What's up guys, Dr.
Gabrielle Lyon here with longtime mentor, best friend,
Dr. Donald layman. And we really,
really aim to bring you some of the most updated and
unbiased information that we can. And in fact, when we have those biases,
we'll share them with you. Um,
and our topic of conversation today is about longevity and
in the Twitter world, which Don was laughing,
yesterday's gone crazy with this concept of longevity and
lowering protein to help with longevity,
which actually you can tell we've been friends for so long because it,
it really bothered me.
And what you're hearing in the narrative is interesting because you're hearing
individuals talk about why we should,
or at least pose the argument that we should lower animal protein and protein in
general,
to dampen mTOR response over time, right?
Not you, you don't wanna over quote, overstimulate, mTOR,
otherwise this shortens your life somehow.
And the way in which to do this is to actually lower protein.
Did I miss anything in this argument? I mean,
there's a whole bunch of other things.
Yeah. I, I mean, I think it's,
and there's a whole bunch of things and angles that, you know,
bother me in the Twitter world where you only have a few characters to try and
present a complex thing. But, um, I mean,
I think it's clear that overeating shortens longevity. Uh,
and so most of the research that's quoted is really animal research and animals
that are in cages,
in sterile environments and presented food around the clock at
lium, basically eat around the clock, right. Which, you know, humans eat meals.
And so that's the worst case scenario.
And we know that if you restrict calories or you restrict protein to
animals, they will tend to live longer.
And people have interpreted that as somehow restricting proteins important.
But the reality is, is we're preventing overeating, right.
And we all know obesity shortens lifespan. So that's, you know, that's my,
one of my biggest problems with it.
But then the other big problem is people who are kind of tweeting about it.
Aren't getting into well, lower protein. What does that mean?
Give me the number. What do you think is healthy?
And I think you and I have taught you see in your practice that the average
Americans actually undereating protein, right.
And you would what the average female has,
what around 60 grams of protein.
Yeah. That the average adult female is right at the RDA. In fact,
the, the.
Which is 0.8 grams per kilogram. I I'm sure that the,
our listeners are used to that number, but yeah.
Yeah. The, uh, the, the average female, in fact, uh,
the NHANES data,
our national survey for food suggests that 40% of women
over 60 are actually under the RDA,
which means that's the minimum to preventive deficiency.
So 40% are too low. So,
so this constant message that proteins too high simply isn't true,
the right average American adult, you know, of above 18,
the average intake in the us falls between 0.9 and one. Mm.
And what we know from research is that almost all the research data
points to the, the, the healthy range is 1.1.
I mean,
1.2 to about 1.6 and the,
the Americans are way below that range.
Even if you look at the Mediterranean diet, which is supposed to be healthy, uh,
it's almost 30% higher in protein than the average American diet.
And you could go one could not you cuz actually we should talk about your
personal protein goals for of the day,
which are lower than what I typically recommend.
But there's always some room for variability that
if what we know to be healthy is 1.2 to
1.6 grams per kilogram, which we do know that. And in pro the pro study,
there's a lot of data on this. This is not new. This is important, but not new.
The RDA, which we can all agree is too low. Uh,
when we're thinking about optimization, not just disease prevention,
the next step above that would be optimizing for even higher protein.
Is there a downside to go say to 2.2
grams per kilogram? And I would say no.
So that's one gram per pound body weight for some people that can be high,
but I.
Yeah, I agree with that. I,
I think that you have to look at your goal with the protein choice.
Uh, we know that from a muscle and body standpoint,
we seem to optimize muscle development and somewhere around
1.6 to maybe 1.8, um,
to go above that,
then you need to question why we know that the build muscle,
the primary issue is resistance, exercise it's size. Uh,
you can't make your muscles bigger just by eating more protein. Don't.
Tell Shane that.
Plenty of reason to believe that. However, as you go above that,
the question is, what calories do you want to eat?
Mm-hmm do you want to eat more fat, more carbs or more protein?
They have different metabolic outcome, right? So, you know,
if you wanna have 2.2,
you're now trading out calories of either fat or carbohydrate
and that metabolically may be exactly what you want to do.
Mm-hmm but to convince yourself that that's gonna build more
protein into your muscle, that's simply not true.
It might make your liver bigger or your kidney bigger .
Or which, which is not necessarily a bad thing though.
This doesn't mean that well.
I mean, it, it may increase your lean body mass,
but it won't increase your muscle mass.
It will increase your lean body mass,
which will people will use interchangeably,
lean body mass and skeletal muscle mass, which actually are different,
but they're often used interchangeably.
So the next question then becomes preference.
And I think there is something to be said for carbohydrates,
10 carbohydrates tend to be, get more carbohydrates and same with fat. Yeah.
There is
a way in which we eat that tends to be highly palatable.
Can you control for calories and still eat fat and carbohydrates? Totally.
Yeah.
And is it more challenging because of the satiety mechanisms
or their lack thereof when it comes to carbohydrates?
I think if you are not really, really tracking and really, really not,
and not careful, there's a tendency to overeat carbohydrates and fats period.
I mean.
Carbohydrates, I think are incredibly misunderstood. Uh,
if you really look at the metabolism, the body needs around 80 to hundred,
120 grams per day, we have an RDA set at 130 grams per day,
which is kind of a, a big safety factor. Um,
but the average Americans' eating 300, I mean,
so we've got nearly 200 grams of excess energy coming of carbohydrate
energy coming in.
