Speaker 1
All right, welcome back, team, to the Building Lifelong Athletes podcast. Thanks so much for stopping by. I really appreciate it. If you haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Jordan Manicky. I'm a dual board certified physician in family and sports medicine. The goal of this podcast is to keep you active and healthy for life through actionable evidence-informed education. Today, we're reacting to a clip that has been making the rounds of the internet claiming that whey protein is essentially trash, that it's only 18% usable by your body, and the rest is just waste. And so, I know the internet loves a good absolute black and white story. Usually, that's not the case here, but this one really caught my eye because of a specific number that was used. And so I put on my investigator hat and decided to track down all the sources and citations and see what's going on. And let me tell you, team, it's a bit of a wild ride. So we're going to hop right into the video here first. So let's take a look.
Speaker 2
Hi, my name is John Jaikwish. I'm a doctor of biomedical engineering, which gives me a unique perspective on lots of things: nutrition, sports science. Medicine and general health related. Today, I'm going to talk about why whey protein is really not that great. Let's look at the history of whey protein. In I believe the late eighties, early nineties, there was a guy named Dan Duchenne. He wrote a book. It was like The Underground Athletes Guide. Just something. And it's really just a book about performance enhancing drugs. And that's what Dan had always focused on. He thought. that performance enhancing drugs were really what everybody should be interested in and maximizing as much as possible.
Speaker 1
If you just want to skip this entire podcast, just take a bunch of performance answers and drugs. You won't need weight protein at all. It won't be an issue. But no, it's a backstory here, not important, but.
Speaker 2
So I didn't really agree with that philosophy. But the thing that made Dan rich is the interesting part of the story. What Dan did was he went to different dairies, milk farms. And he said, you know, all that stuff that you throw in the trash, all the whey. And at the time, whey was just straight up waste. Like they just throw it away. He said, Can I have that? And they said, Yeah, sure. You're just lightening our garbage load. So go ahead. So then Dan took this powder. Or he took the whey and processed it so it would be a consistent powder and flavored it, and then put it in a product called Designer Whey Protein. Designer, right? And that's marketing. So he took this trash and then told everybody it was the greatest thing for them. And the dude made millions in itself. If somebody saw something that was of value and others didn't see it of value, then good for him. But here's the problem with that idea.
Speaker 1
Okay, spoiler that we're going to took on that. But first and foremost, let's look at the history here, right? So he's claiming that way is just repackaged garbage. And to be fair, there's definitely a kernel of truth there, right? Whey is a byproduct of cheese and dairy processing, all that stuff. And a lot of times, dairies did just toss it out. But there's kind of an issue here. The thing is, just because something's a byproduct doesn't mean it's trash, right? That's pretty big logical leap saying that, hey, this is a byproduct, so therefore it can't be usable and it's automatically trash. That's not the same. That's like saying that leather is trash because it's a byproduct of the meat industry. Obviously, not a same analogy there, but it goes to say that's not like the main purpose of the meat industry is to get meat and leather wouldn't be there. And so, obviously, you're going to use the whole thing, but whatever. It's just an analogy. Don't get mad at me. But it wasn't just a scam, right? It's a technological shift. We got better technology. We learned how to filter better. We learned how to microfilter that liquid to strip out fats and lactose to keep the highly bioavailable protein. So, we didn't repackage trash. We unlocked a new nutrient source. So, context kind of matters. You know, that's always the thing. It's the context, right? He's setting up the story for why whey protein is bad, right? Why it's bad because it's always meant to be waste, it's actually never good. And so, once, that's just once again. This whole, the whole point of me doing these things is not to call it anybody. And I always say that all the time: I'm not calling anybody. I'm just saying, hey, these are the things I see when I look at things online. I just want people to understand and see the world. Maybe as cynically as I do, but just in terms of like, hey, what's going on behind? How can we explain this out? So that's where we're at. That's what's going on. But let's look at his biggest claims right here now.
