Rethinking protein needs for performance, muscle preservation, and longevity, and the mental and physical benefits of creatine supplementation and sauna use | Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D.

**Peter Attia** (0:11)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. This podcast, my website and my weekly newsletter all focus on the goal of translating the science of longevity into something accessible for everyone. Our goal is to provide the best content in health and wellness, and we've established a great team of analysts to make this happen. It is extremely important to me to provide all of this content without relying on paid ads. To do this, our work is made entirely possible by our members, and in return, we offer exclusive member-only content and benefits above and beyond what is available for free. If you want to take your knowledge of this space to the next level, it's our goal to ensure members get back much more than the price of the subscription. If you want to learn more about the benefits of our premium membership, head over to peterattiamd.com/subscribe. My guest this week is Rhonda Patrick. Rhonda, returning for her third conversation on the Drive, is a scientist, health educator and host of FoundMyFitness podcast. Her work focuses on the intersection of nutrition, aging and disease prevention, and she is widely recognized for bringing clarity to complex topics in health science. This is part two of a deep dive on protein, but we expand into other topics like creatine supplementation and sauna use. In this episode, we discuss why the RDA for protein is too low and why a new minimum at at least 50% more than the RDA is needed to avoid negative protein balance, the distinction between minimum, optimal and high protein intake, and how activity level and aging can affect requirements, anabolic resistance, what it is, why inactivity drives it, and how resistance training restores sensitivity, the role of protein in preventing frailty and sarcopenia, and the quality of life implications in aging. Evidence on protein intake during pregnancy, adolescence, weight loss, and while using GLP-1 agonists. Addressing the concerns about mTOR, cancer risk, and reconciling protein intake with longevity research. The case for creatine, how it enhances strength and endurance performance, its overlooked benefits for cognition and brain health, and why dosing above 5 grams per day may be necessary. Practical guidelines on dosing, formulation, and the populations who may benefit most. For example, vegetarians, older adults, young athletes, older athletes. The science of sauna use, revisiting the mechanisms, especially as they pertain to cardiovascular adaptations and heat shock proteins, dementia risk and cardiovascular disease reduction, and best practices for temperature, duration, and frequency. How to weigh infrared versus traditional dry saunas, and why going hotter isn't always better. I really enjoyed this discussion with Rhonda, and I'm truly hopeful that this is the last time I need to do a podcast in a very long time that addresses some of the controversy surrounding protein intake. So without further delay, please enjoy my conversation with Rhonda Patrick.
Rhonda, so great to see you, and I didn't realize until a few minutes ago that the last time we spoke, it was virtual.

**Rhonda Patrick** (3:33)
Yeah, good to see you. We go back a long way.

**Peter Attia** (3:37)
You're still in our same former neighborhood in San Diego.

**Rhonda Patrick** (3:39)
I know, and I'm thinking that you found the same feeling here in Austin.

**Peter Attia** (3:44)
Yeah, we did. All right. Well, there's a lot we want to chat about today, and I'm a little hesitant to say this, but I do feel like reluctantly we need to have one more discussion about a particular macronutrient that seems to get a lot of attention lately. And I don't necessarily want to talk about this because I think it's especially interesting, or even to which there's some new study that we need to shed light on. But it does seem to remain somewhat surrounded in some controversy, which I will refrain from publicly speculating on why said controversy exists, although privately I'm very happy to speculate on all the reasons for it. So, with that said, let's talk about protein.

**Rhonda Patrick** (4:25)
Let's do it. I do think it's an important topic. You and I have probably talked to all the world's experts on protein, and we were chatting a moment ago about this recommended daily allowance for protein, the so-called RDA.
And really, what it should be called is the minimal daily allowance. Recommended almost sounds like optimal in a way. I think people confuse that with the optimal amount of protein, right? So, it's kind of tricky. And I think that's an important place to start because of that reason where this amount, which is 0.8 grams per kilogram body weight per day, is the RDA for protein. And I know that you've probably had countless experts on talking about this. I've had experts on talking about this, Stu Phillips being one. There's so many different publications that, I mean, people can start off by reading one of them here by Stu Phillips. Perspective, protein requirements and optimal intakes in aging. Are we ready to recommend more than the recommended daily allowance? And there's several of these out there. This is just one. And essentially, if you have the time and the willingness to go into the scientific literature and actually read something for yourself or listen to The Drive or listen to my podcast and the actual experts talking about it, what you will hear or what you will learn is that a lot of the studies that were done to determine this RDA were flawed. They were called nitrogen balance studies. And for many reasons, they're flawed. I don't want to get into all the technical reasons, but for one, what they are doing is measuring the amount of nitrogen that is excreted in urine after you are metabolizing protein. And some of the flaws that are, I would say, the most important here are that different types of foods that have protein in them have different nitrogen to protein ratios. They're collecting urine, in which the case is, is that it's an incomplete collection. I mean, like when you pee in one of those cups, you don't get all the urine. It's incomplete collection.