PROTEIN INTAKE
A new study suggests we’ve been getting protein timing all wrong, writes nutritionist
In 2023 the science was clear when it came to the question, ‘How much protein should I eat per meal to maximise muscle-building?’ The body of research showed there was a dose-response (the bigger the dose, the bigger the response) relationship up to about 0.25g per kg of bodyweight. All the science pointed to this being up to a dose of about 20 or 25, or maybe even 30g of protein depending on the athlete’s size, before the anabolic signalling plateaued.
The recommendations that sport’s nutritionists (including myself) gave to athletes and everyday gym-goers looking to build muscle were based on this evidence. We would recommend people spread out their protein intake evenly over the day: having four, five or even six meals of roughly 25g protein. This is probably a piece of advice you have heard when chatting to mates on the gym floor, and it made sense at the time considering the latest science. If you think about it, if you can maximally stimulate muscle protein synthesis with 25g protein, then you want to do that multiple times a day to get more signals to your body to build muscle and recover.
However, science is always progressing and, when it does, our recommendations need to be updated too. This old advice regarding protein timing is now wrong. A study published in December last year by Trommelen et al (2023) has changed how we should all view protein.
New protein advice
This study has the catchy title, ‘The anabolic response to protein ingestion during recovery from exercise has no upper limit in magnitude and duration in vivo in humans’. It completely changes the protein game. The researchers compared 0, 25 and 100g protein per dose and tracked what happened over 12 hours. What they found was that the dose-response continued. In fact, they concluded, ‘The anabolic response to protein ingestion has no upper limit.’
What is clever about this study is that it looks at protein breakdown (what the scientists call ‘amino acid oxidation’) as well as synthesis. It was previously assumed that the more protein you eat in a meal, the more protein would be oxidised (broken down). However, this study disproves that assumption showing that a large dose of protein, tested over twelve hours, had an effect on protein breakdown that was, wait for it... negligible.
They wrote that even at very large protein doses, the majority of the ingested protein (>85%) is utilised for tissue protein synthesis, with less than <15% being oxidised.
So what does it mean?
It means that the timings at which you eat protein across the day are far less important than we once thought for muscle growth. Now, I’m not saying protein isn’t needed or that a low-protein diet is best. Your daily
