Dr. Greger ON: How Much Protein Do We REALLY Need? | Muscles By Brussels Radio | Ep 257

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. My name's Jakamo.

[00:00:05]>> I'm Ben.

[00:00:05]>> Welcome to the show.

[00:00:06]>> And I'm Michael.

[00:00:09]>> Oh, we know you.

[00:00:10]>> I've been instructed Jakamo's been trying to get me to call you Dr. McGregor this whole morning and in hopes of throwing me off. I don't know what his what his plan is here, but we're really excited to have you on the show.

[00:00:20]>> Not Irish, but uh Polish and uh Russian, I believe, is Yeah. So there's lots of maybe Gregorski would be closer than >> Oh, I see. Okay. I do have a question about you and your family actually here.

[00:00:34]So I feel as though I remember hearing you talk about on a podcast. Everyone knows kind of the story of your grandmother and Dr. Pritikkin, but I kind of remember you discussing your parents a little bit, which I I hadn't heard as much, and maybe being involved in some activism as you were growing up.

[00:00:50]And I'm wondering, is that correct? And what kind of influence has that had on you?

[00:00:53]>> Oh, had a huge influence. So, um, both my parents were very active in the civil rights movement. Both had, uh, big FBI files, I'm happy to say. Both arrested many a time. I have a picture, um, on my wall of my mom getting dragged away and arrested at a famous protest at uh, Downstate Medical in Brooklyn. In fact, I went and spoke. The only reason I went to interview at this medical school in Brooklyn was so I could tell them the story of my mom being arrested for trying to prevent the building of the building that I was then sitting in because they were using an all-white union labor force. Anyway, yeah. So they were uh they were uh yeah they were active and and and passed that along to me and that and so um I you know I wanted to you know I had a passion to try to do good in the world and so look you can do that as you can be a doctor you can be a lawyer you can be you there's all sorts of ways you can do good in the world and this is a path I've chosen but I definitely definitely uh it's they had a big influence >> talking about growing up in Brooklyn do you do you know that building is downstate medical the big downstate medical building anyway Sorry. Um, yeah, I know my dad dad was Queens, mom Brooklyn.

[00:02:06]>> Okay. Okay. I want to ask you a little bit about kind of getting more into your background. So, now you go on, you know, these speaking tours, you go to talk to large groups of people. I was on the HS 2025 and, uh, the buzz when when you would get up there was pretty, uh, pretty electric. And I would say you're a very charismatic speaker. So, I'm wondering if is that something that's always kind of come naturally to you or is that some like a skill that you've really had to work on over time in delivering that information? I am embarrassed to see you know speeches me you know 10 years ago and look and in 10 years from now I may look back at now and be like oh my god I can't even look at it anymore no it's practice it's just um public speaking is a skill like anything else now man I I did have some kind of prediliction for so I was like a theater kid growing up and so you know you have to be comfortable in front of people but in terms of like being able to communicate very well. Oh, it was just just so much practice. I remember the first talk I ever gave was like this five minute like they gave me this little five minute slot and I got up and I said like the first line and completely went blank.

[00:03:13]Completely forgot the the where I was, what I was doing in front of like hundreds of people and so I remember the last line. So just gave the last line and then ran off. That's terrible. Oh my god, I'll never forget that. But no, no.

[00:03:24]So yeah, it's it's just you do it a million times. So there's great um what's that? Uh there's an organization that helps you with that.

[00:03:32]>> Toast Masters.

[00:03:33]>> Toast Masters. Yes. You can go to like a Toastmasters club and you just like give little fiveminute presentations in front of the you know 10 people and then like it's just practice, practice, practice.

[00:03:44]You just get better at it. You can't help but get better at it. But yeah, it's mostly it's just practice and practice and you get to a point particularly if if you really know your talk really well where you can totally be like giving this really dynamic passionate speech and you're seriously thinking about your grocery list like you're like oh [ __ ] I got to buy avocados and oh my god like literally and you're like you know you're doing it you're dancing around the stage and you're like totally like somewhere else.

[00:04:11]I it's just yeah it's very cool. So you mentioned that you had like growing up you were interested in in theater and that sort of thing and I I think that when you deliver information to people there has to be and we see this in social media all the time there has to be a degree of entertainment as well to actually bring people into what you're saying. So is that is that something that you're like actively seeking to do when you're delivering information is keep it interesting and keep it I know you have kind of jokes that you'll throw in there and you've got sayings that everyone knows like put it to the test and I think that kind of helps keep people engaged. Is that intentional what you're doing there when you're >> Yeah. I mean those things >> we I wish we lived in a different world.

