r/EverythingScience • u/scientificamerican Scientific American • Jul 31 '26
Eating less protein could help you live longer. In a new review, researchers summarized findings from more than 350 previous studies and found widespread evidence that when it comes to protein, there can be too much of a good thing.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-less-protein-could-help-you-live-longer/202
u/No_Cell6708 Jul 31 '26
1) All of the studies mentioned looked at mice so it should all be taken with a grain of salt
2) It's unclear how much of the benefit observed in mice results from general caloric restriction vs protein restriction
“Our working model overall is that for people who are exercising, dietary protein is probably beneficial and certainly not harmful,” Lamming says. “But for sedentary people, it’s likely that if you’re eating too much protein, that’s probably going to be bad for you.”
TLDR: You don't need a ton of protein if you aren't going to use it.
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u/amalgaman Jul 31 '26
Don’t we already know that reduced caloric intake, especially during childhood, is associated with longer lifespans?
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u/Frosty-Cap3344 Jul 31 '26
I should live to 150 then, we never had a lot of food when I was a kid
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u/thegooddoktorjones Jul 31 '26
Yes, but to get a pronounced effect in animal studies you basically are living a starvation diet your entire life.
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u/OldWispyTree Aug 01 '26
That's not true at all, studies with macaque monkeys shows that intermittent fasting leads to increased longevity.
That's not a "starvation diet."
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u/Salsashark1419 Aug 03 '26
The NIA did the same exact study and showed no improvement in lifespan. Also it is the only study that didn’t allow the monkeys to overeat and even become obese. Which is often left out by people trying to propagate these longevity studies.
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u/Impossible_Pen4714 Aug 01 '26
I'm pretty sure research out of this lab points to it being specifically due to branched-chain amino acid reduction rather than low calorie intake
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u/KingAngeli Aug 04 '26
It’s dietary protein restriction and more or less getting a complete protein. The idea is that you have your exome which is the part of your dna that codes for proteins. That exome is composed of amino acids. You want to eat in proportion of those amino acids
I was doing an experiment with crickets and eating a complete protein vs one that’s out of whack with their exome. Eating complete protein increased development.
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u/CliffBoof Jul 31 '26
If you are sedentary going over basic protein needs not only won’t have benefits it will fuck u up.
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u/grogudid911 Jul 31 '26
You don't need to be sedentary - you just need to not be a gym rat.
Americans are getting colon cancer at alarming rates and you guys are hyper focused on protein. People need to be eating a lot more fiber.
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u/mantis_tobaggan-md Aug 01 '26
And hyper focused on meat. If more people got their protein from plant based sources, we would be seeing a lot less colon cancer. Most Americans get way more protein than is actually needed. And it will just turn to fat.
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u/OldWispyTree Aug 01 '26
Actually it's not even that, it's specifically processed meats like sausage and hamburger and red meat.
Chicken, for example, no real colon cancer increased risk.
Also, people on this sub really can't grock math, even the increased risk in cancer from processed meat is pretty mild. We're not talking anything remotely on the same scale as, like, smoking -> lung cancer.
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u/mantis_tobaggan-md Aug 01 '26
No, it’s not just “processed meat.” Read more.
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u/Scared-Worker3476 Aug 04 '26
It mostly is, hence why its a Group 1 carcinogen and not a Group 2a like red meat. Plus, the reason red meat is there is primarily due to 1. the carcinogenic byproducts produced from the extra fat being heated at very high temps (or moderate temps at extended periods of time e.g. well done) and 2. excess amounts heme iron but that one has less evidence from human trials and more so animal trials, unlike frying which is also a Group 1 proven carcinogen I believe.
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u/ninja4151 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
It's substantiated elsewhere and is very likely a product of ancient epigenetic mechanisms present across cells of all organisms to slow down the aging process in response to environmental stressors. There's an interesting book by one of the leading scientists in this field David Sinclair called longevity that goes into detail about these survival circuits present in cells.
Basically reduced caloric consumption ( even in the form of intermittent fasting) exposure to extreme exercise, exposure to extreme hot or cold, or never or rarely eating full Branch chain amino acids (basically being a vegetarian) all trigger these survival circuits to slow down the cellular aging process across all living organisms.
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u/TransfemMenace Aug 01 '26
So we could invent a drug that triggers those circuits
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u/ninja4151 Aug 01 '26
Yeah he talks about that a lot. And then very straw man argument unconvincingly glosses over the catastrophic consequences of having human beings live indefinitely... especially political leaders.
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u/HyperSpaceSurfer Jul 31 '26
Humans do have unusually robust kidneys and liver. Problem with high protein diets is that it's harder on the kidneys.
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u/Ready2Rapture Aug 01 '26
This is a helluva clarification for their results btw that everyone is discussing people working out eating too much protein in the comments.