And I'm pretty convinced that that's a major cause of obesity, uh,
as you and I've talked before, I sort of look at carbohydrates as a,
as a two step need.
The first step is kind of basic metabolism for the brain and red blood cells,
which is what gives us that kind of RDA number.
And then the other is how much for exercise, um,
people who do really intense exercise tend to feel better with
carbohydrates during that period. You burn carbohydrates.
And so you either have to convert protein to it,
or you have to eat the car said, I personally feel better eating the carbs.
And so which.
You always have, which you always have, which I.
Always have. And I, you know,
so I eat probably 160 to 200 somewhere
in that range of carbohydrates per day mm-hmm . But again,
the average Americans' is eating 300 I'm I'm exercising an hour and a half a day
of, of tennis or intense exercise, you know, hit type of exercise.
So I burn those carbs, right.
You know,
the conversation of reducing protein to have
more longevity seems really ridiculous. When you think about, you know,
here you are very youthful in your do I dare
say, I won't say very, very youthful.
And one of the reasons that you've been able to maintain this vitality is that
you've been training and you've been training your whole life.
And you do have a diet that is,
is robust in protein in this concept that we should then lower protein.
And that's somehow going to improve. Longevity is incredibly shortsighted.
The idea of longevity,
equaling health is totally not true and not in an alignment.
Your mother lived to be 103
and two. Yeah. We all know towards the end of life,
what that looks like. I mean, and if you don't yet you will. It's rough.
Yeah.
The idea that you are going to live longer without the discussion of the
quality of life, of being able to do activities of daily, living,
of being to be mobile,
of being able to just stand up from a chair,
totally miss those conversations.
When you tell people to reduce protein for this conversation of longevity,
it's a mistake.
It's biggest mistake that I've seen and I'm a trained geriatrician.
So there you go.
You and I agree, agree on that,
that the quality of life really relates to your muscle health. You know,
we like the term muscle centric health,
because basically if muscles are healthy, your movement,
your activities of daily life, but also your metabolic health,
how do you metabolize carbohydrates? How do you metabolize fats?
Those all relate to your muscle health, right? And you know, I,
you know, people who live past 60,
really their quality of life depends on their muscle health.
It's not an issue of, you know, do you, I always like to say, you know,
you may live longer, but you don't get more years in your thirties.
You get your years in the nineties and hundreds.
And those aren't necessarily very, um, high quality of living.
I, I couldn't agree with you more and I'm not sure.
Why do you have a sense of why we have other PhDs and
some of the influencers saying that they should reduce protein for longevity.
It's weird. And I, and I don't, and I don't think that all of them are antiana.
So it's just this weird. I, you know, I, I don't quite understand it.
Do you have any idea?
Well, I think you're right,
that there is a significant component of 'em that lean vegetarian.
Okay.
And so it's very hard to have a herion diet at 1.8 grams
per kg, right? I mean, you either have,
you have to go to a diet that is full of highly processed foods to do that.
You can't do it with just natural foods. And so we tend to,
we tend to confuse the issue of having a healthy plant based diet,
which I would argue you and I have very healthy plant based diets.
Mm-hmm but we also have relatively high protein diets.
I don't think those are mutually exclusive. Right. Um, so there is that faction.
I think the other issue that's sort of has been out there forever is sort of
an international malnutrition issue. Hmm.
That globally the world health organization looks at the lowest
common denominator.
And so all of the protein guidelines are really set for malnutrition in poor
countries. Right. So nobody wants to recommend, uh,
a level that is 1.8 grams per kg.
Cuz those countries probably could never meet it. That's.
Interesting. That's very interesting.
Yeah. On the other hand,
we need to have guidelines that are relevant to the way people live in those
environments.
So if we struggle to get to one point or even 0.9 to grams
in some, in a country in Africa, that's a meaningful issue.
But in the United States where overeating is health issue,
1.6 grams per K gene, mainly the most healthy thing we can do. So, you know,
we have to be sensitive to the environment we live in to try and
optimize the diet .
Yes.
What would your response be to some of these people that are saying, uh,
that they should reduce protein for longevity?
That's like saying you should reduce muscle mass for longevity. Yeah.
I, I, I just don't buy it. And, and my,
my first response then is what let level do you mean? I mean,
do you mean 0.7 grams per kg? Should we be starving? I mean,
do what level we're currently nine, reduce it from what? Uh,
and that's my problem is they throw out this term that protein is bad or you
should reduce it, but they don't follow it up with a number. Give me a number.
I, I give you the science to either back your number or destroy your number.
.
And that's what guys can you guys imagine being mentored by this guy? .
That's why they don't give you a number is because once you go beyond the,
the generality of, oh wow, protein's bad.
Then you have to defend your number and you're gonna lose that argument.
right.
It's a good point. It's a good point. Um, well you guys,
I hope you enjoyed this little snippet talking about protein and longevity.
And again, don't forget. Muscle is your organ of longevity. And you know,
now I have to change my tagline. Now, now that's it.
Now I have to change my tagline. It can't be about longevity anymore.
Has to really be about the quality of life. Oh, well,
you guys all have to get back to you all on a new, uh, tagline, please.
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