Protein Basics

Protein is one of the three basic food groups necessary for good health; fats and carbohydrates are the other two. All protein taken into the body is broken down into smaller parts called amino acids.

The amino acids circulate in your body and are recombined to form proteins that build and maintain muscle, bone, skin, hair, and many other tissues. Actually, about 75% of your body weight consists of protein. Amino acids are also reformed into digestive enzymes and hormones that serve vital functions.

What is the best way to start? When it comes to dietary advice, first and foremost we tell our clients and support group members to eat a balanced diet. What does that mean? In a typical meal try to make it 50% fruits and vegetables accompanied by lean protein in order of preference fish, chicken, lean beef, pork, lamb etc. Beans and nuts are included in the lean protein category for this discussion so if you eat beans and nuts then lean protein is not essential or reduced for that meal. Cheeses, yogurt and tofu generally have slightly less protein per ounce.

Remember, your body can only utilize 30 grams of dietary protein per meal so any more than that is generally used as energy or stored as fat. Each ounce of fish, chicken or beef has approximately 6 grams of protein. Fruits and vegetables have lesser amounts but it does add up if you are sticking to your 50% rule. Multiple protein meals and snacks throughout the day is the best ways to intake your protein.

What about going all fruits and vegetables? You can get all the necessary amino acids your body needs from just eating vegetables, fruits, nuts and legumes (beans) and never eating animal sources but I don’t recommend it. Trying to eat that way takes a lot more vigilance and frankly more work if you want to maintain a healthy, well balanced diet.

What about soy? Most experts agree that fermented soy is the best way to go because non-fermented soy products contain phytic acid. Phytic acid binds with certain nutrients, including iron, to inhibit their absorption. That means if you decide to eat soy, not all soy products are created equally. Examples of fermented soy are Natto, Miso, Tempeh, Soy sauces and Fermented tofu and soymilk.

What about too much acid from protein? A high protein diet is not healthful for most people because it tends to dehydrate your body and overload the kidneys. The nitrogen component of protein is toxic to the body and must be flushed out during digestion. This among other things was one of the problems with the Atkins diet.

The second problem is that high protein from any source tends to increase inflammation in the body. Inflammation has a destructive effect on bone reducing both quality and density. Animal protein is especially inflammatory because it does not have the antioxidants that are naturally available in vegetable protein sources. The antioxidants provide the “alkalizing effect” and reduce inflammation. Animal sources also have a higher density with more grams of protein per ounce.

How much protein do I need for osteoporosis?
Adequate protein is important for osteoporosis because part of bone consists of a matrix made primarily of protein. Inadequate protein intake can prevent the matrix from building and repairing itself. Your strength training and weight lifting will require adequate supplies of dietary protein to build and repair muscles. Most experts recommend protein intake based on body weight and activity levels. Here is one recommendation.

The Iowa States Eat to Compete program says this:
The recommended protein intake for the American population is 0.4 g/lb/day. However, athletes (this could be you if you play tennis or spend several hours at the gym regularly) may have different needs depending on the duration and intensity of exercise, and frequency of training. Strength training athletes need about 0.6-0.8 g/lb/day and endurance runners need about 0.5-0.6 g/lb/day due to the stress on muscle fibers during exercise. In general, the recommended protein intake for athletes ranges from 0.4-0.8 g/lb/day depending on the energy expenditure and demand of the exercise.

If you want to read more go to http://www.extension.iastate.edu/nutrition/sport/protein.html

Here is another good discussion on protein basics: http://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/everyone/basics/protein.html

A good test for protein intake is to make sure you hair, skin and nails are healthy. Split ends and cracked or splitting finger nails are potential good signs of protein deficiency.

Woody McMahon
NOVA Osteoporosis Support Group Leader

By GGG
Posted June 26, 2009 at 12:40 pm
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Thank you so much for your post about protein but could you please clarify? What does 0.6-0.8 g/lb/day mean? How does that translate to everyday life? How many servings of protein each day and how much?

By SequoiaHealth
Posted June 26, 2009 at 8:22 pm
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Hi GGG:
What does 0.6-0.8 g/lb/day mean?
Take your body weight in pounds and multiply by .6 and that is the number of grams of protein you want to eat on a daily basis. So 135 pound person should eat 135 x .6 = 81 grams of protein per day. You can only utilize 30 grams of protein per meal so roughly 3 meals of 27 grams each would work.

As an example, a 4 ounce piece of fish has about 24 grams of protein.

Make sense?

