein. Proteins are everywhere in the body - in muscle, bone, brain cells, blood cells, genetic matter, skin, hair, fingernails, etc.

Constant processes of repair and renewal takes place inside our bodies with the aid of protein. Maintenance, repair and growth of body tissue is accomplished by the digestion of protein into subunits called amino acids. In this form these amino acids can enter cells where, following instruction from DNA, they can be synthesized into new proteins as is needed. Protein is therefore essential for healthy living.

There are nine amino acids that must be supplied by our food intake. Out of more than 20 identified, our bodies cannot manufacture these and thus protein restriction will have its consequences. Some specific proteins require these amino acids to synthesize and failure to provide them results in muscle breakdown and other protein functions named earlier. Muscle breakdown is detrimental to weight loss.

Protein cannot be stored and needs to be replenished daily. Muscle wasting can occur if protein intake is inadequate as it may be needed for more important body functions. However, most people eat more than they need in terms of protein. The train of though that strength athletes followed is that the more material you supply the body the more it will build. That is not true. The body will only use the precise amount of protein it needs. The rest will be excreted in the urine and excess amount may even cause liver and kidney strain. It can also cause an increase in calcium loss in the urine as well as dehydration.

Studies done with strength trainers and aerobic trainers alike have concluded that the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of 0.8g per kilogram of body weight is too low for serious exercisers. Higher dosages have produced more strength gains than control groups and less muscle wasting in endurance exercise or rigorous strength training. But these are people who strength train 4 times per week and/or participate in aerobic exercise sessions lasting 60 to 90 minutes three times a week.

Beginners and even intermediate exercisers generally should not follow increased protein intake, being brainwashed by protein advertisements. The only way to build muscle is to stimulate it through exercise. Research shows that even on RDA of protein strength trainers built muscle as well as those on twice the amount (1). This is because the protein utilization increased in efficiency and exemplifies on how the body adapts to what is available.

The most concentrated sources of protein come from flesh sources like beef, chicken, turkey and fish. High protein diets should be avoided, especially from animal sources as they are usually high in fat, cholesterol and linked to early disease and death. Protein in animal and dairy foods should be avoided as they are high is saturated fats and cholesterol. Better sources are egg whites, legumes like beans, soy products, and grains. Poultry, fish and low fat dairy products should be used as optional protein sources.

Protein along with fats, are the building materials of the body. Therefore you must authorize construction by stimulating the body through physical activity like exercise. If you don't, minimal amounts of these foods should be eaten. Too much building material and not enough work inevitably cause a deposit which will inevitably contribute to weight gain. But perhaps the worst part is that these foods, (proteins and fats) are not the ideal storage foods as excess can contribute to heart disease, cancers and early death.

I agree with author. Excess protien taxes the liver and kidneys. High meat diets increase acid in blood. Our blood is meant to be slightly alkaline.

That said, Bhuddha has a great piece of advice: "Believe nothing. No matter where you read it, or who said it, even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense".

There is a protien lobby in the American Dairy Association and several meat producing lobbies. Many magazine articles in print and electronic are supported by such interests. Not everything they present is wrong but it should be considered and some research done before jumping on the bandwagon.

From reading the posts, we all have one thing in common. We are searching for optimum health. Good luck and keep seeking!

All you protein haters get a life. I am 190lbs SOLID, lift heavy weights 5 days a week, and swim and run hard and fast the other two days. I got 6th place in a recent 5k run at my college, competing with the school runners. I have a PERFECT blood test, physical, great sex life. I consume at least 220 grams of whey protein isolate everday (my main daily protein source), along with complex carbs (mostly oatmeal). I blend the oatmeal up into a powder in a blender, and put in about 30 grams of protein with about 60 grams of the oatmeal powder into sandwich bags to take on the go-just add water. I consume this every 2 to 2 and 1/2 hours everyday. I am 29 but look 18, and have been eating like this for about 4 years. I will live to my 100's with my diet. I speak from experience, not from what I think I know. And to the army guy who wants to talk crap up there, I bet I will outperform you in any physical tests you want to try; pushups, pullups, running, swimming, benchpress, deadlift, squats, etc., etc. Thank you for serving my country and fellow citizens, but try to put me down for eating more protein and being stronger than you are.