Diet/Nutrition Part 2 Cont'd: What you need to know about Protein Powders

BEFORE reading “Protein Part 2 cont’d”, I encourage you to click on the article in the Special Topics Column to the right of this post for a “real life” example of the harms and dangers of ENERGY DRINKS.  

As mentioned in the last Blog post, Protein intakes for young athletes can vary from 1.5 to 2.0 grams / KG of body weight/ day and depend mainly on the amount of training, type of training (resistance, endurance, resistance and endurance, power sports, etc.) and volumes of work IN addition to the growth and maturation needs of adolescents just prior to and during puberty.

It is recommended by most nutritionists that most, if not all, protein intake should be obtained through foods that are high in quality protein, with red meat being the highest quality and most essential protein source.

Because the amount of protein per meal and the timing of meals is so critical to optimal absorption and utilization, daily total intake is best divided into 3-5 meals throughout the day. This makes it hard for young athletes to eat quality food sources of protein at critical times during the day since they are in school from 8:00 am to 3:00 and then practice and train from 3:00-5:00 or 6:00 pm. In addition, study, work and social obligations can further complicate the timing of meals for high school athletes.

Because of these factors, and the critical need for optimal amounts of quality protein during various times of the day, Protein Powders, bars, etc. may be necessary for young athletes to replace the protein portion of 1-2 of the 5 daily meals that are suggested for adequate adolescent growth and energy requirements. They may also be necessary for those who do not eat enough red meat, fish, liver or poultry in order to meet their athletic performance, the needs for their high rate of growth and maturation of all body systems and maintain or increase muscle mass and strength.

Protein is essential to the healthy functioning and maintenance of every bodily system! Protein synthesis, for increased muscle mass, enhanced muscle recovery, energy production, proper utilization of fat stores, immune system strength/ maintenance and cellular health and stability is essential for young athletes in order to realize their full growth potential AND for optimal sport performance and RECOVERY/REGENERATION from training and competitions.

The many benefits and claims for Protein Powder Supplements that are marketed and advertised by supplement companies are ALMOST AS NUMEROUS as the number of Protein Supplements that are available to young athletes. Marketing hype, concerning the number of advantages of these supplements IS USUALLY ONLY EXCEEDED BY THE COST of the supplement. 

This need not be the case. Protein powders, without all the added “special performance” ingredients added, should range in costs from 8.95/pound to maybe 16.95 per pound when buying in bulk amounts. Brand powders in containers that are suitable for the needs of the young athlete should range from 16-19.00 for smaller containers to 24-30.00 for large containers. Paying more is not “getting” more or “better” quality.  Casein protein IS casein protein, no matter how you process it!

For athletes, research has indicated that shakes made with protein powders are said to be particularly helpful when taken before, OR after, workouts. As mentioned in the last blog, 20-25 grams of protein or 0.25 grams/KG of body weight, taken after a workout, can hasten muscle tissue regeneration and repair as well as help switch the body from a catabolic state (breaking down of muscle tissue) to an anabolic state (synthesis of muscle tissue proteins).

There are many types of protein sources available in powder forms. Soy, Egg, Milk, Hemp, Whey, Casein and Vegetable sources make up the most common types. Whey and Casein are both derived from cow or goat milk with casein making up about 80% of milk protein and whey about 20%. Egg protein is largely derived from egg whites.

The various types of proteins can cause confusion as to which type or types may be more important to young athletes. Protein powders are either combinations of proteins or a single type of protein that target specific metabolic needs such as energy metabolism, fat utilization, digestion, physical activity, muscle tissue growth or immune system functions. Certain powders are better at healing for injury or trauma while some are better for muscle tissue maintenance and growth. All protein powders digest and absorb differently into the body.

For instance, casein protein digests and absorbs into the blood slowly, while whey protein is digested and absorbed quickly into the blood. Therefore, casein taken before a night’s sleep can help deliver a slow, steady supply of amino acids that are required by an athlete’s muscles to keep from breaking down from a day’s hard workout.