Speaker 2
Whey protein is 18% usable by the body, meaning 18% of what makes up whey is the proper combination. of amino acids that actually can become human proteins when processed by the body. Now, there are quite a few studies that highlight How quickly whey is digested and how 100% of it is digestible. So, a lot of people were celebrating that idea, especially the people who manufacture whey protein. Unfortunately, being digestible and being usable are not the same subject. So the usability of protein has everything to do with its amino acid composition. And if you have the right combination of amino acids, like this, for example, almost 100% usable by the body.
Speaker 1
Steak. All right, we're going to stop right there for a second. So here's the core argument here, right? He says that whey is only 18% usable by your body. If this is true, the entire supplement industry is a scam. Billions of dollars are being wasted. Millions of bodybuilders are growing muscle on essentially placebo, or at least they're less efficient than they could be. And so I want to know: where does this number come from? Like, this is so countercultural, right? When you hear something that is so countercultural like this. Against everything we know of science, you have to think of two things. One, this person's onto something, right? We got like a Galileo moment, like, hey, we actually aren't at the center of the universe, or there's an angle coming. It's one of those two things. And Spoiler alert, I don't think it is the former. I think it's the latter. So let's take a look, though. So, looking at this, though, if we break it down, what he's looking at, he's looking at something called net nitrogen utilization or NNU. And so. This is something for me that I'm not as familiar with. I am not a biochemist. I am not a protein physiology expert. And so, this is one thing. That's another reason I'm doing this is because to show you that I'm not an expert in this field, but I can like. Use enough context clues and general basic understanding of science to like look through, do some research to understand: is this person really onto something or is it new? And so. This is more of an encouragement that, like, I'm not a genius. I'm just one beggar to another beggar telling you, like, hey, this is what I see. But, anyways, this net nitrogen utilization, I want to see what it's all about. So, I wanted to find the source. And so, in his comments, a lot on the video, people were saying, Hey, actually, like. That doesn't seem to be consistent with other things I read, or other people would, and he puts these two sources in the comments a lot. And so I went through those sources to look because I was like, hey, I need to check the receipts and see what's going on here. And A lot of times there were a couple of main references. So, the first one that I saw was this one by Luca Moretti. It was done in 1992, and it's titled Comparative Study of Subjects in Net Nitrogen Utilization. So, NNU. That's the big one. And so I went looking for it. I went to PubMed, couldn't find it. I went to Google Scholar, nothing. The paper appears to essentially be a pre-Internet relic or essentially a ghost paper. It's almost seen exclusively and cited on marketing websites selling something called the master amino acid formula. Like this master formula, like this is there. So, this reference seems to only be used that I could find. And maybe I'm, once again, no research expert, but maybe. It's used somewhere else, but it's only found in like marketing material and like patent applications. Where it's like, hey, it seems like this science was made to sell a product potentially. That's what, when I'm looking at it, that's what I see. But I didn't stop there, right? I'm a sucker for punishment. And so I decided to look up the other resource, which was Dr. Luca Moretti's publication history, to see what he's done, right? So Luca Moretti. I looked up his publication history and it gets really interesting, right? So nearly every single paper that he has published is attached to. Is involved with this master amino acid pattern or map. His research isn't broad protein physiology, it seems to be hyper-focused on validating this specific proprietary formula, often as the sole substitute for dietary protein in weight loss context. And so. And on top of that, most of those papers were looking at fasting or weight loss and using this map here. And so it's really hard to see how this fits into overall health and wellness. But overall, I couldn't find the source paper that he cites, and I'm sure it's there. And I'm not discrediting saying, like, I just couldn't, I couldn't easily and readily access it. So. If I can't do that, then a lot of people can't. I have access to institution and things. I can like find everything. That's pretty much my main goal. I can pretty much find any paper that's like publishable out there with university access. I couldn't find it. And so, could it be there? Absolutely. I could not see it. And so that's a big thing. And so. For me, this researcher doing this metric, right? He's defining this net nitrogen utilization, this NNU. He's also the one researching the specific product that scores a perfect score on that metric while claiming that