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The curious case of low-protein diets

knowablemagazine.org

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Re: The curious case of low-protein diets

#11

Post by cavisne »

dahinds wrote: post #6
sublinear wrote: post #5

> Protein dominates the grocery shelves: Protein chips. Protein cookies. Protein water. Yeah and most of it is incomplete plant protein missing amino acids. > Protein restriction, Phillips says, is a sort of “lite” version of a more well-known longevity hack — caloric restriction. I'm confused by this since protein is much lower calorie than fat or carbs.

protein and carbohydrate are both 4 calories per gram?

When you include the thermic effect of food protein is closer to 3 calories per gram. Ie it burns about a calorie to digest a gram of protein

Re: The curious case of low-protein diets

#13

Post by notabee »

scythe wrote: post #4

>Think of the body like a car, suggests Clemence Blouet, a neuroendocrinologist at the University of Cambridge in the UK. You can drive fast, using lots of fuel and putting wear and tear on the auto. Or you can stick to a gentle 15 miles per hour, and the car lasts longer. Living in a high-protein or high-calorie fast lane, she muses, could lead to the accumulation of those pro-aging oxygen radicals. Protein, in part…

I think that fasting-mimicking diets are a way to potentially get some of these benefits through occasionally engaging these "slower speed" repair mechanisms without permanently living with bare minimum protein intake. But I also think that at this point so far we've seen fat, sugar, and then all carbohydrates villainized. I don't think that excessive protein is going to turn out to be a good idea either and it will likely also have its turn as villain, especially after all of these new high protein fad foods that are still highly processed junk run their course. People just need to balance their damn nutrients and eat whole foods. There aren't many real shortcuts to health, but we're just desperate to find them due to time poor societies obsessed with hyper-optimization.

Re: The curious case of low-protein diets

#15

Post by jonplackett »

Does this translate to humans though? At the least it should be tested with something living longer than a few years.

Mice have a very short window to reproduce compared to humans so n optimisation to live longer in absence of sufficient protein makes more sense.

We’re optimising quite different I would assume.

Re: The curious case of low-protein diets

#16

Post by storus »

scythe wrote: post #4

>Think of the body like a car, suggests Clemence Blouet, a neuroendocrinologist at the University of Cambridge in the UK. You can drive fast, using lots of fuel and putting wear and tear on the auto. Or you can stick to a gentle 15 miles per hour, and the car lasts longer. Living in a high-protein or high-calorie fast lane, she muses, could lead to the accumulation of those pro-aging oxygen radicals. Protein, in part…

So people are pushed to their limits at work, but a university neuroendocrinologist suggests living a relaxing life that would require blander diet. What a wonderful solution!

Re: The curious case of low-protein diets

#17

Post by llm_nerd »

Aside from the normal disclaimer that studies in mice often aren't applicable to human, their low protein diet was a calorie reduced diet, and indeed the outcome of the LPHC group was statistically the same as the calorie-reduced diet.

In the LPHC they significantly bulked up the food with non-digestible cellulose, and the net effect was that they were basically testing calorie reduced diets twice.

We already know that a calorie deficit extends lifespan in mice, and I'm not sure what this adds.

"Protein dominates the grocery shelves"

This claim is insane. Like fully disconnected from reality.

Simple carbs and fats dominate grocery shelves. Yes, they try to upsell you on high protein alternatives as premium priced products, but about 80% of the space in a grocery store are flours / corns / oils / sugars mixed into thousands of different products.

Re: The curious case of low-protein diets

#18

Post by derbOac »

surfsvammel wrote: post #2

I don't know. Is there really a signal here when it comes to humans? It seems most of the arguments come from one study? Would be interesting to hear those here at HN that are smarter than me comment on this one.

I don't think I'm smarter than anyone here but I think I've read about this before; I don't think it's just one study.

There's also an emerging literature suggesting that deficits in specific amino acids are a kind of mammalian signal to start burning fat, which might also be related. Cysteine is one, which might also explain why plant-based diets are healthier all other things being equal, because plant proteins tend to be lower relatively in cysteine. So it might not be proteins in general whose restriction results in longevity increases, just cysteine-rich proteins.

For example:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08996-y

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-025-01297-8

Re: The curious case of low-protein diets

#19

Post by odyssey7 »

fireflash38 wrote: post #14

I imagine it goes over about as well as trying to get people to be more vegetarian. Protein has become pretty tightly associated in culture with healthy.

Maybe more so with fitness than with health. People generally think of Mediterranean diets as healthy but not as a looksmaxxing linchpin.
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