Precision Nutrition How much protein is recommended per day and when?

Precision nutrition is an emerging area of ​​research combined with what has also been called precision medicine that seeks to improve personalized treatment of diseases, and precision nutrition is specific to dietary intake. Both develop interventions to prevent or treat chronic diseases based on the unique characteristics of each person, such as DNA, race, sex, health history and lifestyle habits.

This is a huge step forward because science is finally understanding that every person is different and may have a different response to specific foods and nutrients, so the best diet for one individual may be very different from the best diet for another. But aside from improving disease treatment, precision nutrition can help you achieve your goals for weight loss, losing excess body fat, or improving your athletic performance.

What I have proposed since I started publishing my health articles is that you listen to your body, see how it reacts to certain practices, certain foods, certain supplements, so that you yourself can determine and structure your eating program, diet, or simply, way of eating, but also taking into account your lifestyle and level of physical activity.

I think that, in some way, when you eat your food or choose a dish on a restaurant menu, you already take into account whether a certain food is not agreeing with you, or, on the contrary, you see that it is on the menu and you feel that that is what you “need” to eat. There, you are intuitively applying precision feeding.

Now, before we get into the amount of protein required per day, you should know that I advocate a diverse diet based primarily on plants, good quality complete protein, and healthy fat that is part of the preparation of a food or as a component of a salad, for example.

I think that all foods have a place in nutrition and I don't think it's appropriate to demonize any of them, not even sugar.

However, the parameters that make up our current society lead to a mainly sedentary lifestyle where people spend 8 hours or more sitting in an office in front of a computer, providing them with ready-to-eat ultra-processed meals, little time to take care of their physical and emotional health; and dealing with stress levels that not even deep rest can counteract.

But today I'm not going to start a revolution to fight the system. Once again I'm going to challenge your judgment and provide you with the tools to determine how much protein your body needs daily, taking into account your health, age, lifestyle and level of physical activity.

Remember that protein is one of the macronutrients that make up our diet along with carbohydrates and fats, although I also include water.

According to precision nutrition, or rather, your needs in terms of the amount you require for your age, possible health conditions and level of physical activity, today I present you with the most up-to-date and corroborated information that I have had access to regarding the consumption and effect of protein on your body.

In a recent interview by Dr. Rhonda Patrick with Dr. Luc Van Loon, Professor of Exercise Physiology and Nutrition and Head of the M3 Research Group at the Department of Human Biology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands,

“Proteins are constantly synthesized and broken down in the body at a rate of 1-2% per day, which means that every 100 days you practically have a new muscle” and this is true at any age!

But be careful, because it depends on your activity and whether in 100 days your muscles will reflect the body of a trained person, a bodybuilder, a person emaciated by a sedentary lifestyle, or a person weakened by muscular atrophy due to difficulty recovering from an injury or due to aging.

The World Health Organization has established that the minimum intake of protein or amino acids should be at least 0.8 grams per kilogram of weight and this is to maintain a neutral nitrogen balance. However, this requirement does not take into consideration variations such as age, activity level or health status. *

In principle, the body adapts to different variations in protein levels, although the minimum requirement ensures the basic functions of the body, it is worth trying to obtain optimal levels of amino acid consumption as they support the maintenance of muscle health, as well as general health. In this sense,

The minimum daily protein intake requirement, according to the WHO : 0.8g per kilogram (0.36 per pound) of body weight.

According to Van Loon, a more realistic requirement is recommended: up to 1.6 g per kilogram (0.73 per pound) of body weight.

But the benefit is diminishing as you exceed the adequate amount, Van Loon adds : More than 1.6 grams per kilogram (0.73 grams per pound) of body weight adds no benefit except in exceptional circumstances (such as recovering from surgery, convalescing elderly people, and athletes).

 

Not only muscles are protein-requiring

According to Van Loon's experiments presented in a 2021 publication , you have a new gut in two days, a new liver in one week, a new brain in 3 weeks, and they show (basal) protein synthesis rates substantially higher than those of skeletal muscle tissue. These data suggest that these tissues may also possess a high level of plasticity. All of this in response to daily protein consumption and according to the authors, it remains to be determined whether protein synthesis rates in these tissues can be modulated by external stimuli (such as exercise, for example).

 

Energy balance and protein needs according to your health status and physical activity

DIET 

If you are dieting or in a calorie deficit, maintaining or slightly increasing your protein intake can help preserve muscle mass, this is crucial during weight loss to ensure that the weight lost comes primarily from fat and not muscle.  Therefore, to the extent possible, if you are dieting, intermittent fasting or recovering from an illness, try to consume the optimal protein requirement per day to promote muscle retention by compensating for the increase in protein breakdown that accompanies a lower caloric intake and is not replaced by fat.

 

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND SPORTS TRAINING

In the case of people who do resistance, strength and other training, muscle protein synthesis of course increases, but so does the rate of protein breakdown.

However, the net effect favors synthesis, especially when combined with protein intake.  Protein consumption after exercise would further increase muscle protein synthesis (MPS) and inhibit muscle protein breakdown (MPB), promoting muscular adaptation.

As we have mentioned in previous articles, the main stimuli for strengthening skeletal muscle are exercise (especially strength training) and adequate protein intake.

 

AGING

It is not that aging is inevitable, it is a natural process, but exercise, fasting and intermittent fasting would be useful tools at the level of body restoration and additionally, your nutrition, to a large extent, can be responsible for delaying or accelerating it. This is one of those cases in which it is pertinent to apply precision nutrition.