Whey protein is digested and absorbed quickly so it is a good source before and right after a workout to supply amino acids for energy, muscle recovery and prevention of muscle tissue breakdown. Whey has the highest BV, or Biological Value, of all proteins because of its’ easy and quick digestion which enhances it’s absorption and, most importantly, RETENTION by the body.

Egg protein is popular because it is both easy to digest and absorb and does not have any fat. Egg, which contains high levels of amino acids that are critical for hormone-production pathways, has the second highest BV of the proteins.

                  WHAT POWDERS ARE BEST FOR ATHLETES?

As with most foods and supplements, it is best to read labels for a list of ingredients before purchasing any supplement or food.  In order to attain optimum metabolic results from ANY protein powder, athletes should look for supplements that contain protein from sources that best target their specific energy and/or muscle building/repairing needs.

MANY other ingredients are added to protein powders in order to “enhance” performance capacities of various types of activities. Of course, you will pay MORE for the added ingredients.

Some of the more beneficial ones include:

Creatine: an important “high energy” ingredient necessary for the production and re-synthesis of ATP, the energy supplier for all explosive movements lasting 0-6 seconds.

Glutamine: an amino acid that supports immune system functions, enhances muscle recovery, aids digestion and promotes muscle tissue growth.

Arginine:  an amino acid that aids in the production of nitric oxide to INCREASE blood flow and add volume to muscle cells through water retention.

Carnosine:  an amino acid that helps muscles contract more intensely and for longer periods of time.

Omega-3:  contains the essential fatty acids EPA and DHA which help preserve muscle mass, help the body burn fat stores and serve to decrease or inhibit joint inflammation due to high volumes of training or exercise.

CLA:  stimulates muscle growth and helps in promoting loss of body fat.

GLA:  an essential ingredient for production of prostaglandins that promote fat metabolism and muscle growth.

MCT’s:  medium chain triglycerides (fats) that help provide fuel for muscles during longer workouts.

Carnitine:   a variation of amino acid that helps burn body fat for fuel during exercise, especially prolonged exercise.

Vitamins/Minerals:  added to powders that are intended FOR MEAL REPLACEMENTS to aid in adequate vitamin and mineral intake for people who use a powder supplement as one of their daily meals.

Fiber:  added to some powders that are intended as MEAL REPLACEMENTS…see vitamins/minerals above.

Digestive Enzymes:  aid in digestion and absorption of protein for quicker delivery of protein to muscle tissue.

REMEMBER: IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO INCLUDE ANY OF THE ABOVE INGREDIENTS TO PROTEIN POWDERS.  The ingredients listed, and many others are added for those people who are using the powder AS A MEAL REPLACEMENT; usually for weight loss purposes.

                                CLINICAL STUDIES/REVIEWS AND FINDINGS

It is important to note that Clinical studies and reviews regarding protein powder supplementation are relatively inconsistent in terms of criteria for control and experimental groups used in studies. For instance, studies using “healthy” male individuals aged 20-25 is not “justifiable” evidence of the benefits of protein powder for “competitive”, collegiate athletes.

It is also important to note that these powders are sold without FDA approval for safety or effectiveness.

Purchasing protein powders based on “advice’ from body-builders, claims from muscle magazine advertisements or endorsements from pro athletes may result in use of a powder with “substances” that may be on the NCAA List of Banned Substances OR exceed the amounts of a substance that have been limited by the NCAA for health reasons.

My recommendation for the purchasing of safe and reliable protein powders is to buy well-known brand powders from reliable Super Market Chains such as Safeway, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s etc. AND READ THE LABELS.

Below is an excerpt from the Authors’ Recommendations at the end of Chapter Five (protein/anti-catabolics), SPORTS SUPPLEMENTS, (Jose Antonio, PhD., CSCS and Jeffrey Stout, PhD. CSCS) textbook.

“As a source of protein that is low in fat and nutrient dense, whey protein may provide an adjunct to the normal dietary routine of athletes. For this reason alone, it is highly recommended that athletes regularly consume a whey protein meal replacement powder (MRP).