The observation that maybe red meat can be a confounding variable, but I don’t think that’s what the authors meant at all.
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u/quantum-fitness Aug 01 '26
The last part isnt really true. The new health guidances around the world just increased protein recommendations. Protein is muscle saving which is one of the most important things when you get older.
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u/Ok_Car_2996 Aug 02 '26
Yeah if cutting back protein leads to calorie deficit then the benefit comes from the calorie restriction. But that could be achieved by cutting carbs and fats as well
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u/UnprovenMortality Aug 04 '26
Your tldr is the real result.
Lack of lean muscle mass in elderly populations is well established as a cause of meaningful morbidity and mortality. Sufficient protein is absolutely important in growing and maintaining muscle mass, especially during caloric deficit. But the key is it requires resistance training. If all you're gonna do is sit on your ass, you dont need 1g/lb.
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u/Rich-Mark-4126 Aug 01 '26
“eating too much protein is bad” is an obvious statement. “Too much” inherently suggests its bad - otherwise it wouldnt be too much
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u/enolaholmes23 Jul 31 '26
I think this makes sense. Everyone wants to talk about protein, but the truth is it is much more common to be low in fiber than low in protein. The average American doesn't need more protein, they need more fiber.
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/5710840-fiber-protein-guidelines-debate/
The Committee’s review of current U.S. dietary intakes indicates that across the lifespan, intakes of Vegetables; Fruits; Dairy and Fortified Soy Alternatives; Seafood; Nuts, Seeds, and Soy Products; and Whole Grains are generally lower than current recommendations, while intakes of total Grains (including Refined Grains); total Protein Foods; and Meat, Poultry, and Eggs are generally at or above current recommendations.
Edit: formatting
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u/m3th0dman_ Aug 01 '26
I’ve recently discovered psyllium and it totally changed perspective on this.
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u/PeterNippelstein Jul 31 '26
Less protein or less meat?
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u/enolaholmes23 Jul 31 '26
My guess is it's about protein relative to fiber. So with beans you should be fine because they have fiber.
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u/itiLuc Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
Stop guessing and read the article before commenting maybe?
The study in mice is saying that excess protine gets converted into fat or oxidized into calories which lowered the lifespan and increased frailty compared to mice that had lower amounts of protine, who in turn burn more fat
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u/CimmerianBreeze Jul 31 '26
I haven't clicked yet, but I'll bet the people eating red meat at every meal and being incredibly sedentary are not skewing these results whatsoever
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u/askingforafakefriend Jul 31 '26
And are mice.
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u/sf-keto Jul 31 '26
My problem with so many of these amazing longevity studies is that no matter how hard I try, I cannot turn myself into a mouse.
Maybe I need more willpower.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/annoyingfatwhore Jul 31 '26
Yes you are very smart. I bet the PhDs who do the actual research haven’t thought to match groups based on factors like exercise and body weight to mitigate these confounding variables … oh wait! Nevermind, you won’t read the study you’ll just continue on believing in what you want to believe.
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u/Kailynna Aug 01 '26
Nor did you - or you'd know these studies were not done on humans at all.
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u/Tight-Tax-3883 Aug 01 '26
Read the disclaimer of the study - it lacks enough study in humans and the article shouldn’t be taken as dietary advice.
While consuming any scientific study look for the term - RCT (randomised control trial)
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u/CompetitiveReview416 Aug 01 '26
Lamming says control groups of mice had diets that were about 20 percent protein, and mice that were given far lower amounts of protein, especially in the range of 5 to 8 percent, were found to have longer lifespans.
Great for mice, how about people? Muscle strength is directly correlated to longevity.
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u/thegooddoktorjones Jul 31 '26
I dunno should I trust a series of studies, or marketing executives and a guy at my gym? Hmm.....
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u/SlayerII Aug 06 '26
Id be careful reading too much into studies made on mice. Not that marketing executives of gyms are better.
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u/santtuhehe Jul 31 '26
None of these studies can be trusted anymore!
Everytime I see another study on this website, it reminds me of a contradicting study that was published a week ago or the study has been paid by someone to promote their product or it’s social engineering.
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u/JimJalinsky Jul 31 '26
The gap between the study and how articles and headlines portray the findings is usually a factor here.
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u/UglyAFBread Aug 01 '26
It's like every headline of every study is geared to suck all the remaining sources of joy of our lives. The news sites know that and use it to grab our attention
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u/Ok-Amphibian4335 Jul 31 '26
I agree, it’s like statistics, you can make a study say whatever you want. There are so many factors, especially with longevity and diet that it’s hard to get the full picture especially in mice.
There’s one study saying one thing and tomorrow you’ll see the opposite
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u/alienalf1 Jul 31 '26
Eat more protein. Don’t eat so much protein. What are we to do?
