Your Guide to Protein Supplements with research scientist, Dr Bradley Elliott

As you start your fitness journey, you may hear more about protein supplements. You might have even bought protein shakes for yourself. But, how much do you need to take to achieve the goals you want to achieve? And how much is too much? And what exactly does a protein supplement do?

We sat down with Dr Bradley Elliott, a research scientist and senior lecturer in physiology at the University of Westminster, to discuss protein supplements and demystify the topic of protein supplementation.

What are protein supplements?

As opposed to getting proteins through foods, protein supplements are things like bars, powders or drinks where there is a much higher concentration of protein concentrated into a smaller package to make it easier for people to get.

So, powders are probably the most common one that people are familiar with. They can come in all sorts of forms, like yogurts, drinks, bars. I have seen protein-supplemented breakfast muesli recently, I’m not quite sure how that works, but maybe it’s marketing.

What do protein supplements do to the body?

If you break a protein down, it breaks down into things called amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of tissues in your body. If you’re training, you can’t gain muscle without doing two specific things. One of them is literally training, say, going to the gym, lifting weights or doing exercise. The other one is consuming protein in your diet.

So the main reason that people are taking protein supplements is to build or rebuild tissues in your body.

The key point is that any dietary protein does this as well; it’s not specific to supplements per se.

How easy is it for someone to overdose on protein supplements, and what amount would count as an overdose?

It’s not easy to overdose on protein. I’m gonna be a bit of a pedantic scientist here, unfortunately, and say it depends on what kind of overdose – too much protein in your diet will likely cause an upset stomach.

What happens typically is you don’t absorb that dietary protein, and so it comes back out again in terms of a one-off moment (going to the bathroom).

Overdosing is a relatively specific medical term, and I’m not a medical doctor, but it’s not like you can have too big of a protein meal and then have a high risk of life-threatening side effects. It’s more likely you’ll be very uncomfortable for a while, and most people recognize this.

What would be the ideal amount of protein supplements that someone should take for exercise?

A common recommendation in the Western world for general members of the public is around 0.8-1.2 g of protein in your diet per kilogram of body mass. This comes from data from the 40s to 60s that was designed around getting enough protein into your diet. Because under-eating protein can be very bad for you, so this guideline is in place to get enough protein into your diet for your good health and well-being.

For an exercising individual or an athlete, numbers like 1.4, 1.6, 1.8 g per kilo of body mass are perfectly fine guidelines.

Above 2 g per kilogram can be a bit unusual. And then we might start talking about having too much protein in your diet.

If you’ve got massive caloric supplement of excess protein, a lot of that excess protein in your diet will just be stored as fat. You do sometimes see that in over-consumers and athletes who consume too much where they’re like, “well, look, I’m training all the time, I’m consuming low fat, high-protein diets. But, I’m still gaining fat and I’m still overweight.”

If they’re overconsuming protein above the guidelines, like in the above cases, you can spot overconsumption by talking to a nutritionist and finding out what’s going on and do a bit of math around all the macronutrients in your diet and total how much you’re consuming.

For example, if someone was consuming protein shakes and consuming protein in their diet, would both of those types of caloric intake count towards those protein intake guidelines?

Protein supplements are just dietary protein, and you can get dietary protein from anything in your diet. So, normal whole foods are just as effective as protein supplements for protein delivery for the vast majority of people.

So for example, the classic whole foods would be animal proteins like meats. Or the alternatives for a vegetarian or vegan context would be foods such as yogurts.

A lot of dairy products are high in protein. Whey protein, which is a dairy product, is really popular as a supplement. Lentils, beans, daal, those kinds of things are also protein sources.

I think people like protein supplements because they’re convenient, you know? If someone says, “Hey, go to the gym and then eat 20 g of protein afterwards”, or whatever that number might be, you can go to the gym and grab a protein supplement that says on the side of the label, 20 g of protein.

What would be some risks of taking protein supplements?
Well, I guess we’ve already talked about one of the risks, which is overdoing it a little bit. There has been quite a few published studies looking at contamination of protein supplements. Here in the UK, there’s a group called Informed Sport. Informed Sport does blind testing of nutritional supplements for the sports industry, and then puts a label on the side of the packaging that says this is blind tested by an independent body and is clean. So it doesn’t contain any contaminants and unregulated ingredients. And those are probably the major risks I would think about for the general public.

Who shouldn’t take protein supplements? For example, are there people with certain health conditions that shouldn’t take them?
There are a couple of rare-ish conditions. Phenylketonuria, PKU. This is a metabolic condition where people don’t process some amino acids properly. There’s a few rare conditions like that, but people tend to know if they have those by the time they’re adults.

If someone is allergic to dairy, then obviously, they shouldn’t take whey-based or dairy-based protein supplements.

Things like kidney issues or people with kidney and liver disease can have some problems with high doses of proteins. And so those individuals may want to check with their doctors first before starting a regimen of more protein in their diet.