everything else scores 18%, right? And As I mentioned before, I'm just a beggar to another beggar telling me where to find food. If someone, if someone's out there created a Scoring and their product is perfect, and their publication history is all based there. Odds are, you should probably be a little skeptical. So, I'm a little skeptical. I will be honest with you, I'm a little skeptical on this, but hey, we'll see what's going on. And then he also does mention that digestibility and usability are not the same thing. And this is where we get into an additional argument, an additional paper. So, in his comments, he talks about this Morifoji et al. 2010 paper. That we looked at, and so we'll just kind of look at here. And I looked at the paper, and sure enough, it does exist, which is wonderful. That's great. But Morifuji wasn't studying whether Wei was trash, he was comparing. Intact whey proteins, so the regular stuff against whey hydrocelys, which are a more pre-digested, broken-down form into smaller peptides. So not the full, necessary, normal stuff, just kind of more broken down. And that's what he's looking at. And guess what? The paper does show that these hydrocelytes worked better in a specific context, right? So they spiked amino acids. Faster and higher than a regular intact protein. So that's like kind of where we're coming from here. Hey, we saw this spike in amino acids, and hey, that must be great. And so the logic here is kind of jumping. Premise A is that, you know, this paper proves that smaller, once again, this is one paper and not a huge paper, but this paper proves that smaller pre-digested peptides absorb faster. So then the leap then is saying, hey, This product of free amino acids, which are even smaller than broken out peptides, like they must be way faster and better. And so the conclusion is that the product is perfect. Anything that follows this pattern must work, and that way is trash. We gotta hold on there a little bit. So here's the problem. He's taking this study that says fast is good and maybe slightly better. He's taking a saying that Bastard is perfect and that anything else is like trash. That's essentially the way I read it: saying, hey, like both the outcomes were okay, which is the craziest thing. Like in the paper itself that he cites. Morifuji explicitly concluded that both forms of whey were effective in stimulating insulin and amino acid availability, and intact whey wasn't a waste, it just had a slightly different absorption curve. So that's kind of the big thing. And so, to use this paper to claim that whey is 82% garbage does not seem to follow. What this does prove is that in this setting, these pre-digested hydrosylates did seem to absorb faster than regular whey. Like, that's pretty much all we can say from there. And so, to use this as a source is just probably depending on someone not looking at it and understanding what's going on. So, that was that's my job to be a nerd, right? That's that's what we're doing here. So. Yes, but that's what we're talking about. Conveniently, I do want to mention that he does talk about in the video, he has a little product he taps on, right? Foraging, right? It happens to be on his website. Which, once again, I will say this time and time again: I have no problem with people making quality products and making money having a career and business off of that. Not a problem at all. So, like, anything he does is totally fine, but it's convenient that. He does sell this. So he has something called Fortigen, right? So, this is this natural dietary supplement with the amino acid formula, the perfect formula. It can be yours for just the small price of $105 for a little tub. Which he's talking about wasting money, like, that's a lot of money, man. Like, I don't know about you, but that's a lot of money. So Yeah, not saying it's right or there, but you can see that he does have this fortigen. And so, I thought it was kind of interesting. Essentially, if you look at the label, it's nothing more than an amino acid blend, right? So, it contains L-leucine, L-valine, L-isoleucine. So, these are. L versus all those things are just enantiomers, different configurations of things don't matter. It doesn't matter. Essentially, it's just a free form of essential amino acids, which is a very, very common. Supplement that we see in the industry all the time. And so it's not anything new. There's nothing crazy going on there. It's essentially just amino acids. And so we're talking about amino acids, right? And so I want to see are essential amino acids better than whey? That's like the big question. So what I was able to do is I looked at this big study. This is the ISSN, a big society in sports nutrition. They have a position statement looking at the effects of essential amino acids on supplementation and exercise and performance. That was the name of the title. So, what happens there? Well, turns out that you know, free-four amino acids actually can be potent and be helpful in the right context. So, they're definitely not like nothing's going on, can be helpful. And the position stand actually highlights research showing that adding essential amino acids to whey protein can actually enhance the anabolic response. And so compared to just whey