Dr. Layne Norton

So I think the response to protein is probably asymptotic.

So you're going to get – and if you look at Stu's paper of the egg albumin, you're almost starting to see it.

It's this curve going up where your initial zero to 20 grams is a pretty steep climb starting to kind of top out but continues to go up.

And so I think practically –

There was a meta-regression a few years ago that suggested up to 3.3 grams per kilogram of protein still has improved benefits – or sorry, still has benefits for muscle protein synthesis and lean mass.

But again, meta-regressions aren't perfect because you're kind of like extrapolating all these numbers that are in different kind of heterogeneous studies and you're trying to come up with a dose response.

But I think based on what I know about protein synthesis, also what we saw with Luke Van Loon's recent study of 100 grams of protein after exercise, I think there's enough kind of smoke to suggest that, okay, you probably don't ever truly max out the benefits of protein on anabolism.

But –

When you get up to that 1.6 or two grams per kilogram body weight, you're probably 98, 99% of the way there, right?

And so the benefits going up more are so incremental, you're never going to be able to really pick them out in a study.

Great question.

And Eric Helms, a few years – I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he's a researcher in exercise science and nutrition in New Zealand.

And he did a systematic review and I think it was a meta-regression as well, showing that in a calorie deficit, possibly up to three grams per kilogram of lean mass.

So different than body weight, right?

But still higher than what we typically see.

that up to, I think, 3.1 grams per kilogram of lean mass had improvements in lean mass retention during a calorie deficit.

So yes, there may be evidence that more protein is better than a calorie deficit.

And for endurance athletes, this is where the segue of one of my favorite quotes is, there are no solutions, there are only trade-offs.

What I mean by that is,

You see better recovery from exercise with more protein in endurance athletes up to about that 1.6 grams per kilogram.