Consequences of overeating animal protein!

Let’s talk about protein!

While athletes require more protein than the average person, recently, everyone has been eating the amount of protein required for an athlete, even though they live a sedentary or non-active lifestyle.

Although athletes require about 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, the average individual needs 0.8 grams per kilogram of lean body weight. Eating too much protein is not healthy and can lead to gut problems. Plus, consuming excess calories, even protein, becomes fat for storage, leading to weight gain.

One of the biggest mistakes I see in my clinic is that people multiply their body weight by 1.5 when deciding how much protein they should consume. This calculation works for athletes because their body fat percentage is negligible, but it doesn’t work for individuals with 50% body fat. For example, an athlete weighing 70 kilograms should eat about 77 to 105 grams of protein daily. Non-athletes who weigh 100 kilograms should eat about 70 grams of protein daily to maintain their health. If they try to use the same formula used for athletes and multiply their body weight of 100 kilograms by 1.5, it would suggest that they should eat 150 grams of protein, which is excessive. This is too much for someone who is not engaging in high-performance exercises.

Here’s how to calculate your needs if you’re not an athlete. Take your lean body mass, usually between 40 and 70 kilograms, and multiply that by 0.8. This is how much protein your body needs.

Here, we discuss how excess protein intake may negatively affect your gut. As you know, most protein digestion occurs in the small intestine by the pancreas and the release of digestive enzymes such as peptidases that break down protein into amino acids.

A high animal protein diet can alter the microbiome and produce harmful metabolites. Excess protein escapes digestion and ends up in your colon, where it undergoes putrefaction by the gut microbiome. This process leads to the formation of harmful metabolites such as ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and Nitric oxide. Hydrogen sulfide breaks down the protective mucus layer and increases cytokine production, an inflammatory cytokine.
Nitric oxide damages the gut mucosa by degrading cell membranes, creating loose junctions in the gut mucosa cells, and causing DNA damage that can lead to GI cancer. Ammonia blocks the uptake of short-chain fatty acids such as butyrate, damages the protective mucus layer, increases the number of lymphocytes in the gut, and causes a leaky gut.

This is why it is recommended that people with diseases such as ulcerative colitis (an inflammatory colon condition) eat less sulfur-producing amino acids. Plants typically contain lower levels of sulfur-producing amino acids than animal sources.

#protien #athlete #exercise #diet #IOPBM #WFPBD