Woody McMahon
NOVA Osteoporosis Support Group Leader

By rmchavin
Posted June 26, 2009 at 9:33 pm
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Dear SequoiaHealth:

I would like to add to this excellent discussion on protein that the most likely essential amino acid to become deficient among undernourished people is methionine. All plant-source proteins have somewhat lower amounts of methionine than all animal-source proteins. The second most likely essential amino acid to become deficient among undernourished people is lysine. Although most plant-source proteins and all animal-source proteins have good amounts of lysine, wheat is quite low in lysine and unfortunately, a substantial percentage of the world's population eats mostly just wheat and wheat products and not much of anything else. The third most likely amino acid to become deficient among undernourished people is phenylalanine. Like methionine, phenylalanine is less abundant in all plant-source proteins than all animal-source proteins. Interestingly, phenylalanine (and aspartame/Nutrasweet/Equal, which contains phenylalanine) has been shown to block the cancer-causing action of the common mycotoxin, ochratoxin A, which is almost always present in very small quantities in things like coffee, cocoa, and grains. Health-minded vegetarians and semi-vegetarians who are concerned that they might be undernourished with respect to protein should seriously consider adding either high-fat fish or soy to their diet. Protein from soy and soy products are unique in the plant kingdom. Unlike all animal-source proteins, soy protein is extremely bone friendly. Yet, soy protein is the only plant-source protein which contains almost as much of the essential amino acids methionine, lysine, and phenylalanine as all animal-source proteins.

By rmchavin
Posted June 27, 2009 at 5:53 pm
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Dear SequoiaHealth:

Thanks for bringing up the issue of phytic acid, which is not present in fermented soy foods (because the phytic acid is broken down by the bacteria of fermentation) but is present in substantial amounts in virtually all legumes (including non-fermented soy), grains, cereals, and rice and in somewhat lesser amounts in most fruits and vegetables: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19353365 The issue of phytic acid and how it binds to nonheme iron is very complex: http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/minerals/iron/ However, I will attempt to mention some interesting aspects: (1) Vitamin C strongly enhances the absorption of nonheme iron by reducing dietary ferric iron (Fe3+) to ferrous iron (Fe2+) and forming an absorbable iron-ascorbic acid complex. So while it is true that eating plants high in phytic acid and very low in vitamin C would prevent more than 90% of the nonheme iron from being absorbed, by simply adding vitamin C, the nonheme iron in these plant-source foods would become availabe for absorption by the human body despite the presence of phytic acid. (2) Citric acid, which is plentiful in citrus fruits, other plants, and man-made drinks also enhances nonheme iron absorption, although not as effectively as ascorbic acid (vitamin C). (3) Generally, nonheme iron is not as important as heme iron as a source of iron in human nutrition. Phytic acid can only bind to nonheme iron. Phytic acid cannot bind to the more important, heme iron. Heme iron is very plentiful in fish, beef, pork, and poultry but is never found in plants. (4) We may be worrying in the wrong direction. High dietary intakes of iron have been linked to cardiovascular disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease. As a result, vitamin pill manufacturers have been frightened into removing not just some but all of the iron in our daily multivitamin pills: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18630488 So while iron deficiency is also quite possible, I feel that moderation with iron intake might be the best strategy. In conclusion, I completely agree that fermented soy foods are delicious and very, very healthy for us. However, I feel that the phytic acid in non-fermented soy foods and other plant-source foods is only a small disadvantage. Furthermore, non-fermented soy foods contain superior (higher) quantities of osteoporosis-preventing, cancer-preventing, and cardiovascular-disease-preventing phytochemicals such as ascorbic acid (vitamin C), phylloquinone (vitamin K1), folate, genistein, daidzein, and glycitein than is contained in fermented soy foods. Anyhow, here are 4 more web addresses: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6737084 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12030275 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12936958 http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/minerals/zinc/

By rmchavin
Posted July 6, 2009 at 4:23 am
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Dear SequoiaHealth:

Here's an interesting Pubmed study that seems to disagree with our belief that fermented soy foods are healthy for us: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11045787 My best guess is that the reason the fermented soy foods increased stomach cancer risk in this study is because they tend to be eaten with added salt (nitrosamines). For example, if natto (fermented Japanese soybeans) were always eaten without any salty soy sauce added, I'm confident that stomach cancer risk would have been greatly reduced just as well as the non-fermented soy foods were able to do in this study.

By rmchavin
Posted July 6, 2009 at 7:57 am
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Finally, here's an interesting PubMed study that says that the phytic acid (phytate) in soybeans might actually be more of a health advantage than a health disadvantage: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17023703

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