Too Much Protein?

[Blooming lotus]

Any back up for that?

Collagen. That's what tendens are made of. Thanks for that reminder. And what you just decribed is exactly what I am told my my Sifu about eating tendons and by my girlfriend about eating pigs skin. But neither one of them has a particularly deep understanding of human physiology from a scientific standpoint. Baji training is potentially pretty bad for the joints. It's rough. So you are supposed to eat tendons and connective tissue and stuff to protect them. The effect may be real but the reasoning is kind of superstitious. It's that old thing where you eat what you want to strengthen. Eat kidneys to strengthen you kidneys. Eat tendons to strengthen you tendons and ligaments. Eat pigs skin for beautiful skin. etc.

So I'd like to hear if the tendon thing holds water. It sounds like they maybe really are as good as tradition claims. That would be cool because they are such a macho damn food too. *GRRRR!!!*

Grrr ha?? ...:) lol ..

Anyway, regarding the link to some info on the collagen - what it is , is that in medical lingo 'gelatin' , the collagen derivative is called HCP or Hydrolysed Collagen Protein. It reverses osteoarthritis and protects joints and tendons from injury and has anti-inflammotory properties.
I don't know if you can get any of the links to work but if you really want to know, you can either check this out http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...joint+strength

or this one
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...gen+metabolism

or try google for yourself and use terms like HCP and jointhealth and tcm .

AS for the vegies , they are also a protein and will metabolise differently to animal proteins fibrous or otherwise but the fact is that to be at your best health and immunity etc, our bodies also at times need protein from animals .... like milk and meats and eggs. The trick though to the bowel thing is what else you eat when when have them.
I'm not really sure what else to say about it but so long as you have somewhere to start and know they have benifits, all sweet enough.


Cheers and happy training
Blooming Lotus

[dakotajudo]

Ditto on the thx...

It's nice to have something new to consider. What it comes down to is that if you eat more calories than you use, you will get fat -right? ...
First let me apologise. Excess calories is not something I even consider anymore .... 99.9% of everything I eat is no fat - milk - cheese - yoghurt - fruit - veg - and so on...

I'm not sure a no-fat diet is best for someone physically active - muscles preferentially use fats for energy at low to moderate levels of effort, and spare glycogen for more intense effort levels.

On the argument though, what abbout when your protein is mainly dairy and that dairy has higher calcium content which you assist metabolism of with vit c and d??.... .

Don't know about C, but vitamin D is converted to a hormone that regulates calcium absorption (among other things).

C is import for cone mass, because it's needed by the enzyme that's involved in collagen synthesis - and collagen is the major bone protein (as well as most connective tissue).

Then according to a whole bunch of various research data the extra calcium you might get from or with your higher protein regime effects calcitriol levels reducing them & inhibiting your body's ability to store fat .......

Calcitrol is the hormone synthesized from vitamin D - and as I said, it's mainly associated with controlling calcium levels in the blood - but I hadn't been aware of the other processes it's been associated with, according to recent research.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...itriol+%2B+fat

I'd skip the google search and go directly PubMed, if your up to reading clinical research (although in my opinion some of the reviews are not that convoluted).

For example, go to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi and type "calcitriol adiposity" in the search field. You'll get 30-some hits; most are clinical trials, but hit the Review tab - there's a couple good ones on this topic, better than google:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...38&query_hl=36

and 'that's' before we even get to ketosis... which assuming you're sensible about calorie intake , you 'will' experience on the high protein low carb regime...

Yeah, you do need a certain amount of carbohydrate to keep the important biochemical processes (i.e. Kreb's cycle) active.

But, if you get your protein from meat, well, muscle cells store glucose (carbohydrate) as glycogen. And a good bit, if you get high-quality meat (stress on cattle depletes glyocgen, which may lower quality).

Plant sources of protein typically contain a good bit of carbohydrate as well. About the only way to get a truly high-protein/low carb diet is to eat purified protein. Or a lot of eggs.

As for the idea ppl have that you pee out excess protein, like I said, the thing with high protein intake is fluids and controling electrolytes. Protein metabolism causes a nitrogen production as a bi-product. This is toxic to our bodies and so the body, in attempt to flush the nitrogen needing extra fluid if not present through dietary means, will reach for that extra fluid from your muscles --- and why weight loss from extra protein can indeed be attributed to fluid loss making it the nitrogen from the protein that you pee out and the fluid your body needs to flush it out makes you pee more or with higher concentrate.

Well, protein metabolism releases ammonia, which is toxic, and is detoxified to urea; urea is excreted in urine.

I used to think that excess protein led to exccess urine production, but now I'm a little more skeptical - urine output is mostly regulated by levels of other electrolytes - primarily sodium. I think you'd need to eat a ridiculously, even pathologically, high level of protein to really affect kidneys.

Although, I will admit, kidney function is getting further away from the areas that I feel comfortable discussing with any expertise.

The other thing to consider, in a high-protein/low carb diet, is that carbs tend to require more water to store; lose carbs you also lose water. And if your calories come from fat; fat is a very dense storage form, and doesn't require water for storage.

If however you increase your carbon intake ( which I do with a effervecent guarana and vit c / b combo of a morning & afternoon or regularly otherwise with soda water ( with or without lemonjuice / other juice / or sugar alternative ) then the problem is nuetralised .

Carbon intake is carbohydrate or fats. You seem to be talking about vitamins.

However, the soda water/effervescent water has carbonate, which is one of your bodies buffers; so this may be buffering the protein.

As for myself not being in a position to advise anyone, I have actually been qualified to do exactly that for approaching 14 yrs, am approaching 17 yrs of gongfu training, have a father who was the fastest over a particular distance runner in his country and have trained harder and longer and leaner than most ppl would ever dream in their worst nightmare.

Name? I used to keep track of the running scene.

[dakotajudo]

If that's true then see if you can answer a question for me.

What the hell happens to tendons when you eat them? It's a common food product here and is traditional for fighters to eat a lot of them in the way we expect our boxers to eat lots of barely cooked steaks. I looked into it a bit and saw that they are pretty much pure protein, although I forget the particular kind, but I kind of figure it gets completely denatured in digestion and am wondering if it really can have any relevance on the development of the connective tissue in the person who eats that ****.

My first thought is that it shouldn't matter that much - proteins are all pretty much digested into amino acids.

But my second thought was that collagen is an unusually proline-rich protein, if I remember my biochemistry correctly. So to make new collagen, your body needs a good source of proline. It may be that the best source of proline is - collagen.

Now, I won't vouch that it's proline specifically, as the key amino acid, but the key point is that each different protein has a unique combination of amino acids, so you need to balalnce you amino acid intake to be sure you get all the amino acids needed for your various proteins.

That's why plant sources of protein, like soybeans, need to be supplemented with other protein sources - the amino acid balance is best for growing plants (or seedlings, at least) - but not necessarily people.

For more detail on collagen and diet - see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...65&query_hl=34 - click the "Alternative Medicine Review" icon to download the full article in PDF.

[Omar]

Thank you for the response Dakotajudo.

My first thought is that it shouldn't matter that much - proteins are all pretty much digested into amino acids.

This is why I have been so skeptical of any claims of dietary collagen having any particular effect on tendon and other connective tissue synthesis in the body. If it all gets broken down into component parts....

But the proline bit is an interesting tidbit I didn't know. Thanks for the links too. Most of what BL and Lawdog said was just mirroring my own google research and I didn't feel it was particularly more authoritative than the opinions I already had. I appreciate your input.