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News and Views: When Is Too Much Protein a Bad Thing?
Posted on March 10, 2014 by Stephanie Tammen | Categories: MD Lesson1-5, MD Lesson1-6, MD Unit1, Metabolic Disease, News | | Add comment |

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You probably already know that nutritional needs change as we grow older. A healthy diet for an infant, teenager and older adult can all differ dramatically since the body is in different stages of growth. A new study highlights one of these dietary differences and how consuming it at different points in your life may actually change overall health: protein. In this study researchers found a correlation between the amount of protein study participants ate and cancer and premature death. In middle aged people, a low protein diet was associated with lower incidence of cancer and overall mortality, but in older aged adults it was the high protein diet that associated with health. Why would protein needs change so much as we grew older? It may be that a certain molecule in our body that triggers growth is not as responsive to protein intake in older age, so we need more protein to activate it. Read more about this study and the explanation at NPR’s coverage here.