Dietary protein: amount needed, ideal timing, quality, and more | Don Layman, Ph.D.

**Peter Attia** (0:11)
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Now, without further delay, here's today's episode.
I guess this week is Don Layman. Don is a professor emeritus of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he served as a member of the faculty as well as the chair of foods and nutrition, the director of human ecology and the associate dean of agriculture. He earned his bachelor's and master's degree in chemistry at Illinois State University and his doctorate in human nutrition and biochemistry at the University of Minnesota. His research has focused on muscle development, protein and amino acid metabolism, and nutrition in the context of athletic performance, obesity, diabetes and cardio metabolic health. Don currently consults for many food industry companies, including Kraft, Nestle, Hershey, the Dairy Council, the Egg Board, the Beef Board, among others. This episode and discussion with Don really focus around the concept of what he calls a muscle-centric nutrition view, which is how should we think about nutrition, protein, and various amino acids if our goal is to maintain or maximize and build muscle, especially as we age.
In this episode, we talk about Don's background, his interest in protein, muscle, insulin, anabolic factors in general.
We explain what the RDA for protein is, how it came about, how it's clearly being misunderstood by people as a recommended amount of protein versus a barely minimum protein amount for survival. Talk about the nuances of animal versus plant protein. And talk about the difference in protein requirements between children and adults, even normalized to mass, of course. And we talk about what happens to children who are protein deficient early in life. And then we look specifically at protein needs under various circumstances. So for example, what's the maximum amount of protein that can be consumed and used in one sitting? Meaning the most amount of protein that you can consume in one sitting, which still contributes to muscle protein synthesis. Talk about the ideal timing of consuming protein throughout the day and around exercise. We talk about the importance of protein quality when looking at how much or how little a person consumes. And then we talk about how these things change as you age. So without further delay, please enjoy my conversation with Don Layman.
Hey Don, thank you so much for making time to sit down today. I've heard a lot about you over the past couple of years from our mutual friend, Lane Norton, who suggested that we sit down and go even deeper down this nutrition pathway. What you may not know about me is nutrition is my least favorite subject. I say that only because I'm so tired of the religious aspect of nutrition. I enjoy talking about nutrition through the lens of biochemistry, but thereafter, my patience for it has dwindled over the past decade. I have a feeling we'll get along just fine because your entire background is based on nutritional biochemistry as opposed to nutrition religion.

**Don Layman** (3:31)
Well, first of all, it's great to meet you, Peter, even electronically.
My interest was a little sort of the opposite. I was interested in biochemistry first and studying organic chemistry just seemed so boring and esoteric that nutrition, I could actually apply my biochemistry to things people were interested in. I kind of like that split, but I totally get your aspect of the zealot ends of the spectrum.

**Peter Attia** (3:57)
You know, you grew up on a farm, if I'm not mistaken, correct, in Illinois?

**Don Layman** (4:00)
Yes, that's correct.

**Peter Attia** (4:01)
And before we started recording this, you mentioned to me that your parents, your dad lived to 97, your mom to 102 So you're at the midpoint of your life right now, essentially based on your good genes.
But what was it like growing up on a farm 70 years ago?

**Don Layman** (4:16)
It was a great experience back in the 50s when I was born.
Agriculture was very poor in the United States. And so you sort of grew up in that background. But I think I learned about animal growth. I learned about reproduction. I learned about growing corn and story beans. I learned about life cycle. And I just got an interest in food. We were growing it. We had it there on the farm. And so it just made me interested in it. And then combined with that, I always had an interest in science and evolved to be a kind of a natural marriage, I guess.