The Protein Debate: Dr. Layman Reacts to Dr. Gardner's claims on The Huberman Lab

**Christopher Gardner** (0:00)
If you're getting 175 grams of protein a day, you're like, you match your needs at 60 or 70 grams, and I think you're converting the rest to carbs.

**Donald Layman** (0:09)
That's simply not true. He converts all of it. That's just a gross misunderstanding of metabolism.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:16)
Protein myths are everywhere, but what if some of them were started by doctors themselves? In this episode, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon and her guest, Dr. Donald Layman, react to a controversial clip of Dr. Christopher Gardner on The Huberman Lab.

**Christopher Gardner** (0:32)
We have national data on what the protein intake is of Americans. The average intake is like 1.2 grams per kilogram body weight per day.

**Gabrielle Lyon** (0:40)
I'm just going to pause him there.

**Donald Layman** (0:43)
The average intake in the United States based on the NHANES data is around 80 grams per day, and that translates into 0.9 to 1 gram per kg. I'm sure there are people taking 1.2 and higher, but that's not the average.

**Gabrielle Lyon** (0:57)
He was so convincing, though.

**Donald Layman** (0:59)
That's the way to be, be convincing, even if you're wrong.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:04)
They'll expose how outdated research has shaped the conversation around protein, and reveal what the science really says about your body's needs.

**Gabrielle Lyon** (1:13)
As I hear, you know, professors and doctors talk about how our diet is wrong and that we can stop stressing about dietary protein, I have to say I disagree.

**Gabrielle Lyon** (1:31)
Let's talk about protein.

**Christopher Gardner** (1:32)
Protein is the main source of nitrogen in your body. If you were to do one of these bomb calorimeter things that blew up and burned your whole body, minerals would be left. You can't get rid of minerals, and nitrogen is in that list. And so you can actually do a nitrogen analysis of food that you're eating, and it'll tell you how much protein is in the food. And if you were to be in a blue zoot suit all day and collect your poop, your pee, your nasal blowings.

**Donald Layman** (1:58)
Let's stop there for just a second. And his comment about doing a nitrogen analysis and determining the amount of protein isn't truly accurate because all amino acids don't have the same amount of nitrogen. So they tend to use a standard factor of 16% nitrogen, which non-essential amino acids that you find in plants have more non-essential amino acids than animal proteins. So when you use a nitrogen analysis, you're always overestimating the amount of actual nitrogen coming in. So it's inaccurate. It's an inaccurate measure to start with.

**Christopher Gardner** (2:37)
If you captured everything that left your body, you would know how much protein you had eliminated during the day. So somebody came up with this idea for a nitrogen balance study, and they took these conscientious war objectors and put them in these suits for months, and they lowered their protein to zero, at which point they realized, wow, this is fascinating. The losses that you have from protein decrease as you lower your protein to zero, because your body realizes you need to be more efficient with what you had. Then they raised the dietary protein level back up until they were in balance. So the amount of protein leaving the body was the same as the amount going in. They said, this is the protein requirement. It's the amount that will replace your losses in this group of people. It wasn't just Morgan Hall and the Penthouse at Berkeley. It was multiple other groups were doing this in other places. They pooled all their data and said, there's a range and some people need more and some people need less. Let's pretend it's a normal distribution. It isn't quite. But after all this, they came up with what would be an estimated average requirement for this population that we've studied, and this bizarre prison incarceration food manipulation thing. With this clever idea of focusing on nitrogen just because it's so unique to protein.
They came up with 0.66 grams of protein per kilogram body weight per day. Not the- Yeah. This is the estimated average requirement. Now, let's do some super simple math. Let's say, if you told the American public, now they've done this bizarre, disgusting task. This is how much everybody requires, this estimated average requirement, and therein after, everybody get exactly that much protein.
What proportion of the population would be deficient at that level if they pick the average requirement? Half. By definition, that's only the average. Half of the people are above average. The recommended daily allowance of protein is set at two standard deviations above the value determined by this disgusting nitrogen balance test decades and decades ago. And I understand that the community of protein fanatics doesn't like that. That's not an optimal protein. It's like a minimal protein requirement. Okay? So I totally buy that argument. But I think the first thing...