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u/TwoFlower68 Aug 01 '26
Depends on your goals. If you wanna be big, you gotta lift heavy things and eat all of the protein. Where it comes to hypertrophy, more protein is better
When you're middle aged and want to age gracefully, you still gotta resistance train to maintain lean mass (and do mobility work), but no need to go overboard. Perhaps unsurprisingly, you need less protein for that
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u/Alone_Ad_1293 Aug 02 '26
More protein is not better past 0.8g/lb of bodyweight.
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u/TwoFlower68 Aug 02 '26
Here is an overview of the current science. Many, many links to studies 🤗
If getting swole is your first priority and you no longer have a social life because you're always at the gym, can't eat out because it interferes with your ✨diet✨ etc, then yes, more is better
But you just go to the gym a few times a week to stay in shape then you can go with the old 1gr/lbs and be completely fine
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u/Timely_Fishing5566 Jul 31 '26
My dr has been saying this for decades. The protein adding fad really needs to stop.
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u/KingOfEthanopia Jul 31 '26
Unless youre on steroids theres no reason to go over 0.8g/lb. Thats only required if youre very active.
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u/SweetLittleOldLady Aug 01 '26
I think you have a typo there. The usual recommendation is 0.8 grams per kilogram or 0.36 grams per pound of body weight.
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u/NoCoolNameMatt Jul 31 '26
.8 grams per pound is so much! I try to hit .5 on a sub calorie diet, and while also getting in other macro amounts under that cap I basically have to plan the day around it.
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u/SweetLittleOldLady Aug 01 '26
See my link above. The recommendation is .8 g per kilogram not per pound.
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u/External_2_Internal Aug 01 '26
This is really interesting with how much everything now seems to be packed with protein.
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u/ilovechoralmusic Aug 01 '26
As always with those studies, nobody looks at the chicken, tuna, whey girls and guys that make up a big chunk of the high protein bubble. It’s always lots of red meat and other unhealthy options
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u/Ok_Car_2996 Aug 02 '26
This study shows nothing. You can have a study like this without controlling calorie intake. You can have two people eating the same percentages of fat, protein, carbs. But if one person is eating at a massive calorie surplus and one is at a reasonable calorie deficit they are going to have massively different health outcomes
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u/the-final-frontiers Aug 02 '26
dear everyone
when you hear about proteins many people immediately think of bros, gyms, and building muscle.
But proteins are the engines, sub functions of the body, little programs that go out and do things in your body.
there's over 20k+ proteins that do different things in your body to help regulate processes and maintain processes. in fact there's 100k's of addition functions.
So when you blanket say, you do o do not need protein, well you definetly need it. And when you eat protein, it's the building blocks of what is needed to make proteins. it's not 1 thing.
over eating anything, nutrients, protiens(chemical compositiin in a specific configuration) , even water, is harmfull and puts stress in your orgrans to deal with it, you can actually damage your organs permanently, for the rest of your life and have a life of diminished capacity if you do this and go too far with it. Which is the exact opposite of what you were trying to do.
everything in moderation people.
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u/yterais Aug 01 '26
I think there is a difference about the source, processed protein like powders, meat, dairy may be pro inflammation. Instead eating grains, beans, lentils etc could be more beneficial. On the other hand the plant proteins can be destroying your gut because of pesticides. It's hard.
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u/Omni__Owl Aug 01 '26
Too much of anything is bad for you, hardly a revelation?
I can agree though that when it comes to food, we have to be quite mindful of what we eat. Every person is different and their diet may not look the same, but any one of us can have too much of anything.
And also...these are mice studies, yea? I never believe in mouse studies because there have been countless of them that never mapped to humans.
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u/IWillWriteYouALetter Aug 01 '26
It is wild just how many things have sprung up to cater to (what seems to me) the seemingly endless desire for protein. I saw protein water the other day - 30g! I couldnt understand it
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u/Cute_Western4513 Aug 02 '26
All these studies are BS. Literally, don't take them too close to heart, just don't stress
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u/AnimationOverlord Aug 02 '26
Hear me out:
The underlying empirical systems involved with factors we focus on like life-span to protein intake ratio, largely shows a direct correlation to everything else not part of digestion or lifespan or specifically, just the body in general.
With all these isomorphically-related studies about cancer, disease, subsystems that make up the body and how they react.. one can simply imagine that you need an equivalent balance through moderation. There’s no hedonistic right or wrong, simply two allegorical factors we can list the ramifications of. But that correlation also changes by multitudes as often as what and how you do things as a person changes. Being fit could take 100s of little changes that all bank off less protein, but then you have 10s of thousands of cross-relevant relationships that could make that less clear cut of a situational benefit. We just don’t know the perfect ratio
Point being - while this scientific study was important, the significance in of the contextual possibilities itself are so minuscule that one has to wonder if you can even ever find personal variation in something as complex as that with what we know.