Casein is a high-quality protein that has been consumed by athletes and patients for years….For athletes trying to maximize protein accretion, it may make more sense to take a casein-based protein at night and before training and take a whey-based protein after training and at other times of the day.”

Many dieticians and sport nutritionists recommend powders with a mix of the milk proteins (whey and casein) and egg protein because of their high BV (biological value) and effectiveness in building new muscle tissue as well as repairing and maintaining muscle tissue. A mix of the two milk proteins (Whey and Casein) will provide both a quick absorbing and fast acting benefit AND  a slower but longer, steady flow of muscle tissue building and repairing amino acids. Adding egg protein into the mix will provide athletes with the highest BV proteins available with each adding it’s unique contribution to other bodily system functions (most notably hormone production).

My personal choice is Met-Rx Protein Plus that I purchase from Trader Joe’s Market for 40-60% of the cost of comparable powders (24.99 for 32 servings of 23 grams/serving).

It contains a mix of: Whey Protein Isolate, Egg white protein, Calcium Caseinate, Milk Protein (mix of whey and casein). In addition, it has a complete Amino Acid Profile that includes the high amounts of Branched Chain Amino Acids (1.3 grams of Valine, 2 grams of Leucine and 1.1 gram of Isoleucine) in each serving. IT IS LOW IN CARBOHYDRATES (5:1 protein to carb ratio) WHICH MAKES IT GREAT FOR MIXING WITH FRUIT FOR SHAKES.

Part 3 of Diet/Nutrition will examine the role of Carbohydrate in the athlete’s diet and hopefully dispel the “myths/ health risk claims” that float around in “low carb” diet information and “Type II Diabetes” articles.

I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE some very entertaining thoughts on Diet, especially “food or diet” FADS or claims about “Super Foods” from one of the most respected and knowledgeable Sports Scientist, Coach and Educator in the Athletic World.  DON’T BLOW OFF READING BELOW…..

Diet – don’t buy it! Part 1

Posted on July 21, 2014 by Henk Kraaijenhof

 

Ever since I started as a coach I have asked myself: how important is diet (or nutrition and supplementation) for the performance of the athlete. After 40 years of hard work I just don’t get any closer than…… it depends. Disappointing, isn’t it?

And believe me it’s not for lack of reading, studying and experimenting that I have to say this.
Let’s have a look the most popular diet: the weight loss diet.

But you may say: I was on a diet and it worked!  Well, congratulations, since there isn’t a diet that doesn’t work. All diets work for a certain percentage of the population anyhow.

And it only works as long as you follow it, but no longer. When you stop the diet, in almost all cases e.g. you bodyweight will return to its pre-diet level.  Or higher. This is the feared “yo-yo phenomenon”.

And here the interesting thing starts: isn’t it a miracle that when you are 20 years old you weigh let’s say 80 kgs, and when you are 60 years old you still weight 80 kgs, despite the fact than in 40 years, more than 40 tons of food and nutrients have passed through your body. In other words, the body does a great job maintaining its internal balances and composition.

We all know  the wonderful stories about certain tribes or countries  where people live very long because of what they eat: the Hunzas, the Cretans, the people from  Vilcabamba, Okinawa, etc.
Because of that the logical thing was to eat what those people ate and eat, and this would lead to a longer life span or at least a better health.

But when you study a bit more you will find there is a surprising lack of difference in lifespan of human beings around the world. Yes there is, but this is mainly due to infant mortality, violent deaths, unhygienic circumstances, lack of essential needs like food, clean water, medication, etc.

Even more surprising is that this is despite the tremendous differences in food composition. In some countries a lot of meat is eaten (US, Australia, Argentina) while in other countries a almost vegetarian diet is followed.  It seems there is some balance: in countries some diseases are much less frequent than in others but then this fact is compensated by an increase in other chronic diseases, e.g. less cases of cancer, but more of cardiovascular diseases or diabetes.

From the Inuit, who eat (ate) a diet extremely high in fat and proteins, to strict vegetarians, from Masai, living on beef, cow milk and cow blood to the Africans and Asians who cannot digest milk properly, because they miss the enzyme lactase responsible for the breakdown of milk sugar or lactose.