alone. So actually adding Amino acids and weight might actually be like the best of both worlds. So, like, just using one, probably not good enough, using both, probably better. And why is this? Well, because you're essentially fortifying. The essential amino acid profile, right? So you're topping off the tank with a bunch of different things. So all the amino acids. If you have a solid amino acid profile like whey protein, which actually has like all of them, that can be beneficial. Now, the argument to this, the counter-argue would be like, well, our specific Pattern is better than whatever was looked at in these studies. But regardless, it looks like using both of them together can be helpful. And so, yeah, the essentially min acids do work, they work really well. But here's the catch. More potent per gram does not mean better outcomes. If you simply adjust the dose, that can be a big thing. So, you can get the same anabolic signal from whey protein. So, essential amino acids are just the building blocks of protein. You take those, you get a spike. And if you take enough whey, you can get the exact same anabolic signal from whey. So getting your butt and muscles ready to grow that can get there from whey just takes a little more. You're going to have to drink a little more to match the The response there, which is not a big deal. And there's no evidence, though, that healthy people sipping pure amino acids produces this magical hypergrowth state. That other people can't get, right? So it's essentially an efficiency argument, not an efficacy argument. They're saying here that you're paying a premium, usually these Are pretty expensive, right? You're paying a premium to drink a smaller volume of fluid, not to get a significantly different result. And I'll kind of touch back on that as well, but the outcomes don't seem to really differ at all. Like some people. Say it feels better for the digestion. Totally great. That's fine. But overall, it doesn't seem to be that big of a difference in what's going on there. But so we're going to watch more of the video here. That's the next step here. Steak is 38% usable by the body.
Speaker 2
Eggs are, I want to say, like 41 or 42% usable by the body, and mother's milk is 48% usable by the body. So there's a wide array, oh oh, and I should say vegetable sources of protein are typically around 9% usable. By the body, which is why I really tell people to steer clear of that. You're just absolutely wasting your money.
Speaker 1
So way is to Okay, so big claims there. He's claiming that eggs are only 42% usable, and mother's breast milk is only 48% usable. And right then, there, I just want to take a big step back. Look at the 20,000-foot view, right? So. And my immediate question in my brain is: Does it make sense that breast milk, a substance designed as the sole fuel source for the most rapid growth phase of our life? That's 52% waste. Like, that's 52% waste. Like, does that even make sense? And so, that's the thing I'm thinking about here. And so, just Just please humor me here. Think about how fast infants grow, right? They literally double their body weight in about five months. And that's an insane rate of anabolism. So, you know, we have catabolism, which is breaking down muscle, anabolism is muscle building. So. They achieve massive growth entirely on a food source that claims that it is mostly garbage, right? So, if breast milk was truly inefficient, right? So, if it's really bad, the human race probably wouldn't have survived, right? We need massive, massive amounts, and that's not necessarily the case. The fact that Infants thrive on it proves that you don't necessarily need a mathematically perfect amino acid formula to achieve incredible physiologic outcomes. So, like, that's like the first, just like Once again, there's no data to support that in my, but it's just like, does this pass the common sense test? Like, we clearly don't need a perfect formula to grow and grow muscle. And so maybe we're talking about optimizing, like, hey, if you're an optimizer, that's great. I love that. I respect that. But for most people who just want to get good results and they're fine with that and not need to optimize everything, like clearly, we don't necessarily need the perfect formula. And yeah. And he also does mention plant proteins as well. I do want to address this for my plant-based listeners. He says it's 9% usable, and it seems like a really gross exaggeration, you know. Is plant protein less bioavailable than whey? Generally, yes. It does lack some amino acids and has a lower digestibility, but 9% that seems crazy. If you use a pea protein isolate, it is a pretty decent Quality index when we look at like the protein quality. You know, if you want to be really safe, a lot of times most of these plant proteins have blends. They have pea and they have soy and all these different ones to kind of get all the amino acids. And there's been lots and lots of studies showing that, hey, If you just match the amount of protein total outcomes are fine, and so I just want to be judicious with our words here: plant protein isn't just waste, it might require a little more planning, a little more volume potentially, but certainly not waste. So, we'll get back to the video.