[00:04:45]I wish we lived in a world where look science matters and just whatever is true is whatever is true and that's just people would just do it like you know that you didn't have to have this kind of patina of you know humor or entertainment or anything. It's just like shouldn't saving the life of your family be enough motivation to you know like do you really need like the little tricks and the you know the juggling to go with it? But that's not the world we live in, right? The world we live in is particularly now where we're just hammered at all sides by all sorts of crazy AI slop and god knows what is that there's just we're in this attention economy and giving this just you know giving a dry giving someone some PowerPoint with some bullets and some dry delivery. you could have the most important message in the world even like selfishly like that would benefit the person watching and you're just never no one's ever going to hear about you know there's there's an academic I have tremendous respect for uh Nam Chosky who's also had a lot of activism in his life and and I remember him saying in an interview once because he's a terrible speaker and he acknowledges he's a terrible speaker and maybe this is just him rationalizing it but he's like I'm glad I'm a terrible speaker like I don't want people to listen to me because of like some you know you know it's like it's the information that should matter right and I'm like yeah you know I understand that that uh that you know but this information is too important to just kind of get lost and so um you know if I can find that sweet spot of being something that's um you know you know I can make interesting something that's groundbreaking something that you know that you don't already know and something that's practical, something you actually do with that information.

[00:06:37]There's all sorts of cool sciency stuff all the time, breakthroughs. But if unless you can actually like go to your pantry or grocery store and actually do something with it, it's like well kind of what the what's the point? So that's kind of my sweet spot is trying to find that trifecta.

[00:06:52]um trying to find something that's important that I can make interesting and that is doable that that people can actually um you know incorporate into their own lives. And often the biggest block the biggest barrier in all that is certainly not the interesting thing. I mean there's just every day hundreds of articles on the coolest stuff in all of biology all the time and nutrition and certainly not practical. You know, they're talking about foods that regular foods can do. I mean, you know, they're talking about studies that stuff that we could do. It's can I make it interesting? I mean, so really the block is my ability to make funny enough puns about something or find some cool kind of detective story twist to make some kind of narrative about how, you know, um because I know otherwise no one's going to see it. Um and and it's not like, well, why don't just do it anyway?

[00:07:47]because I I'm afraid someone will see that and see this like really boring lecture piece and be like, "Oh, oh yeah, I saw that guy once and it was just terrible, right?" You know, it was just like I couldn't watch it. Little did they know that, oh, I also have really fun fun stuff, too. You know, so I'm trying to have this baseline level of, you know, can I make this engaging in some way?

[00:08:08]>> Well, that's the art of science communication, right? It's getting people to actually listen to what you're saying and not just uh because there's there's a fine line like you said if if it's too information is too boring people are just going to click off in the first 10 seconds and then you miss that potential opportunity to impact someone. So it's always I think when you're when you are a communicator there's always that fine line between um you know still needing to keep it entertaining and informing and I think you do that and I think you do that without needing to um lean into other avenues like people will be very overdramatic in their claims hyperbolic they will maybe attack others or they will use vitriol in order to to bring people into the conversation as opposed to just using some humor as a way to kind of get people in. So I really like that approach. Getting into more of the some of the sciency uh topics for the day. So we have a large audience of people who resist and strain who strength train for health, you know, maybe for aesthetics and stuff too. So I wanted to ask you a question about falls and so falls leading to fractures and other injuries seem quite serious as we age. And so I'm wondering is preventing fall related incidents the like the primary mechanism through which resistance training increases longevity?

[00:09:17]two aspects fall prevention. Number one, absolutely resistance lower limb strengthening exercise that has to be combined with balance training. The combination of balance training and strengthening those lower limb muscles, that's the magic combination. There's been a number of randomized control trials show that on average, typically during a year-long study, you can cut fracture rates in half. And that's just during the study when we've actually had studies with followed people out for five years. those who had been previously randomized to combined strength um training and balance years before ended up 74% fewer fractures.

[00:09:55]That beats out any drug on the planet.

[00:09:58]Nothing is better for um fracture prevention than those two critically important pieces. 85% of age related fracture risk has nothing to do with bone mineral density. You can have the strongest bones in the world but fall and break your bones. You can have the weakest most fragile bones in the body and not have a fracture unless you're falling, you know, unless you're injuring in some way. And so it really most now should we still do weight bearing exercise and stuff to get at that 15%. Fine. But it really is critically important fall prevention.

[00:10:28]And so it's not just that, you know, there's other things you can do like not having slippery rugs and good lighting on your staircases and not going out when it's icy. And I mean there's just like really basic common sense stuff, but look, you break a hip, have all these downstream terrible consequences.

