Response to crazy high protein diet claims - Dr Dan Reardon

Thank the lord for expert lead reporting!

As a UK doctor with over 15 years of experience in the fitness industry, and having read in the order of about 1500 research articles about whey protein over the years, all of which have nothing but positive things to say, thank you "media" for alerting me to the un-researched, unsubstantiated claims that whey protein, and high protein diets are in fact dangerous. And thank you for alerting me to the hub of expertise on the topic in Chesterfield.

I am in the fortunate position of working in an industry, the fitness industry, surrounded by attractive, fit, healthy people, people who train regularly, use supplements, have diets with at least 1g/Ib of body weight of protein per day. They are highly motivated people, strong, like minded, passionate about success in many areas of their lives. This is the population I liken myself to, and am inspired to learn from.

The fitness industry has a mass of companies that commit large amounts of money into researching products, like whey protein, for the benefits that it has on health. By health I mean a persons physical fitness and disease free state.

Is whey protein a stimulant as our friend in Chesterfield has suggested? No. Whey protein has no stimulating effects in the slightest. In fact, not many protein based products contain stimulants of any description. The reason for this is that protein can affect the absorption of the stimulating products that you get in pre-workouts, so it makes no sense for a protein based supplement to be a stimulant. The report is sadly confused with its information delivery, and seems to be drawing on the recently banned 1,3-Dimethylamylamine (DMAA), which is an extract of Geranium found in some pre-workout products, and is not a protein supplement.

Just to clarify another point. Whey protein has been found to increase nitric oxide (NO) levels in the blood, which helps blood vessels dilate more. Nitric oxide boosters have an association to pre-workout stimulants, BUT NO is not a stimulant in itself, just in case there is any confusion.

The article states that for men, 55g of protein a day is adequate. Think about it like this, my buddy Frank is a 5 foot, 8 stone jockey. My buddy Dave is a 6 foot 4, 16 stone rock of a rugby player. Does anybody actually believe that these 2 athletes have the same 55g per day protein requirement? Of course they don’t, that's a pathetic claim!

If you are an inactive, sedentary individual, then maybe your protein requirement will be a lot lower. If you are not working your muscles, then less protein / amino acids are required for protein synthesis, so excess protein is simply excess calories. BUT, you should still remember that it's protein that helps build muscle, and therefore you will still have a threshold of protein required to maintain the muscle mass that you have. This is after all the metabolically active tissue that helps keep your fat levels down, or not!

If you are a super active athlete, your protein requirement is going to be considerably more to contribute important amino acids to the repair of “worked out” muscles. This is not a difficult concept to grasp.

I want to maintain some balance in this post. The actual protein requirement for an individual has NOT been established in any research. There exists a body of evidence that states you can not absorb more than 30g of protein per meal sitting. There are other bodies that exist that claim this is absolute nonsense. The experts argue this point a lot, but for most people, daily protein requirement will not be less than about 1g/Ib of body weight. As you get a older, your protein requirement does get a little less, but that isn’t significant to this current report.

For those actually interested in the research, these are some of the health benefits of whey protein:

Reduction in blood pressure.
Decreased levels of LDL (bad cholesterol).
Reduced levels of inflammation as indicated by a reduced C-reactive protein.
Increased muscle mass.
Improved liver function - this was using a group of obese women as the
test subjects.
Improved immune function.
Improved CD4 count in people with HIV.
Increased levels of the bodies most potent antioxidant glutathione.
Increased life span of lab animals.
Major contributor to fat loss.
Increased satiety.

I don’t want to go into all the ins and outs of the health benefits of protein / whey protein, more I want to focus on why all of a sudden, the supplement industry is being attacked. Is this all government propaganda to take the focus of what will be a storm when they bump up the price of supplements with the addition of VAT in October, including whey protein. Convince the country its unhealthy, then look like the good guys for taxing it.

Let me conclude...

My mom and dad are nearing their 60’s. My parents are using Reflex Instant Whey, Reflex Omega-3’s and Reflex Nexgen. My dad is training 4 to 5 times per week, and takes no prescribed medications at all. That's how he wants to keep things, that's why I set his exercise programmes, his diet, and ensure he is supplementing with products I
believe in, from an industry I believe in.

If I could prescribe whey protein, creatine, omega-3’s etc, believe me I would. Please don’t listen to this nonsense about the dangers of whey protein, and protein. If you have concerns, email people that know what they are talking about. I’ll happily discuss things like this with anybody who is willing to listen.