I bet the lead count in their system changed.
Oh yeah, I forgot about this. It’s going to be tough to do anything about this with the current administration in office.
Also there’s arsenic is lots of brown rice. I think the stuff from California or India is pretty safe.
Lead arsenate was a very common pesticides for decades.
More research isn’t a bad thing, but this really isn’t news. If you’re a nerd who’s into lifting you’d already know that soy protein is a top tier source of all the important amino acids for muscle gain. And it’s cheaper than whey.
It’s also not very popular because the manosphere tells men that consuming it will feminize them. Yes, really. They took the “soy boy” thing very literally and ran with it off the deep end.
People continue parroting this soy estrogen myth even years after it’s been debunked too, it’s annoying as hell. The phytoestrogen in question is more of an anti-estrogen and may be protective against excess estrogen.
If soy actually caused boob growth, the supplement industry would be all over that.
I remember about a decade ago talking about tofu recipes with a colleague who lifted and ate a protein heavy diet.
An older colleague heard us and warned us that eating tofu would cause you to have a surplus of estrogen and make you more feminine.
He was telling this to a guy built like a brick shithouse who had eaten tons of soy protein for the better part of a decade.
It’s that same old thing, something different comes along and some people just have to parrot anything that goes against that thing, even if it’s complete and utter horseshit
As a human survival trait we need to find a way to shut down misinformation. Knowledge is our path to survival as an animal. Like ants have teamwork and building, wildebeest have speed, plants photosynthesise, humans learn.
By creating and spreading misinformation you’re chipping away at pretty much the only thing that keeps us in existence.
Bit of a broad-strokes extreme takeaway from your comment there, but it got to me.
Do they forget that estrogen is also a steroid?
Yes, yes they do. Or, more accurately, they didn’t know that in the first place. These people are often just running on what are essentially old wives’ tales of things to be afraid of because it will hurt their masculinity or something.
That’s fine.
I’m a 40 year-old man and I’ll still post up next to a group of these Gen-Z pansies and put up 300 pounds on the bench with my gnarled, old man physique.
Oh I know right bro, right? Bro?
Last time I checked what’s available on my grocery store shelf, the whey protein was still the cheapest by unit.
Where I live grocery stores are a terrible example, all the plant proteins are jacked up in price with marketing about how it’s organic and vegan and will cure cancer yada yada. And then the wheys they sell are blends with low actual protein content and/or poor aminos.
I buy my protein from a bulk supplements supplier, and soy is 75% of the cost of the cheapest whey, gram for gram of actual protein content.
I recently decided to restart my routine after 8+ years of dickin’ around and this is blowing my mind right now. What else has changed? Is creatine and NO2 still a thing?
Creatine is still very much a thing, but I think everyone actually knows what it is and what it does and it’s not treated as a magic bullet any more.
Mainly what seems to have changed is that steroids and TRT have exploded in popularity, and a scary number of under 18s are doing it.
Apart from that I couldn’t tell you, it’s all happening on Insta and TikTok now and I don’t participate.
There was no control group doing the workouts without protein supplements?
There are already plenty of studies comparing results as a function of protein quantity.
Well the plant guys
So when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, instead of changing your worldview you just reject reality? Most people grow out of that by age 3, but you do you.
Just to be clear, this is about supplements. It’s doesn’t say anything about differences in dietary protein.
The actual title:
Similar effects between animal-based and plant-based protein blend as complementary dietary protein on muscle adaptations to resistance training: findings from a randomized clinical trial
this is about supplements
And supplements are largely unnecessary, so this study says absolutely bupkis.
Right, for the average person, protein supplements are unnecessary as long as they are healthy and eat well.
Athletes (and people with body dysmorphia 😬) might struggle to get enough protein in their diet. But, far too many people think they’re in a position that would warrant supplements when just a little attention to diet is sufficient.
Were these subjects athletes or were they just people who were weight training?
Doesn’t matter. The point of the research was to determine if there was a difference between animal and plant based protein supplements for adding muscle. The results would apply to anyone.
beef cake. beef cake.
Edited the title to clarify
What was the original title, just to make some of the comments make sense? I can’t seem to find a way to lookup the history
I don’t understand the distinction you’re making.
