Protein Intake

[sunset1]

Protein Intake Study

What do you guys think about this?

~1.3 g/kg protein just as effective for muscle and strength gains as ~1.7 g/kg, new study finds

A new study compared 64 trainees consuming either a higher-protein diet including meat (non-vegetarians) or a lower-protein lacto-ovo vegetarian diet. Protein intake ranged from 1.5-1.8 g/kg per day in the meat eaters (~0.8 g/lb) compared to 1.2-1.4 g/kg per day in the lacto-ovos (~0.6 g/lb). Energy intake didn't significantly differ between groups.

After their 12-week training programs, there were no significant differences between the groups for muscle growth (quad muscle thickness and DXA lean body mass), strength development (1RM leg extension and isometric peak torque) or fat loss. The training program involved 8-12 sets of quad training per week, so that shouldn't have been a limiting factor.

 

[guaguar]

@sunset1 Link to the study would be a great start...

 

[peterjakeyboy]

@sunset1 Based on the sample size, I suspect this study was done on untrained individuals. But you didn't link the study so I don't know for certain.

 

[sugarcookies]

@sunset1 There's no free access to the full study anywhere, but if anyone wants to read the abstract, here you go.

The difference in muscle growth between 0.6g/lb and 0.8g/lb is already known to be slim to none, so that's not really new information. There are, however, a few limitations to the study from what I can tell in the abstract:

• Protein intake seems to have been self-reported instead of fully controlled. That makes sense, since it's expensive to control the diet of the participants. This means, though, that the participants could be eating less or more protein than they're reporting, which could skew the results.
• The authors mention "early adaptations to ST(Strength Training)", which makes it sound like the participants were untrained. This would also affect the amount of muscle growth they'd see.
• Lastly, the focus of the study wasn't really to compare protein amounts and their effect on composition, but rather whether vegetarians could see as much muscle and strength progress as non-vegetarians. That's probably another reason why the protein amounts weren't strictly controlled.