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How much protein can the body absorb at once?

Gymaholic

By Gymaholic
in Diet & nutrition

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Phedder Veteran member

Phedder

Posted
Posted

Complete bullshit, most likely started by supplement companies who conveniently sell products with a serving size of 20-30g of protein. With a lot of these myths it's worth thinking back through our evolution. As hunter and gatherers, what good would it have been for us to only be able to absorb 20-30g of protein at once, when chances are we were only eating meat once in a day, if we were lucky? Your body will digest the protein at the rate that it can absorb it. That food stays in your stomach until properly digested. Ever have a massive steak (500g) and then go to the toilet for a dump later and have most of it come out the other end because you could only absorb 100g (20-30g protein) of that steak? Hell no, it stays there until it's done digesting and you've absorbed all the nutrients you can from it, over whatever period of time that takes. 

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Optimass Veteran member

Optimass

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too many variables - total calories consumed in a meal / composition (macro) within the meal etc etc. 

its probbly more like 40 - 50g per serve - as Phedder points out any excess still gets dealt with through secondary processes like converting aminos to glycogen and then on to tryglyceride which is stored in fat cells.  Obviously if you are eat 80g serves with a high carb and fat diet all excess wil get stored as fat. 

Not sure the steak was the best example though - ever seen the contents of a waste bag filled after colonic irrigation of someone that eats a lot of red meat :) ... chunks of red rotting meat  .... I dont think you can write off that there is a definate window in which the body processing protein is more efficient but as a rule I would say that steak is probably not doing much in your body after about 5 hours other than makng a shit. 

The body will work with what ever comes through fresh as a priority so if you are eatig 3-4hourly - the food you just put in and that is in the first stages of digestion beomes the priority. 

...

I think whats more important is that you eat the right amount of calories - and withn that the right macro protein for the goal you have.  It doesnt matter how long it takes or how much as long as you have enough (but not too much).  Cant imagine too many mortal humans requiring an 80g serve to influence muscle growth and development.  30g x 6 meals is 240g a day (2.4g per kg for a 100kg person) ... more than enough. 

 

:)

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Andre01 Member

Andre01

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Have a look at your urine the next time you pee. Pee straight into the water, if you end up with a lot of foam then your kidneys are getting rid of excess protein from your system. Your bosy can only handle so much, each of use are different and can handle different about of macros. You can also pick up dipsticks from the pharmacy to mointor this. Or the next time your at the docs ask to use one.

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FellowshipOfTheRon Veteran member

FellowshipOfTheRon

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Have a look at your urine the next time you pee. Pee straight into the water, if you end up with a lot of foam then your kidneys are getting rid of excess protein from your system. Your bosy can only handle so much, each of use are different and can handle different about of macros. You can also pick up dipsticks from the pharmacy to mointor this. Or the next time your at the docs ask to use one.

that doesn't sound quite right to me. the body does not get rid of excess protein through urine, if you have a very high protein content in the urine then you may have some serious kidney problems (which can be caused by having too much protein but don't think it's been determined yet how much exactly that is?).

just go back to the basics for a sec.. if your maint is 2000cals daily and for some reason you take in 500g protein + 500g carbs that day (4000cals), your body isn't just gonna piss or crap out all the excess it will store the excess whether p/c/f as fat int he body. macros gonna macro.. micronutrients on the other hand may be a different story.

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OnlyHuman Senior member

OnlyHuman

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Protein does make it into the urine but the important part is how much and where from. It is normal to extract a MINIMAL amount (grams) trough urinating.

One must also consider what type of protein (where they come from). It is "normal" that  some ends up coming from proteins in the blood that has certain roles eg manage osmotic pressure / balance at the capilary end (end of vessles) these proteins help to suck back fluid into the venous system (once pressure dropped enough) or carry things in the blood that are hydrophobic (don't like water eg fatsolube vitamins, fats etc..) by enveloping them. 

In a "perfect" kidney these would be filtered out (returned into our system) 100% but we all have microscopic injuries in the part of our kidneys that filter these out. (Due to various reasons eg small injuries occure during sport etc. Again we talk about very very minor injuries in the filtering sistem that has thousands of little vessles ... the wall of these can get injured for one or an other reason.)   

So some of these proteins do end up in the urine (again we talking grams) and under a certain trashold it is normal. If for one reason or an other you accumulate more damage to these very small vessels with very thin walls... more protein ends up in the urine. More than your liver can produce in a day to maintain levels/accomodate for the loss ... so functios that needs to be fullfilled by them get impaired. 

 

Not sure if I explined it clearly enough ... 

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FellowshipOfTheRon Veteran member

FellowshipOfTheRon

Posted
Posted

this vid showed up in my youtube feed. since the topic is still active thought i'll post it in, no science but some good points especially considering IF works so the number we can handle is surely a lot higher than we might be made to think from muscle mags


 

Protein does make it into the urine but the important part is how much and where from. It is normal to extract a MINIMAL amount (grams) trough urinating.

One must also consider what type of protein (where they come from). It is "normal" that  some ends up coming from proteins in the blood that has certain roles eg manage osmotic pressure / balance at the capilary end (end of vessles) these proteins help to suck back fluid into the venous system (once pressure dropped enough) or carry things in the blood that are hydrophobic (don't like water eg fatsolube vitamins, fats etc..) by enveloping them. 

In a "perfect" kidney these would be filtered out (returned into our system) 100% but we all have microscopic injuries in the part of our kidneys that filter these out. (Due to various reasons eg small injuries occure during sport etc. Again we talk about very very minor injuries in the filtering sistem that has thousands of little vessles ... the wall of these can get injured for one or an other reason.)   

So some of these proteins do end up in the urine (again we talking grams) and under a certain trashold it is normal. If for one reason or an other you accumulate more damage to these very small vessels with very thin walls... more protein ends up in the urine. More than your liver can produce in a day to maintain levels/accomodate for the loss ... so functios that needs to be fullfilled by them get impaired. 

 

Not sure if I explined it clearly enough ... 

yup sounds clear from what i read and also accurate enough according to various internet sources. to summarise it "finding protein in your urine is normal but if the value is consistently excessive there is a problem with your kidneys and you will die within 7 days if you don't pass on this letter to 13 of your friends" ... or something like that :-P

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Riccardo Senior member

Riccardo

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Posted

The reason this myth came about is because 20-30g of protein is what causes maximal protein synthesis. This is dependent on a number of other things like other macros in your meal, leucine content and the amino acid profile or type of protein. The rest does get absorbed however the amino acids just get added to the circulating pool and if they aren't used the get oxidised for fuel. Digestion rate can also vary.

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