Unless the study controlled for the subjects’ regular diet and non supplement protein, its conclusions don’t mean much.
For example, if I get 100+g of protein on a typical day then, a 19g protein bar is a nice addition, but it’s in the minority compared to the rest of my protein sources.
What relevance does that have? Plenty of studies in the past have already demonstrated dietary plant protein is just as good for you as animal protein.
Huh? It’s what the research is about.
The full article is linked right here in the post. It reviews the background of why they’re studying this
What relevance does that have?
Well, exposing the click bait in the title and providing context about the actual study involved is relevant because …it exposes the click bait in the title and provides context about the actual study involved.
Plenty of studies in the past have already demonstrated dietary plant protein is just as good for you as animal protein.
This is not relevant to the context of the article, and like the vegan at a party, it’s good information but not part of the discussion about protein supplements during strength training except as an adjacent fact about diet and not about strength training directly nor supplements.
Because meat lovers.
Also FYI: if you are getting enough calories, you are almost certainly also getting enough protein. The RDA for protein is quite low, 0.8g per kg bodyweight, or about 10% of your caloric intake. You can meet this by eating just grains. However, as mentioned in the linked source, the RDA is intended to prevent nutrient deficiencies, not provide an optimal level of intake.
To gain muscle you should be eating 1-1.4 grams of protein bet lb of bodyweight
The mix of metric and fantasy units is quite infuriating
On the face of it, yeah. But since we are talking about a ratio of nutrient to body weight, there’s no inherent benefit besides ideological purity to using the same units for both sides of the ratio.
In the states, nutritional info is universally listed in grams, and bodyweight is most commonly measured in pounds, so in that context g/lb is a perfectly logical way to describe recommended intake levels.
To an American, yes.
…as I explicitly stated in my comment?
Ah nooo converting units is so difficult for my widdle iddy biddy brain pwease stawwp im gonna pooooo
no. it’s just annoying that weirdos think that using an antiquated unit system on an international medium is fine.
Fucking americans with their fucking american world centrism
Oh wow I finally get to meet the Main Character of the Universe! Can I have your autograph?
sure, please post your address
P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way Sydney, Australia
That’s a rather excessive amount unless you mean g protein/kg instead of g protein / lbs
People who exercise regularly also have higher needs, about 1.1-1.5 grams per kilogram. People who regularly lift weights or are training for a running or cycling event need 1.2-1.7 grams per kilogram. Excessive protein intake would be more than 2 grams per kilogram of body weight each day.
2g / kg = ~0.9g /lbs for reference
Yah but counterpoint: the current male obsession with protein and muscle gains is a bit of a commercialized farce. There are easier and more effective ways to make girls want to be with you.
edit: If you actually work out for yourself and your own goals, I don’t get how you would feel offended at this. Either you’re doing it for yourself and nothing anyone says matters, or your identity is tied up in a specific image and comments like mine (which is DELIBERATELY provocative you dunces) will make you feel attacked.
There are easier and more effective ways to make girls want to be with you.
This is indeed one of the main reasons people start, but it quickly switches over to working out for yourself. So while what you say is true, I don’t agree with messages of this nature because it takes away one of the strongest motivators for a lot of people to better themselves.
I’ve literally never had a serious partner tell me that me lifting was a reason they wanted to be with me, period. To me this just sounds like a bizarre fanfic scenario you read.
Going to the gym for an hour a few days a week and running a few miles on off days isn’t an “obsession”, it’s just general fitness. I get one go around this rock and one body to do it with. Being fit makes the experience much better, and makes ME feel good about my body and the progress I’ve made, damned be anyone else’s opinion.
Radical concept, but not everyone in the gym is a roided out manosphere moron trying to slay pussy because of brainwashing.
Everything about your comment would have been excellent, but by adding this:
To me this just sounds like a bizarre fanfic scenario you read.
That makes you come across as breathlessly offended and makes it all seem like defensiveness for being called out. Learn how to communicate as well as how to lift. The fact that you know the manosphere language while denying it’s a social trend that many people follow is also not lost on me.
Are you the kind of person I’m talking to/about? No? THEN CALM THE FUCK DOWN AND GO DO SOMETHING ELSE.