Unfortunately, as older adults age, they tend to experience a reduction in their rate of protein synthesis relative to their protein intake compared to younger people, and this is what Van Loon calls anabolic resistance . 

Typically, 20 grams of good quality protein maximizes muscle protein synthesis in young adults, while in older adults it is insufficient. 

Fortunately, physical activity can mitigate anabolic resistance.  According to Van Loon, exercise before protein ingestion improves the MPS response in older adults, suggesting that reduced physical activity, and not just age, contributes significantly to anabolic resistance .

In fact, studies conducted with healthy young and older men where they were instructed to engage in physical activity, specifically strength training followed by equal protein intake, have confirmed that there is no difference in the positive response in myofibrillar protein synthesis in older men compared to younger men.

Furthermore, this study indicates that exercising before protein ingestion allows for greater use of dietary protein-derived amino acids for de novo muscle protein synthesis in both young and older men.

 

How to calculate the daily protein intake for an overweight person?

These people should not be guided by the daily protein recommendations based on their current weight but rather according to their ideal weight which takes into account their age, gender and height. (Formula, Weight in kilograms = 2.2 x BMI (lean body mass index) + (3.5 x BMI) x (Height in meters minus 1.5) or you can find your ideal weight at this link

 

Daily protein distribution:

Would spreading protein consumption throughout the day affect its absorption?

If you are a young, average person who doesn't need to make sure your body is absorbing and assimilating protein, you don't have health goals and you're not an athlete, you can organize your meals, specifically your protein intake, as you feel best. For other cases it is advisable to pay attention to this distribution.

According to Dr. Van Loon, the distribution of protein throughout the day is crucial to optimizing muscle conditioning.  One of their studies published in 2023 indicates that consuming 20-25 g of protein at each meal ensures multiple anabolic stimuli throughout the day, maximizing muscle protein synthesis or MPS and supporting muscle reconditioning.  For athletes or individuals with higher protein needs, adding a high-protein snack before bed can provide an additional anabolic boost, especially after evening workouts.

There is another possibility:  that you consume a large amount of protein (100 grams vs 25 grams) after your workout.  This option has been shown to provide a longer and more robust anabolic response than the 25-gram option at each meal. The thing is that protein needs time to be assimilated, so in the context of intermittent fasting or eating only one meal a day it might work, but in general, it is not recommended.

In this sense, high-volume protein ingestion further increases whole-body net protein balance and rates of mixed muscle, myofibrillar, muscle-connective, and plasma protein synthesis. Protein ingestion has a negligible impact on whole-body protein degradation rates or amino acid oxidation rates. 

 

Supplement with amino acids or protein powder

I've said it before, food before supplements.  However, with the pace of life we ​​live today, a whey protein is acceptable since it is absorbed quickly and sometimes, it is difficult to wait until we get home because of hunger, or You can also end up eating the first thing you find along the way.  So, a good quality whey protein isolate is an alternative.

Also , creatine is a naturally occurring nitrogenous organic acid compound formed by methionine, arginine and glycine.  Creatine is found in many body tissues (e.g., heart, brain, retina), but predominantly (-95%) in skeletal muscle in the form of phosphocreatine or free creatine.

Creatine plays an important role in facilitating the transfer of high-energy phosphates in the production and rapid regeneration of adenosine triphosphate (ATP).

Creatine is quite popular in the athletic field as it increases performance in repetitive and explosive tasks, such as sprinting and resistance training, and facilitates the increase of lean body mass.  But, in addition, it has important cognitive benefits that you can review in my article and video at this link .

As for collagen , the joints, tendons, ligaments and skin are the most benefited from supplementation and not so much the muscles as such.  Let us remember, however, that muscles attach to bones through tendons.  According to van Loon, physical strength would be linked to the tissue that connects muscle and bone, where the presence of collagen would be more relevant, but more studies are needed to corroborate this.

 

Growth hormone and collagen synthesis in the body

On the other hand, growth hormone (GH) plays an important role in stimulating the synthesis of collagen, the main structural protein of various connective tissues. 

In this sense, the release of GH induced by exercise naturally increases the secretion of growth hormone, which is what can enhance collagen synthesis.

Furthermore, the combined effect of exercise and GH may improve the health and function of connective tissues, potentially aiding in injury recovery and overall tissue maintenance.  But human growth hormone stimulation has more scopes that you can identify in my article and video at this link .

 

In conclusion, it is muscle stimulation through physical exercise, accentuated with strength training, that triggers the activation of the building-breakdown cycle of many systems in your body, including your muscular system.  It is precisely this stimulation that induces your body to require protein as a cornerstone for the reconstruction and maintenance, not only of your muscles but of other important organs such as the brain and liver.

If you are interested, in this link (although it is in English) you will find the formula that indicates the approximate amounts of protein to consume, according to your weight, age and activity level.

 

 

 

*Note : To arrive at the conclusion of nitrogen balance, this is done taking into account that the amino acids that form proteins contain nitrogen.  By measuring the balance between nitrogen intake (from protein) and nitrogen excretion (in urine, mainly in the form of urea), researchers can determine whether a person has a positive, negative, or neutral nitrogen balance.  But reports in this regard have been inaccurate due to underestimation of food intake and unmeasured nitrogen losses through the skin or breath, for example.