And I mean, talk to your doctor, classic cliche here, but talk to your doctor to make sure.

That’s good advice. What are some healthy recommendations for taking protein supplements? What is some practical advice for taking supplements in a healthy way, and what stage of the exercising or fitness journey should people take them?
It depends on your motivation. Protein supplements can be useful, and I use them sometimes as well. So consider why you’re taking them. A simple way of thinking about this is to think about what are your aims? Your goals?

If it’s for convenience of time, brilliant. A protein shake is a quick way of adding protein into your life if you’re on the go. Maybe try consuming smaller amounts first before building up. Don’t just jump into the deep end and start consuming masses of protein powder really quickly, and having an all or nothing mindset. That’s not how this works.

Stick to well-known brands or brands that are registered and regulated, as we’ve talked about the idea of contamination before.

Protein intake is a very individualistic choice. I think I would struggle with a general recommendation for everybody here. It really depends on you and your circumstances. If it’s easier to have scrambled eggs at breakfast time then that’s fine. If you come home from the gym and you’ve got a pre-prepared meal or something like that, that’s brilliant. If you prefer whole foods or real foods, that’s fine too.

If someone didn’t want to consume whole foods and they wanted to consume a protein shake with protein powder in it, what would be some general guidelines of how much protein powder they should use?
Going back to those original protein guidelines on grams per kilo of body weight, So 1.2 g, say it’s 1 g of protein per kilo of body weight. I weigh 80 kg, so I would need to consume 80 g of protein over the course of the day.

If I want to consume protein after a meal and spread it out over my three major meals, this is called protein patterning. So not consuming protein all at once but spreading it out over the course of the day.

There’s 4 points in my day where I want to consume about 20 g of protein. So if I wanted to have 20 g of protein with breakfast, I might have 2 eggs on toast, or I might have Greek yogurt and something else. If I wanted to have some protein with lunch, I might think what’s in my sandwich. If I want to have a small amount of protein with dinner, I would start thinking about lean protein with vegetables or something like that.

I might not want to cook 4 meals in one day. Maybe I’m busy or working or something. I might think, well, I’ve got 20 g left in the math, so I can take a 20 g protein shake.

So then I can see I’ve gotten most of my protein and I’ve spaced it out nicely as well.

Are there any common reasons why people take protein supplements?
There’s probably 2 or 3 major reasons in the fitness industry. One reason why people take protein supplements is to gain and build muscle. Protein supplements are rich in essential amino acids that help build muscle.

Another reason is weight loss. Protein supplements or any food that’s high in protein is high satiety. So relative to the amount of calories in it, it makes you feel fuller (higher amount of protein but less calories). So, maybe if you consume a higher protein diet, you’ll maybe eat less overall.

Some people also use protein supplements as a meal replacement. And there’s markets out there now that are not just protein supplements, but like, I guess for lack of a word, meal supplements. So protein plus vitamins and minerals and carbohydrates and essential fats as well that you need in your diet, packaged up into a powder and looking kind of like a protein shake.

Can protein supplements impact your diet?
When you put something into your diet, you typically take something out. If you increase the percentage of your diet that is protein, be it from a whole food source or a supplemental source, you’re pushing something else out of your diet. In terms of macronutrients, there are essential amino acids, which protein supplements typically have in them, that you have to have in your diet to live and live healthily. There are also essential fatty acids from fats that you have to have in your diet. And then there’s a very long list of vitamins and minerals that you should have in your diet for health, immune system function and growth as well.

The only danger if you’re replacing a lot of food with quite concentrated protein sources is that you’re not getting the diversity of other things in your diet. But that’s quite speculative. There is a risk in replacing things in your diet that you need to have, but protein supplements are designed to supplement your meals and your food intake. Most of them are not designed to replace them. It takes quite a lot of effort to replace everything. Meal replacements are out there and they tend to be more fuller and more complete for that reason.

Who are protein supplements for and what do they achieve?
They can be for almost anyone. They can be for elite athletes, high-performing individuals, members of the general public, and anywhere in between. I know very high quality athletes, international names, who don’t take any form of supplementation. And I know very high quality international names who do. In the same way, I know plenty of members of the general public who use protein supplementation as part of their gym regimen, and plenty of members of the public who don’t. It’s a very individualistic personal choice for you as to how you get protein in your diet.

Do people need to take protein supplements? Can the results you’ve mentioned, like muscle gains, be reached just through diet alone?

Yes so, in terms of things like weight loss or muscle gain, those things can be reached through diet alone. It’s a very personal individual choice whether to take protein supplements or not. They’re not necessary and you don’t have to use protein supplements if you don’t want to.

Conclusion

Remember to talk to your doctor or your nutritionist for more information about your protein intake. Everyone has different goals, so how you decide to consume protein, is up to you. Whether you decide to take a protein shake after your workout or you decide to have a high protein meal, the choice on how you take your protein, is ultimately up to you.