Rhonda Patrick

And there have been new studies that have been done.

These have been like more stable isotope studies.

The major isotope that's used is the L13 carbon labeling phenylalanine.

in which case these studies take a small cohort of people, give them a known amount of protein with that isotope tracer, and then that tracer is oxidized when it's metabolized, and that's measured through breath.

oxidation of phenylalanine.

And so now you're getting a quantification that's much more accurate in terms of your protein steady state and turnover.

And so the whole point here is that you're trying to figure out the minimal amount of protein you need to take in every day to make sure that you're not in a negative protein balance.

Why is that important?

Well, that's important because we don't store amino acids.

We don't store amino acids like we store fatty acids as triglycerides or we store glucose as glycogen.

The major source of our amino acid storage tank, so to speak, is our muscle, skeletal muscle tissue.

And you don't want to be pulling from that skeletal muscle tissue to get amino acids every day.

Why do we need amino acids every day?

Because everything in our body requires proteins.

Proteins are doing all the work in our body and proteins are made up of amino acids.

And so we have to be giving ourselves an intake, daily intake of amino acids to make sure we're able to do all those functions.

Exactly.

For short-term and long-term health.

I think that's pretty clear.

And that's where this RDA not being enough is a very important point.