Speaker 2
Twice as good as vegetable sources, which is still not that great. Because if you think it's 18% usable, well, okay, so you slug down a giant Shake, which probably in a liter, you know, bottle of water, and you think you're getting 50 grams of protein, but really it's only 18% usable. So you're really only getting nine grams out of that. Well, that's a lot of stuff to choke down for nine grams of protein. Like you could have done better by having a small piece of steak or a superior supplement like Fortigen.
Speaker 1
But Convenient, right? Superior supplement, like Fortigen. But I tell you, it's not about the supplement. He tells you that it's not about Fortigen.
Speaker 2
I just want people to understand. That way is not giving you what you think you're getting. And primarily, the reason it became popular was because most people buy cheap products. They don't buy good products because they don't even look into what's good.
Speaker 1
So, that is actually, I think, a very fair argument that most people just buy random stuff, whatever. Is that GNC or whatever? And I talk about this all the time: the problem with the supplement industry is that you can just put anything out there. And it can be sold, right? And who knows what happens? Is it safe? We don't know. And that's the problem with the FDA won't look at it unless there's actual health issues. And so you don't know what you're getting when you're eating supplements. So I do respect that and say that, yeah, a lot of times people just buy whatever without looking at it. As I say always, if you're going to get a supplement, please make sure it is validated by a third party, whether it's Informed Sport or NSF. The third party looking at it, batch testing to make sure that what's actually on the label is actually in what you're consuming. So that's what we're looking at.
Speaker 2
And especially when it comes to nutrition, it's mind-blowing how people can respond to words like organic. I mean, plutonium is organic. It occurs in nature. Does that mean you want to swallow some? So I don't.
Speaker 1
I love that. Completely ridiculous analogy, but it is true. Like, organic doesn't necessarily mean healthy. We have organic junk food everywhere. So, I do agree with that point as well.
Speaker 2
I don't think that judging this By any other means other than how usable is it, should really be the discussion. And I just I've just taken a position. I haven't had whey protein since I learned better, which was actually in high school.
Speaker 1
And so he's saying that. If it's not optimal, it's not worth it. That's like the ultimate goal should be that: hey, if this doesn't have this perfect amino acid profile, then you should know better. That's where I disagree in that. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good, right? We say that all the time. And also, there is literally no evidence provided that it's perfect, that this is perfect and better in any way, shape, or form, other than the two sources he kept saying. So maybe he has more. I'm sure he has more. Like, once again, he's a. I'm not. Not going to use credentials at all, anything like that. But from what I've seen in the video and the sources provided, like there's no way saying that this is necessarily more optimal for you. Right, we talked about the position statement with the ISSN. Like, can amino acids work? Can they be helpful for you? Like, yeah, absolutely. But, like, if you just eat protein and you tolerate it well, like, you're probably gonna get the same outcomes. That's that's that's I guess that's just me. I'm the minimalist, right? So, we have a maximalist world and a minimalist. I'm a hey, let's just, what do we need to do that makes sense for our lives and not spend hundreds of dollars on supplements every month? But that's that's where I sit. But hey, that's just my opinion.
Speaker 2
And I think I'm better because of it. Better digestion. And also, if you share a living space with somebody who has a lot of whey protein, they don't smell so great. Because they're always having gas. And so I just think, don't get ripped off.
Speaker 1
Don't believe it. I do love humor, toilet humor. I respect that. But he says, you know, weight causes gas. Is that the case? Like for some people, that's right, right? So let's use the real world, like real world analogy here, right? So you can have some gas, but usually it's not necessarily protein or the nitrogen causing the gas, it's the lactose. Usually, it's lactose, which is the sugar comes from dairy, right? So, if you're buying cheap whey concentrate and you're lactose intolerant, yeah, probably gonna have a bad time, and so your rumids, like you mentioned. But if you use a Pure whey isolate, the lactose is mostly filtered out, probably not going to have as much of an issue there. And so it's not about finding the most optimal things, about finding the right fit for your physiology, not demonizing an entire category necessarily. And so let's see what else he has to say.