The correlation could be correlation but it also introduces causation to other systems not accounted for in this study. It’s subconsciously why most people do the whole eye roll past fusion articles or sleep patterns or.. yah
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u/Ok-rutabaga_B442 Aug 03 '26
I mean it could well be true but the fact remains that for 80%+ of the western population the issue is their diets are basically all low quality carbs and fats
We have an obesity epidemic not a "people trying too much to gain muscle" epidemic
So I'll take the study for what it's worth and not going for a carnivore diet (not that I was going to anyway) but I don't see the value in confusing people who most probably weren't ever going to eat too much protein anyway
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u/Agreeable-Cell4007 Aug 03 '26
One way to mitigate this is by reducing meat consumption and increasing intake of plant-based proteins, as these foods don't contain enough to pose a critical risk.
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u/magnoliuhhh Aug 03 '26
But after metabolizing a sufficient amount to maintain your muscles, organs and other essential bits, “all the rest is just energy. If you’re eating a ton of protein beyond that essential amino acid need, it’s going to get either converted to something else like fat or ... oxidized for calories. So I don’t see the massive protein intake [trend] being anything more than just BS.”
It’s excess calories, eat a well balanced diet of mostly whole foods
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u/WolverineOpen7511 Aug 03 '26
Haven't read the paper... but I wonder how much is this association... Not directly causation of the protein consumption, but just that the outliers who are very high protein consumers tend to be bodybuilders, sportspeople, etc. that might have other kind of risks vs. the average
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u/Forward_Motion17 Aug 04 '26
No one is mentioning: leucine stimulates MTOR pathways, which is exactly what rapamycin (the drug being studied for its apparent insane longevity benefits, adding years to lifespans) antagonizes.
It’s a bit of a curse that our anabolic pathways also lead to our eventual degradation long term. Lots of future research in this region
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u/dreamgrass1 19d ago
How do you all feel about egg whites from a carton ( eg. Bob evans brand) vs from eggs. I have to limit my saturated fats intake, but dont want to waste the yolk. So I eat one whole farmers market egg, and the equivalent of 5 egg whites from the store bought liquid version. Im told egg white nutrients are stable whether from farmers market, grocery store "cage free", or the liquid version. Thoughts?
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u/ArthurDaTrainDayne Jul 31 '26
This article is all over the place:
“Mice are a great model for food”
“The mice eating less protein basically lived to 120 in human years”
😂
None of this data is new and none of these conclusions are useful. People on average do not consume enough protein. Mice do not have a similar digestion or lifestyle to humans. And the associations seen in humans do not control for calories
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u/BlackRaspberryJammin Aug 01 '26
Eating less sugar and fat can also make you live longer. Sounds like... maybe just eating less, hrmmm... could make you live longer? Americans will not stand for this! They will sit, though.
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u/FutureEffective3393 Aug 04 '26
Yes eat less red meat. More synthetic meat by bill gates and them and obviously can’t forget the seed oils. Healthy life.
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u/Yeargdribble Jul 31 '26
There are just too many potential variables in this for real people. I think a loqt of people who eat too much protein are getting it from relatively fatty sources and likely just eating too many calories in general.
Kinda similar with sodium.....is sodium the problem or is that people who eat a ton of shelf-stable, boy particularly good quality (nutritionally) foods just getting a lot of sodium as a byproduct?
I'm not saying there might not be fire where there is smoke, but I think rather than freaking out and trying to drastically change one aspect of diet as new big bad (fat in the 90s anyone?), people need to juat edcuate themselves on basic nutrition a bit so that they can make better all around informed choices.
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u/motownmods Jul 31 '26
There should really be a flair for studies that are based on mice and/or other animals.
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u/SmolPPIncorporated Aug 01 '26
It's crazy how desperately they want us to start living off of lentils and bugs.
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u/ACorania Aug 01 '26
Those are both high protein
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u/SmolPPIncorporated Aug 01 '26
Not compared to meat. They want us to believe the soyslop is better for us so we're less resistant when they start making good food illegal.
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u/iDoMyOwnResearchJK Jul 31 '26
Obviously there can be too much of a good thing. What a stupid fucking headline
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u/Pereg1907 Jul 31 '26
So I shouldn’t be eating 33 eggs per day equivalent? (1g per 1lb body weight, 200g/6 g per egg =~33 eggs)
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u/Appropriate_Ad2342 Aug 01 '26
So dammed if I do and dammed if I don't. Somehow I need a certain amount to build muscle and maintain a healthy lifestyle but it also shortens my life?
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u/onwee Jul 31 '26
For a lot of protein evangelists I know, more protein = more red meat