David Allison

Somewhere in that neighborhood.

As I said, they did nitrogen balance studies and they were perfectly fine.

But that's entirely different.

than saying, what if they were older people?

Or what if they were pregnant?

Or what if they were recovering from a bicep tendon tear?

Or what if they were bodybuilding?

Those are all very different things.

It's both modern and ancient all at once.

So yes, you are correct.

But also the idea that there are different kinds of goals that we optimize is actually the very nature of evolution.

What's being selected?

And Steve Simpson and David Raubenheimer from Down Under, from Australia, study something called the protein leverage hypothesis we may want to come back to at some point.

What they've shown is that what at least some animals do in experimental settings they're able to set up is they consume enough protein to optimize their genetic fitness, meaning how many of their genes they're able to transmit to the next generation, which is, if you want to win the evolutionary game, that's your goal, which is different than living a lot longer.

That's winning the personal game, but not your genes games.

So yes, it matters.

And it may be that we now want to shift a little from one toward the other.

And it may even change during the course of life.

It may be that at one point in life, my goal is to be as perhaps big and strong as I can.

Maybe at another point in life, it's too slow aging.