#483 Q&A Training fast twitch muscle fibers instead of lifting weights, How much protein for longevity, My all out supplement stack

Siim Land (0:00)

Hey, welcome back. This is the last Q&A of the year. Let's start. First question, is there a level of sports performance or training that you view as unhealthy? Can a longevity compatible training allow you to reach elite levels of sports performance? So anything, any sports at a professional level, I think can be unhealthy. So, you know, let's say chess or some e-sports or something that is not physical. I think at the elite level, you do have to sacrifice your health to a certain aspect, you know, maybe not your physical health even, just mental health, emotional health, physical health, they can all suffer at the elite level. But when it comes to physical sports specifically, then absolutely. So let's say elite soccer players, although they are super fit, you know, they can still suffer from some health, chronic health conditions later down the line. Bodybuilding is a very good example of that. You're in elite, let's say physical health or physical fitness, at least like sports strength performance. But bodybuilders die quite often. Obviously, that's because of abusings, like these performance enhancing drugs. But that just kind of proves the point. At the elite level, you have to do things that damage your health, whether that be taking performance enhancing drugs, whether that be just spending hours and hours at the gym or hours and hours training, sacrificing your sleep, abusing caffeine, abusing other kind of things that are damaging to your health. So yes, absolutely, elite sports is definitely harmful at the most elite level. But interestingly, a lot of the studies on Olympic athletes or elite athletes do suggest that they tend to live slightly longer than the general population. So even though elite sports, theoretically, is harmful to your health, it doesn't really pan out in the real world, or at least, let's say maybe the top 0.1% and top 1% of the elite athletes might sacrifice their health to a certain extent. But if you're more like a middle tier Olympic athlete, or that you're super fit, but you're not absolutely sacrificing everything to win the gold medal, maybe in that scenario, you're still gaining a lot of health benefits. Now personally, I think that as a regular person like me, or you, or someone else watching this, most people watching this, they can absolutely get very fit, and it's not going to harm their health. Let's say a VO2 max of 50, that's achievable by everyone pretty much, even people in their 60s, they can have a VO2 max of 50, and people with a VO2 max of 50 have been seen to have a fourfold of 300% lower mortality risk compared to people with a much lower VO2 max. That's close to the disability threshold. So just because some elite athletes might die sooner at the top absolute peak fitness, I don't think it should be an excuse for people to just not exercise at all. And it's more likely the case that exercising a bit more will be more beneficial for you than harmful. Of course, you and I, everyone watching this, isn't going to reach elite levels of sports anyway, or at least that's not our goal. We have these other lifestyle factors that prevent us from reaching true elite fitness. We don't have the time. We don't have the coaching. We don't have the finances or whatever the case may be. The opportunities to become super elite sports athletes. So there's a self-limiting factor already in our lifestyle that prevents us from reaching this super elite fitness where it might become harmful. And we will more likely just downregulate our training before we reach that super elite level of fitness, if that answers your question. So for you and I, I think generally being more fit will be better for us. And it's very unlikely that we will actually reach true elite level of sports performance compared to the actual athletes who spend six, seven, eight hours a day on their sport. Next question. Let's say the theory is true that certain higher presence of amino acids do aid you, found in high amounts of meats like mTOR and methionine. How much could they take off your lifespan? Is it one, two, five, or 10 years? So that's a pretty loaded question. I guess the question is, even if it were to be true that a higher protein intake or higher amounts of specific amino acids like leucine and methionine, even if it were to be true that they do shorten your lifespan, how much is it? And can you make up for it with other lifestyle factors? So based on animal research, protein restriction does extend lifespan, specifically restriction of leucine and methionine, which are the most proteogenic amino acids, meaning that they help to build muscle the most, they stimulate mTOR, the growth pathway in the body the most. So in animal research, these are the key amino acids that are responsible for the life extension seen in protein restriction. In humans, it's a lot more complicated than that. First of all, mice and these other model organisms, they're not living in the free world. They're pretty much living in very isolated environments where they're safe from falls, they're safe from bacteria, they're safe from other things that could kill them. And the reason is that because you just want to control for the environment, to see if it's the protein restriction or not something else that actually ends up killing them or shortening the lifespan. So for humans, it's a different story. We live in a free world. We are exposed to a lot of different pathogens. If we are not eating enough protein, we're malnourished, we might die to these pathogens instead. So it's a trade-off. And the same way with frailty. If we're eating a low-protein diet, then we are at a higher risk of dying to hip fractures and falls. So just because protein restriction extends lifespan in mice or some other motor line organisms, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is the case in humans. Now personally, I do think that just eating on enormous amounts of protein, especially enormous amounts of protein that has leucine and methionine, is first of all, it's not needed. Why would you eat something in insane amounts if it's not going to have any additional health benefits? We know from random control trials that 1.6 grams per kilogram, maybe up to two grams per kilogram of protein per body weight, is pretty much all you need to maximize muscle growth. So eating more than that isn't needed. Now, of course, 1.6 grams per kilogram is considered still a high protein diet compared to what the general dietary guidelines recommend. But that's the upper limit. That's the upper limit. If you eat less than that, you build slightly less muscle, but it's not like you couldn't build muscle or that you immediately become a sarcopenic and frail. Even if you eat slightly less, you can still easily build muscle. You can still avoid sarcopenia and osteopenia. So there's no downside to eating slightly less. There's also no upside to eating more. So it's just a common sense question in my opinion that, why would you just, if there is a potential risk, why take the risk of eating 2.5 grams per kilogram of protein per day, like a lot of bodybuilders do or some other.