T Nation

I Want Proof

Supplements and Nutrition
#1

O.k. this question is not for me, it’s for someone I work with. We always get into heated debates about training and nutrition. He’s convinced that the body only absorbes 30 grams of protein per meal and loads of other crap as well. So you can only imagine how this can frustrate me…

So we started talking about BCAA’s. I showed him what is in Surge and thinks it’s just going overboard and the body body dosen’t absorb that much and it will create all sorts of problems. I responded that it was made by a doctor who tains as well and that’s just not good enough for him. I mentioned doctor because he thinks my sources are just dumb meatheads and I think John Berardi is far from that.

So I want proof. Yeah, I checked some of the references (not all)at the end of the Surge article, they just don’t talk about the exact dosages and didn’t see any done on humans. I could be missing something… So if anyone knows in plain english why these dosaged were chosen please enlighten my superior (job wise) so I can put one point on the board for me. You will be rewarded with a warm feeling of goodness knowing that you defended the almighty Surge.

hurry, higher knowledge awaits a particualr person,
Tin can

#2

This is certainly not the answer you want from the person you want, but I still wanted to give my input.

I can only offer the “proof” of what it does for me. The first time I purchased Surge I only got one container. After I was done with it I started to notice my workouts were suffering quite a bit, so I ordered some more. After noticing what it did for me I have not trained without it since.

Christopher

#3

You’re not going to get proof. People react differently to all substances, so while it may help one person it may do absolutely nothing for another. If you just want to seem smarter to your boss, have him prove his specific claims to you. Chances are he won’t be able to, or if he does you should be able to discredit his sources somehow.

#4

[quote]eengrms76 wrote:
You’re not going to get proof. People react differently to all substances, so while it may help one person it may do absolutely nothing for another. If you just want to seem smarter to your boss, have him prove his specific claims to you. Chances are he won’t be able to, or if he does you should be able to discredit his sources somehow.[/quote]

Any proof of what you just said? Just kidding! Actually your answer is kinda what I told him. The thing is he’s always affraid of harming people by over dosing this and overdosing that… Also proof is not the end all be all to all problems, especially in bodybuilding. Like you said some things will work for some but not for others.

And if someone is good at research, I bet they could find all sorts of stuff prooving both points. I mean I could tell someone that I’m in shape because I use Surge. Or I could say Surge is no good that’s why I don’t use it. So who do you believe? Do I have any proof for this? Not really, however when I talk to people my body is usually the proof in itself, I mean what more can you ask for?

People and their proof… I mean people believe if God and there’s no proof, ha! But I’m getting off topic here. So yeah, bring on the proof, why are these amino’s in these quantities better than say half the quantity or something?

#5

If you had proof as to how much of anything your body can absorb and use, then you would be a very rich man.

Then those numbers would be different for every person.

#6

It’s very simple. Give him this scenario, or hell, have him do the experiement.

Since the body can only absorb 30 grams per “meal”, eating 6 meals a day (which he probably isnt) would give you 180 grams of protein. A measly 720 calories.

Now, If what he is saying is right, and you were eating at a maintenece level with the 30g/meal, than increasing ONLY your protein intake would lead to ZERO wait gain… Since it can’t be absorbed right? So if you add in another 30 grams per meal, that would put you at 720 over your maintenence levels…And you should/will gain weight, unlike what this moron thinks.

#7

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
It’s very simple. Give him this scenario, or hell, have him do the experiement.

Since the body can only absorb 30 grams per “meal”, eating 6 meals a day (which he probably isnt) would give you 180 grams of protein. A measly 720 calories.

Now, If what he is saying is right, and you were eating at a maintenece level with the 30g/meal, than increasing ONLY your protein intake would lead to ZERO wait gain… Since it can’t be absorbed right? So if you add in another 30 grams per meal, that would put you at 720 over your maintenence levels…And you should/will gain weight, unlike what this moron thinks.[/quote]

I’m not this guy or any of those people (of course), but this will probably be what he says in return:

“Yea, your body doesn’t “absorb” it, so instead of your muscles using it, you get fat because protein will just turn into fat if not absorbed”

Yes, I know how frustrating this sounds, but this is how A LOT of people think.

#8

[quote]itsthetimman wrote:
Lonnie123 wrote:
It’s very simple. Give him this scenario, or hell, have him do the experiement.

Since the body can only absorb 30 grams per “meal”, eating 6 meals a day (which he probably isnt) would give you 180 grams of protein. A measly 720 calories.

Now, If what he is saying is right, and you were eating at a maintenece level with the 30g/meal, than increasing ONLY your protein intake would lead to ZERO wait gain… Since it can’t be absorbed right? So if you add in another 30 grams per meal, that would put you at 720 over your maintenence levels…And you should/will gain weight, unlike what this moron thinks.

I’m not this guy or any of those people (of course), but this will probably be what he says in return:

“Yea, your body doesn’t “absorb” it, so instead of your muscles using it, you get fat because protein will just turn into fat if not absorbed”

Yes, I know how frustrating this sounds, but this is how A LOT of people think.[/quote]

It doesn’t matter if it gets turned into fat, it still absorbed all of the protein. If you go on an 8000 calorie all protein diet (dear god) you WILL absorb the calories…and you WILL get fat.