[00:10:44]So yeah, anything do prevent fall. Super important. So glad you brought it up.

[00:10:49]>> For the balance component, could that be accomplished by having people do like unilateral exercises? So when they're maybe, you know, squatting on on one leg primarily with the other leg for support, would that accomplish that balance component or does it need to be more specific?

[00:11:02]>> Most people we're talking about people can't even stand on one foot. I mean, forget the squatting. No, I mean, right.

[00:11:08]I mean, there's some real basics. I mean, in terms of you mention any aspect of physical fitness, whether it's flexibility, you know, whether it's I mean, people can't even do like the basics kind of stuff like, you know, touch your toes or any. So, it's like for most people just, you know, being able to stand on one foot with your eyes closed. A lot of people can't even do that. And so, so I mean, let's start with the basics and then move our way up. But yeah, you don't need the fancy kind of rocker boards and all these fancy equipment. I mean, I'm sure I mean presumably you tell people, you know, just like you don't need fancy, you know, you know, AI assisted, you know, weight, you know, look, you use body weight, you can use simple things around the house. So, you don't have to spend a lot of money to uh, you know, to to to to bring your body into shape.

[00:11:54]>> Great point. And thank you for bringing it back to the practical because you're right. Some people are starting from a place of, you know, big a lot of deconditioning and then they need to just kind of start small with where they're at.

[00:12:03]>> You know, one thing one thing that you see a lot in the older populations as well is um bed rest um is has really particularly for older muscles um they forget the statistic but now not to age they did the exact same bed rest exercise with young people and old people and older people dramatically lost muscle mass way faster. Um, and so bed rest is particularly bad um for older muscles for whatever reason and I forget it was really a short amount of time too. Like you just were sick someone in bed for a short amount of time which could be like in illness, a short hospital stay and they get dramatically deconditioned which doesn't happen to younger people. Younger people you can get in a cast for a while you can lose muscle mass but not like older muscles. So yeah, that's critically important. So we need to try to stay active.

[00:12:51]>> So important to move. a question that I'm not sure if you're aware of any direct research on. As far as I'm concerned, the research generally indicates that larger humans tend to live shorter lives. And so I'm wondering if an athlete who has higher amounts of muscle mass, not we're talking like people who are taking performance-enhancing drugs or steroids, but naturally, you know, they're lifting weights, they're healthy, they have a strength training routine, and maybe they have a lower body fat percentage as well if they're paying attention to their diet. Now for somebody who has maybe more muscle mass on average whether that be genetics or training for 15 20 years is there any sort of protective effect with the with this muscle mass preventing you know sarcopenia fall risk blood sugar regulation does that kind of offset the fact that this person has a a larger BMI even if they're at like a lower body fat percentage if it's not taken to the extreme I'm wondering basically if somebody is uh maybe they're naturally more muscular because they're an app >> yeah no so I mean we're not worried about the reason we use BMI high. It's kind of a miserable measurement, but it's just because it's so easy, right? I mean, I mean, all you need to know, you know, I mean, you you know, weight, height, boom, right? You don't have to fancy equipment or something. And so, this really it's a tool to be used in these large studies. I mean, but that's not, you know, something that we, you know, are tracking with people. And most critically, it's not I mean, all body fat isn't the same. Subq body fat is basically harmless. is this visceral fat, this deep fat underneath your abdominal musculature that's coiling around your internal organs or infiltrating your internal organs like your liver and pancreas. That's the dangerous fat. That's what really kills people. And so really abdominal circumference is more important for longevity than like a BMI measure. Um and so it's really yeah what's happening. And so we want to keep our abdominal circumference less than tw less than half our height. So you take your height in meters or inches and you just want your kind of measured around your belly button. You want that to be less than half your and that is really would determine much better. Now that's still not the perfect measure. Some people with a lot of abdominal obesity have really kind of droopy um abdominal fat and so you actually do a measurement around the stomach and they actually doesn't capture some of that. So that'd be better kind of on their back where it kind of balances out. then you can get a better waist circumference measure or abdominal excuse me abdominal circumference measure but I mean yeah so there's kind of better ways but in terms of I mean you may be referring to this data showing that bodybuilders die at ridiculous rates but you know you have to think of all the compounding factors and so I I I talked about how notant it's like the average life expectancy of bodybuilders is like horrible right I forget what it was but right do you remember off hand >> 45 50 something like that >> like what the [ __ ] Right. Holy [ __ ] Okay. Okay. So, lots of things come into that. So, steroid use.

[00:15:38]>> Mhm.

