Does Protein Distribution Matter?
Most people understand that they should aim to eat a certain amount of protein per day.
This ideal range of daily protein intake varies from about 1.6 grams of protein per kg of bodyweight to 2.2g/kg, depending on activity levels and whether or not you resistance train.
The more active you are, the more protein you need to fuel your muscles.
The benefits of protein are well known and well-researched.
However, recent research suggests that perhaps we need to be paying attention to other metrics other than just a daily minimum requirement.
If you want to improve your body composition and/or build muscle, your goal would be to optimize muscle protein synthesis (MPS).
Most people think this means eating as much protein as humanly possible in one sitting, however the research shows that protein seems to have a threshold for its usefulness.
The protein consumed on one meal will reap massive benefits for your muscles, until a certain “threshold” amount of protein is consumed. After that, the ‘ROI’ of the protein consumed appears to drop-off.
The Research
There was a study conducted by Daniel Moore that tested this concept using whey protein. They grouped participants into 3 different groups, with each group having a different timing distribution of protein over 12 hours.
All subjects consumed 80 grams of protein within this 12 hour timeframe. However, one group consumed 4 meals with 20 grams of protein in each meal, the other group had 8 meals of 10 grams of protein per meal, and the final group was given two meals with 40 grams of protein per meal.
Muscle biopsies were obtained at rest and after 1, 4, 6, 7 and 12 hours after exercising in order to measure the participant's MPS levels.
Consistently, the greatest MPS was found in the group that ate 4 meals of 20 grams each.
The group that ate only two meals, each with 40g of protein, actually showed lower MPS levels than the group that ate 4 meals.
What does this tell us?
Well, it suggests that distributing protein consumption throughout the day is an important variable in regards to maximizing lean muscle mass.
The daily minimum intake of protein is still important. However, if you lump your total daily intake into 2 meals - you may be losing out on gains.
The researchers recommended ingesting moderate amounts of protein at regular intervals throughout the day.
This could look like 4-5 meals with 20-30g of protein each in order to maximize protein metabolism.
There are a few caveats, however.
The study was only done on resistance-trained males. This means there were no female or untrained participants included.
Additionally, they used whey as their sole source of protein. They did not include any casein or egg proteins. This is important because whey has the fastest absorption rate out of all of the protein types. Both whey and casein absorb at a slower rate.
The effects this “absorption rate” has on muscle protein synthesis are unknown.
So this study leaves us with a few questions, but the most important being that if they used casein or slower absorbing proteins, would the same results occur?
Or if you consume larger portions of casein protein over longer periods of time (let’s say 40g over 4 hours), will you have the same effect on MPS? Worse? Better?
There are a few studies that attempt to answer this for us.
More Research..
A study by Wilborn found no difference in lean mass gains in trained WOMEN after 8 weeks of pre- and post-resistance exercise supplementation with either whey or casein dose.
Similarly, a study done by Fabre found similar results in trained men. He tested various ratios of whey and protein consumption post-exercise, which resulted in no variance in lean mass gain between the groups.
So for both men and women it seems that there is no difference in MPS in relation to casein or whey protein in 20g portions over a long period of time.
There are studies that measure higher peak MPS after consuming whey, however it is important to note that in the long-term this was not an important factor.
However, this doesn’t tell us whether casein protein, if consumed in larger quantities, can increase MPS over longer periods of time than whey.
Even though the research is not 100% complete with the information we have, most researchers conclude that it is best to consume your total protein intake through meals spaced out throughout your day.
Since absorption rate doesn’t seem to have a great effect on MPS, you should aim to focus on getting enough protein consistently. You should also try to spread out your protein requirements throughout your day, and prioritize it before and after workouts. The quality of protein also seems to be important.