We should question if the unquestionable longer lifespan of the Okinawans is only due to their diet or to the fact that they are fisherman, living a physically active life, while living on a relatively unpolluted island, and know a strong social cohesion, and have a rather old- fashioned lifestyle without the progress of the modern life like Internet, mobile phones , increase in anxiety and social isolation (despite our new means of communication),  etc.

An often used example is the longer lifespan of the Seventh-days Adventists, who are vegetarians. This would suggest a relationship between their low meat consumption and their lifespan, but that is little bit too quick. These people also don’t smoke and don’t drink and probably have other health promoting habits or they do not have habits that contribute negatively to health.

The research in the city of Roseta also proves this to be the case. It’s wasn’t the Mediterranean diet of the Italian community of Roseto being the reason of cardiovascular diseases being far below the US average (at least in the 1950’s and 60’s), it was the social coherence.

You always find that rather isolated places where people live longer, will change when modern accomplishments find their way there. Wait for the highways, the cars, the airports, the Internet, the supermarkets,  the mobile phone, the McDonalds, etc.  And it won’t take long until obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, etc. will set in.
No I am certainly not a Quaker shunning away from modern technologies, but I am old enough to see that everything comes at a certain prize. It all depends whether you are willing to pay that prize.
Does all of this mean that I have become indifferent to the quality of the diet and the impact of nutrition? By no means!

Diet, nutrition and supplementation can make a difference, a huge one, but on an individual basis, not based on epidemiology or statistical averages. Personalized nutrition  is the answer here. Nutrition based on the individual requirements and limitations of the person or athlete.  You can see this gives way to a lot of new questions like: how do we know the individual needs? I will try to answer that question in posts to come.
Since 1988 I studied the nutritional biochemistry of my athletes, having them tested for minerals, trace elements, vitamins, vitaminoids, essential fatty acids, amino acids, organic acids, neurotransmitters and hormones, beside the classical testing of clinical chemistry and haematology.

At least this gives you some insight in the complexity of the (nutritional) biochemistry of the individual.
In Holland we have a saying called “meten is weten “ translated into “to measure is to know”, also applied to all other field of measurements, but after 30 years of collecting data, I think it is not true. I believe it should be:  “to know is to measure” or back into Dutch: “weten is meten”. Measuring or collecting data is only interesting if you know what you are searching for, what you are looking at and more important what to do with it!

Super foods
Another interesting development is the marketing of so-called “superfoods”, a range of mostly exotic foods like grasses, berries, nuts, etc. Again food of exotic tribes with almost magical health promoting properties, Chia seeds, Goji berries, etc. A table spoon a day keeps the doctor away?? Forget it. These so-called super foods are decent constituents of your food, but in no way are they any healthier than most of the other foods that you eat right now. Or at least they shouldn’t be unless your nutrition is very bad. And most of the time the dosage of those super foods is way too low to have any extra health promoting properties at all.
A tablespoon of Goji berries or chai seeds, sprinkled over you breakfast won’t have any advantages over other more common berries, seeds or nuts. They are just much more expensive, but when you have money to spent, go ahead, buy them.

Paleo diet
The Paleo diet is the supposed to be the healthy diet of our ancestors, who only  had a lifespan of  30-40 years at most.  The fact that they did not get some of the diseases of civilization like osteoporosis or type 2 diabetes is because they did not get old enough to get these.
Already many books have been written about the advantages of a low carbohydrate, low fat, high protein diet. Nothing new here, just the marketing. Think about this, what did our ancestors eat? Basically the food that they could scramble together from their near surroundings at that time. That is to say anything that grew naturally within a day’s walk and they could find or kill.  No potatoes, no rice, no pasta, tomatoes, no avocado’s, or any exotic foods imported from overseas or grown in glasshouses. Hardly any grain, the hunter-gatherer lived before the agricultural revolution, so no wheat fields, no gardens, no livestock at all. No alcohol, no refined sugar, hardly any salt, no refined oils. Their biggest treat probably was finding some honey. And there were no supermarkets full of choices for the paleo diet believers. By the way: they did not have a microwave, or any of our modern cooking utensils at all.

