We hear a lot about the benefits of higher protein diets these days, but a listener recently wrote

with a very interesting question, could eating all this protein be speeding up the rate at which

we are aging or even shortening our life expectancy? I won't give away the answer here,

and not just because I hope you'll listen to the entire episode,

but because it's not a simple yes or no answer.

Hello there, I'm Monica Reinagle, and you are listening to the Nutrition Diva podcast,

a show where we take a closer look at

nutrition news, research, and trends, and answer your food and nutrition questions. I'm glad to have you with us today.

Today's topic was suggested by Raymond, who wrote to ask, is there any evidence linking high protein diets and accelerating aging in humans.

Now this seems like a pretty straightforward question, the kind of thing you could just

type into an AI-powered search engine maybe and get a pretty thorough review of the scientific

literature.

But there's actually a bit more to this question and to the answers that you might

get, then meets the eye. First, what do we really mean by accelerated aging? Are we talking about

how long you can expect to live or how healthy you are in your older years. Some epidemiological data suggests that higher

protein intakes, more than 20% of your calories as protein, may reduce your life expectancy.

Other research, however, indicates that higher protein diets can slow functional decline and reduce frailty as we age.

Now, fortunately, we don't necessarily have to choose between quantity of life and quality of life.

There are many other factors that influence the relationship between protein and aging, such as what kind of protein foods you're eating.

High protein diets that get most of their protein from processed or charred meats, for example, have been associated with both reduced lifespan and diminish health span.

But high protein diets that incorporate more fish, eggs, dairy, and or plant-based proteins

appear to improve the odds of both a longer life and a healthier one.

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