Speaker 2
I mean, even collagen protein, which I did another video about and explained how consuming collagen protein does not at all in any way contribute specifically to your own body's ability to build collagen. That's a complete marketing lie, but it's still more usable. So, like beef proteins more usable than than whey. I think whey is probably the lowest grade other than vegetable source protein. I mean, if somebody gave me a can of whey or like pea protein, I'd probably thank them. And then when they weren't around, I'd just throw it in the trash.
Speaker 1
Hope this helped. But yeah, that's going to be the last little thing he's talking about. And so to me, this kind of brings up the SOWAT test, right? So he says, hey, I'd throw it away. And that's totally fine. Once again, I have no problem with what anyone thinks. If you watch this video and after this, you're like, Jordan, I actually want to try this. I don't care. Like, please, if you have $105 burning hole in your pocket, you want to try this, go for it. I'm not endorsing any specific clinical buy, whatever. I don't care. I just want to, my whole goal and everything that I do here is just to help point you, like, how do we think through these things? Right. So when you see these things, it seems. Like crazy, right? When someone says, Oh my goodness, could we all be wrong? Like, only 18% usable. Like, I've been wrong. This guy's right. Like, you know, he has studies here, all those things that Most people don't have the knowledge or the time, like me. I'm just, yeah, apparently a sucker, and I have time to do this to look into it. And so that's like why I do this. It's just so. Hopefully, people can see that you can understand when you break things down. A lot of times it becomes muddy, right? Because the presentation here is that whey protein bad, this specific formula good. And hopefully, I've shown you that's not necessarily the case. Some consideration back and forth. But, like, for me, it ultimately comes down to the so-what test, right? So, in medicine, we a lot of times get lost in mechanisms. But at the end of the day, I care most about outcomes, right? Outcomes are what we care about. People are taking away protein for what reason? Probably because they want to. Gain muscle. That's probably the main reason people are on there and trying to make sure they have enough protein in there. And so, outcome-wise, let's look at all the outcomes. What has happened? We have seen time and time and time and time again in literature that Eating whey protein can be helpful for helping put on muscle. Like, I think that's pretty indisputable. I think he'd agree with that as well. Maybe he's saying it's not optimal. Maybe it has some GI side effects for some people. All those things could be true. But I think ultimately, is it worth? Buying a way, way, way more expensive supplement for that, that's up to you. That's a really personal preference. Once again, my whole idea is that you are just informed. And if you feel like, hey, that extra money is worth it, you want to do it, go for it, knock your fol. I will never hold it against you to make an informed decision. And go from there. I just want you to make an informed decision and not a scared decision. That's what happens a lot on social media: hey, I'm scared. Like this person scared me into this. I got to try it. So, like, I just want to give you permission to like be normal and just live life and try to do the best you can and kind of go from there. But that's just my opinion on things. And so, hopefully, you found this helpful. If you find these helpful, let me know. I find that this is so. I think these are very necessary because at the end of the day, I think people want to understand. There's so much on social media, it's hard to understand that. And so, if you find these helpful, just let me know. I like making these. They're very helpful for me to like build reps and to look at literature and all that stuff. So I enjoy making them, but if you find that they're worthless, please let me know. But that's going to be it for today. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. If you liked this video, it'd mean the world to me. If you either liked, commented, subscribed, or shared with a friend, that'd be the biggest compliment. That's going to be for today. Now, get up your phone, get outside, have a great rest of your day. We'll see you next time. Disclaimer, this podcast is for entertainment, education, and informational purposes only. The topics discussed should not solely be used to diagnose, treat, or prevent any condition. The information presented here was created with an evidence-based approach, but please keep in mind that science is always changing, and at the time of listening to this, there may be some new data that makes this information incomplete or inaccurate. Always seek the advice of your personal physician or qualified healthcare provider for questions regarding any medical condition.