#9

I’m just saying, this is probably how that guy thinks.

I know this, you know this, many T-Nation readers know this.

It’s just pretty sad, huh?

#10

if anyone knows how much chymotrypsin or trypsin there is in the body i can roughly tell you how much protein can be digested in a given unit of time.

A single chymotrypsin enzyme can digest 3 amide bonds every 60 seconds. We can expect trypsin to be just about the same speed.

1 mol of both can digest 1 mol of a 60kD protein in 20 minutes.

that MEANS that 1 mol of those enzymes(a lot really), but i NEED TO know how much the body has to be more accurate), can digest 60000 grams of protein in 20 minutes. is that fast enough for you?
keep in mind these enzymes are in the small intestine and not in the stomach, the stomach contains pepsin and i do not know its rate constant, but again this would only increase the rate and efficiency of protein digestion and absorption

these are object rates on how fast protein can be digested.

Keep inmind amino acids do not require Na/K ATPase to cross the basolateral membrane, and as my physiology is not very advanced, i imagine that rapidly increase absorption rates.

personally i think your friend is full of shit. The body can digest very rapidly.

the best test you can do is just to eat some protein and see how long you can go without feeling hungry(assuming properly hydrated). Once food empties the stomach and is relatively along in the small intestine, you have pretty much digested that amount of protein.

#11

if you worried about your body not being able to absorb protein, try mixing in some Digestive Enzymes…

#12

“For those who want to understand no reason is needed. For those who don’t want to understand no reason is good enough.”

#13

[quote]consumer wrote:
if anyone knows how much chymotrypsin or trypsin there is in the body i can roughly tell you how much protein can be digested in a given unit of time.

That’s very interesting. But how do you mesure chymotrypsin or trypsin in the body?

#14

[quote]BSims wrote:
“For those who want to understand no reason is needed. For those who don’t want to understand no reason is good enough.”
[/quote]

Very good quote.

#15

Absorption isn’t the limiting factor, protein oxidation is.

Carbs help limit the protein oxidation, or how much is simply “burned off” because of the insulin released.

I don’t remember the exact doses, but Koopman et al. (1995) looked at a drink nearly identical to Surge whereby additional leucine had a slight (~16%, not statistically significant) effect on protein synthesis.

Having said that, people will believe what they want even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

#16

[quote]BSims wrote:
“For those who want to understand no reason is needed. For those who don’t want to understand no reason is good enough.”
[/quote]

Do you have a source on this? I’m going to replace “understand” with “believe” (just to make it more reader-friendly) and spam it.
Thanks.

#17

Send him this link:
http://www.johnberardi.com/about/jb.htm

Then ask him what HIS qualifications are on the subject.

Then tell him to fuck off and get back to your workout.

#18

It would be absurd to tell a 275lb powerlifter that he should stick to 20-30 grams of protein per meal because his body can’t ‘use’ any more than that.

Certainly to limit, with a broad stroke, the amount of protein a body can metabolize within any specific amount of time (i.e. 1 hr) is to not take into account training modality, lean muscle mass, and by extension metabolism, etc? And there is a huge difference between the minimum amount of protein needed for normal bodily function and the amount needed for gains in performance. Dr Berardi addresses this issue at least a few times. Here is one article to get you started: http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=615251

#19

[quote]Tin Can wrote:

That’s very interesting. But how do you mesure chymotrypsin or trypsin in the body?
[/quote]

you have to have access to a dead body, then remove the pancreas and duodenum, then probably do an equillibrium centrifugation(fractionation) of the compounds after you’ve done an extraction. and then probably electrophoresis to seperate similar weight proteins, and voila you can get pretty pure chymotrypsin and trypsin. you measure how much you got, and that’s a very rough estimate of how much a person has. you can do this many times to get an average value, then put in some fudge factor to account for how much lost in preparation.

or you could see if some advanced human physiology has relative concentrations of digestive enzymes release, or volumes released.

#20

Just wanted to add. Yesterday I told him the following. I said if eating over 200 grams of protein is dangerous, how come the dip shits at health Canada or whatever the hell they’re called can’t say o.k. "We know for a fact (which they don’t and never will) that if you eat this much protein, that in this much time you will die. Until they proove that, they can do just that, eat shit and die. Think about it, if people smoke and drink for decades and don’t croak, and they live very unhealthy lifestyles, it just dosen’t make sense that someone who lives a healthy lifestyle and eats extra protein will have problems in the future as my boss tells me. But the thing is everyone will have some sort of health problem sometime down the road. It’s way to general, like a horoscope or something. There is just no way. And then again if a problem did occur, proove it…

By the way the responses have been great so far (as I knew they would be) I just don’t know if I want him to read stuff like “tell him to fuck off and get back to your workout” But that sure is funny though. I’m sure I will be grinning ear to ear at times during the day just thinking about that. These posts are great and spark comeback ideas as well.