[00:15:39]>> So, this was done at a time where there wasn't like, you know, kind of a natural bodybuilding movement and so like everybody was taking steroids. Um, and I'm sure it's super common still to the day and that has re can have really negative long-term consequences. And so, well, okay, so that could certainly play a role. And you know, what are people eating? Typical bodybuilder diet, >> lots of animal protein, >> super unhealthy, right? And so they can be slender. You're like, "Oh, they must have a good diet." But if you're churning through thousands of calories at the gym every day, oh my god, you can eat donuts every day and be skinny as a toothpick. And so you you look at somebody and they're like, "Oh, that doesn't seem like but oh my god, what is that doing ravaging their insides?"

[00:16:21]>> And so that's why it's really hard to kind of extrapolate that out. Now there are some aging pathways like IGF-1 and mTor where there does seem to be this kind of balance between both kind of reproductive health and longevity as well as kind of maximal muscle hypertrophy and longevity. There's kind of the seessaw effect. So you could imagine how activating those pathways by eating a lot of leucine or something to maximize muscle fiber formation could have a kind of a negative effect on longevity. So I talk about that a lot in you know uh with the kind in the protein restriction uh chapter and how not to age in kind of the balancing of that but there is lots of beneficial effects of having extra muscle mass and you talked about one of them insulin sensitivity right super important um uh and so you know it's very metabolically active tissue and so I mean there's there's all sorts of benefits and so encourage encourage people to absolutely um resistance exercise as long along with aerobic along with all the the aspects of fitness but just not you know would not be doing these other things to kind of artificially inflate that beyond something like creatine which I think may offer some kind of risk-free relatively risk-f free benefit but some of these other things you know but people you were you know taking scoops of whey protein it's just like you know you're really not doing yourself any favors >> so I have a question kind of related to that usually Usually when people discuss limiting protein for longevity, they're kind of in one way or another talking about animal protein just because when you're looking at population level data, that's usually what people are consuming. So I'm aware that there's some research that's or a decent amount of research that indicates that plant protein is obviously protective, you know, compared to animal protein.

[00:18:08]Certainly, I'm wondering if in your eyes, is there a for people who are consuming maybe a mostly plant or plant exclusive diet, is there a limit of plant protein? Is there any research indicating this? Is it kind of more speculative? Where where's your current thoughts on on this idea?

[00:18:25]>> So, so the benefits of of caloric restriction appear to be mostly or exclusively due to protein restriction and the protein restriction. The benefits of protein restriction and we're talking about restricting down to the recommended intake, not going lower.

[00:18:39]You need you need to hit your targets, but >> restricting down to recommended levels.

[00:18:44]The benefits of that is largely or exclusively due to restricting particular problematic amino acids like methionine. So the benefits of protein is really we're talking about methionine restriction if we if we could take it down to one amino acid the most harmful uh amino acids in in excess. Okay. So how do we restrict methion? Well, we could calorie restrict. If you if you all of a sudden ate half the food that you ate yesterday, we'll get half the methane. Regardless of what you're eating, you'll just get half of Okay. Or you eat the same amount of food, but just lower overall protein intake because that's where the methane is found is in the protein. So, you could reduce your protein intake, so you're just as full. You're not walking around hungry all the time. Or third, you could maintain the amount of foods you're eating and the amount of protein you're eating if you just switch proteins from animal source proteins towards plant sortings like beans. So, legumes tend to be low in methane on average. Um, so you can eat the same amount of protein without any protein restriction, without any calorie restriction, and dramatically reduce your methionine for all the longevity benefits and all the other anti-cancer benefits, etc., just by switching protein sources over to plant sources. That still didn't answer your question. Your question is okay, fine. We're doing that. We are switching over to plant protein sources. Okay, then do I have to worry about it? Well, again, why why was that pro plant protein switch good? Because it reduced methane. So, let's say it reduced methionine in half. It doesn't do it that much, but just for easy math. So, uh reduce your methane in half. Okay.

[00:20:26]And then what if you eat twice as much plant protein, right?

[00:20:29]>> Well, then all of a sudden it's like eating half as much animal protein, right? Because it's all about methane restriction. Um, so so if you eat twice as much plant protein, you know, so let's say you have veggie burger, same amount of protein as as beef burgers.

[00:20:42]And so one day you're like, I'm not going to eat a a meat burger. I'm gonna eat an Impossible burger, a plant-based burger. Same amount of protein. All of a sudden your methane goes way down.

[00:20:51]Awesome. Um, and then you're like, "Hey, I don't have to worry about anything because I'm eating plant-based, so I'm eating two Impossible Burgers. I don't have to worry about protein restriction." Right?