Mineral water
There is no doubt that dehydration can be a dangerous thing, just like hyper hydration or in other words water poisoning. But how many people in daily life that you know suffered from dehydration? Yes, I know about some American football players in the past. But there is no need to go jogging in Holland for an hour and carry six mini-bottles of water with you in a belt.

But we have to say the mineral water industry did a great job convincing millions of people that mineral water is absolutely necessary to hydrate yourself at any time of the day. The mineral water at least in Holland is what other people 100 kilometres from there get from their tap. But you can imagine it is just more profitable to put in bottles, and sell exactly the same water for a few Euros.

Water has become an emerging billion dollar business, ask Nestle, the company that tries to privatize water all over the world and to sell it back to the very people they got it from. It sounds like the ultimate perversion of greed. But then, this is modern day capitalism so everything is for sale or at least has a price tag to it. The waiting is for oxygen to become a commodity and you have to pay for breathing it.
Does mineral water have health promoting properties?  Again, it depends, on the water (its composition) and on your needs. Some mineral waters contain an lot of sodium, hardly any need for that, considering the modern diet. Others contain a lot of calcium, magnesium, or bicarbonate, it depends on your needs for these minerals.

Diet – don’t buy it! Part 2

Posted on July 25, 2014 by Henk Kraaijenhof

 

Here are three common wrong assumptions in nutrition:

1.    Everybody has the same nutritional needs. Obviously not true, even apart from gender, age, weight, physical activity, every human body is different from the outside, but even more so from  on the inside. Thousands of biochemical processes and substances, and millions of different cells make sure that your body is different from mine, with different nutritional needs and different strengths and weakness in biochemical pathways. Your food might be my poison.

2.    Every same food has the same composition, like every orange contains 50 mgs of vitamin C. And again: this simply isn’t true. The composition of food might differ 10- to 50- fold in important constituents, depending e.g. on the composition of the soil, the climate, the weather, the time of harvesting, the storage time, the transport, and the processing of the food. This fact questions the practice of filling out nutritional questionnaire in which one has to write down the diet over a week to see how much mineral and vitamins one has taken in that week.

3.    Everybody has the same level of absorption. We know that the absorption of food depends on many factors, like stomach pH, enzymatic activity, the composition of the gut microbiome, and many more. Some people may absorb a lot of a standardized portion of food constituents, others might absorb a lot less, whereas the rest will be excreted by the body. This also why a standardized dosage in some people will not prevent a deficiency, while in others the same dosage might even lead to accumulation of the same substance, because it is absorbed very well.

But we all understand that our current diet can be improved considerably, but not by following the latest fad in nutrition or hottest diet. Diets just come and go and may come again, and go again, or are just old diets with a new label. Probably less processed and adulterated food will be able to contribute to this. Nutrition that contains more plant foods and  that contains less energy. “Real food” that your grandmother would recognize as food, and produced by people who still take pride in their product. It sounds like a hippie talking, but as soon as something becomes produced on an industrial scale there is real danger of the quality going down and profit becoming the only reason for the production of it.

I agree that without the use of pesticides some foods would be impossible to be produced in adequate quantities, but 12 different synthetic chemicals sprayed over my strawberries is too much of good thing. No thanks, I just leave them alone. This is a dead end street and in the far future we will have to pay a heavy price or maybe our children are already doing that without us knowing it.

This above statement is not a political statement, nor am I an activist, the words “left” or “right”, Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal are wasted on my ideas.
Some good things I would like to keep them as they are, some less good things I would like to change. In some issues I am a romantic optimist, in others I might have a more realistic or critical view, as you might have noticed by now.

Yes, nutrition probably is one of the most complex issues in performance when looking at the effects of thousands of natural and synthetic substances interacting in a positive, a neutral or negative way with the manifold of biochemical processes in the human body.