[00:21:02]>> What did you just do? You just ate the same amount of protein, excuse me, the same amount of methane that you had yesterday when you had the beef burger, right? And so you now you can say, "Well, hey, that's great. I got these two burgers for the same price, you know, same amount and I didn't bump my methane up." Okay. Yeah, that's great.

[00:21:21]certainly better than eating two beef burgers because then you'd be way over it. Okay, but you didn't do yourself any favors in terms of methane restriction yesterday and today you ate the same amount of methane. Yes, you got to eat an extra burger. That's awesome if you like burgers, but you didn't get the longevity benefit. And so that's why so that's how that plays. So you get the edge by eating plant protein. But that doesn't mean you can eat un you could just have like scoops of you know whatever you know plant protein isolate and not worry about getting too much methane for optimal health.

[00:21:53]>> Okay, that makes that makes a lot of sense. So, I think the practical take-home here for people is to find a kind of in the middle zone that we've been talking about with protein where they're still getting enough where they're they're able to put on the the muscle mass that's going to be protective as they age, but they're not going so excessive and so far in the other direction, eating more than is necessary where they're then kind of invoking potentially some of those those negative effects. Would you say that that's that's pretty accurate? I think the way to do that practically without needing a calculator, without needing all the like, you know, put your stuff into some like online chronometer kind of thing is by just not adding adding protein, getting your protein from whole food sources, right? So, I recommend people eat three servings of legumes every day, right? So, in the morning, you're putting, I don't know, peanut butter in a smoothie. In the afternoon, you're having some hummus, and in the evening you're having some black beans on something or whatever, right? So getting your protein from plant sources, three servings of legumes a day. Uh so like three half cups of regular beans or you however you want to do it, pea soup, whatever. And then just not doing the not putting protein powder, not using these protein isolates. So just sticking to whole food sources of protein, including protein richch foods throughout your day is a way that you're going I think to you're going to hit the target without going over and you don't have to worry about >> Thank you. One final question, kind of more of a fun one as we wrap things up.

[00:23:17]Thank you again for your time and all that you do. What I know that you're you're always kind of discovering new foods and new things to add into your regime. I wondering if there's any kind of fun meals or new foods that you've been uh eating recently.

[00:23:26]>> Oh my god, ALL THE TIME. ALL THE TIME.

[00:23:28]In fact, there's so many cool new things that I forget, you know, like so I'm like doing something and then like, you know, I just get out of the habit or something and then like a month later some new stuff will come out like, "Oh [ __ ] I knew I was supposed to be eating that." And I love eating it. It's not like I, you know, it's just like so many cool things you can eat that you just kind of get in a habit or something.

[00:23:47]Anyway, so something that I'm definitely back on the train. So, this is just this week back on the broccoli sprout train.

[00:23:54]I mean, broccoli sprouts on a per penny basis have more nutrition than anything else on planet Earth. So, for a quart, so you got to grow your own, otherwise they're a little more expensive. You you know, you take broccoli, you buy, you can get a pound of broccoli sprouts, right? You put a tablespoon in water, little screen top. It's super cheap, whatever. And then for about 25 cents per cup of finished broccoli sprouts.

[00:24:17]It's just packed with the sulfurophane, has anti-cancer benefits, all sorts of whatever. It's like why isn't everybody doing this? It's like it's so ridiculous. The problem is when I travel, you can't travel, right? Because they you have to keep rinsing it every day. If you don't rinse it, they can get, you know, gross and slimy and whatever. And so if I'm traveling and it takes a couple days to set you up, blah blah blah. But if I'm home, there is no reason. Next time you interview, next time we talk, be like, "Hey, you got some sprouts going on." And I and I may be like, "Oh [ __ ] I forgot my sprouts."

[00:24:46]No, no, you always got to have sprouts.

[00:24:48]There's always got to be something in the queue. And then you're left with all these sprouts. You don't want them to go bad. And so then you're forced to like sprinkle them on stuff and you just find creative ways to add them to stuff. You can put them in smoothies. You can do all sorts of stuff. They're a little spicy to eat just straight. I mean, it's like, oh my god, you get the the, you know, and it's like equivalent to how many, you know, like wheelbarls full of mature broccoli. Awesome. Yeah. So, anyway, that's that's one thing. And it's not the most delicious thing in the world, but yeah, super healthy.

[00:25:15]>> We'll get a sprout check next time you're on. We'll celebrate on that.

[00:25:18]>> Sprout check.

[00:25:20]>> Thank you again for your time, Dr. Greg.

[00:25:21]>> Awesome. Anytime. Keep up the great work.

[00:25:23]>> Great having you here. Bye-bye.