King, it is okay. Take a breath. No one here is attacking anyone, just dispelling potentially harmful opinions. I know for a lot of people getting into fitness and going to the gym is intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ve had quite a few women and LGBT tell me that they read comments like yours online and don’t want to try working out, because they think everyone in the gym is Joe Rogan or Andrew Tate, and that they will be mocked or hurt. This is just not even close to reality.
Most people are just there for the love of the game or for the gains, that’s it. No one who takes their fitness seriously thinks it is just an easy way to trick women, I promise you.
Fitness is for everyone and should be made more accessible, not more intimidating or off-putting, its great and improves your life. There are plenty of people like me in the gym that would readily and happily help others at the drop of a hat, no strings attached.
Actually we do it for ourselves and to look cute for each other. Wait… uh-oh.
I don’t care if girls want to be with me. I want to be as stronger than I was last week. It’s something in my life I can work towards that I actually have control over.
That sounds…unsustainable.
I’ll worry about that when I get there.
Just checking in, you good?
No but I’m strong 💪
Nobody said that was the reason.
But we all know it often is.
Yeah but not everyone has the money
Study does not say anything about the diet of the subjects. This would make more sense if it was 22 vegan men with plant-protein supplement and 22 carnivore diet men with animal-protein supplement and a control of typical diet with no supplement.
Even better is if they controlled for total protein intake, since we know that to be an important factor in muscle growth.
There are a lot of upvotes here. Why would this make more sense?
Agreed, this is a dumb comment that has no relation to the study being done, only some study they imagined in their mind.
People love to second guess scientific studies like they’re set up by complete fucking morons with no review or oversight. Truly their 10 seconds of amateur brilliance is going to see the trivial flaw no one among the team of people doing this as their actual job noticed. If something sounds obviously wrong in a science article, the source of that wrongness is almost certainly either the author of the article or you.
The author changed the title and the original seems to be what a lot of these comments are rallying against:
Making a comment about a supposed scientific error from post title alone is even stupider.
This would make more sense if it was 22 vegan men with plant-protein supplement and 22 carnivore diet men with animal-protein supplement and a control of typical diet with no supple
I read the “this” as the study too. I think the “this” is referring to the title so the comment is explaining how the title is an overreach and describing what sort of study you would need to justify a title like whatever overreach was made.
I’m guessing though
I think “this” refers to the posts original title, which was updated after some pushback from comments so now the comment I was replying to is a bit out of place
Kind of surprised, but that is really cool.
I’d be fine with being slightly less strong on a plant based diet
which supplements has the highest lead though
It doesn’t look like they had a control group of people doing the strength training without any protein supplement. I would assume that group would also perform the same.
My assumption is the non-supplement group would actually perform better. Actual food has tons of other nutrients the body uses for countless other tasks that are directly and indirectly related to muscle building
Typically protein supplements are in addition to regular food not a meal replacement when trying to build muscle.
Typically studies equate protein intake
The study participants were given protein supplements, not a dietary replacement.
Correct, and my assumption is they would perform even better if they were given that protein from food rather than from supplements
Notably, they would need to do that, otherwise the study would just be comparing higher/lower protein intake and not protein sources
That’s not what you said above, you said you thought a group with a regular diet would perform better than a group with a regular diet + protein supplements, which is why you’re getting argued with.
which is why you’re getting argued with
What an interesting way of phrasing why you personally felt the need to make it into an argument rather than simply a discussion of a point that may need clarification.
Also interesting that “what I said” is totally different from your summary. I stand by what I said. I don’t know why anyone would assume the researches comparing protein sources in this hypothetical would bafflingly allow the control group to consume less protein. Regardless, now that the clarification has been provided, do you have any interest in the topic? Or are you just in an arguing mood today?
There’s plenty of other factors that need to be considered. There will be significant differences in iron levels, b12, calcium, vitamin d, etc.
If you’re vegetarian/vegan, you absolutely need to monitor multiple other levels and take the appropriate supplements. Pretending otherwise is really dangerous.
The study itself makes none of the claims you’re rallying against.
It looks like the OP started with a title that was misleading and it has been corrected so now your post looks out of place.
You can get all of that just fine on a veg diet without artificial supplementation. Just eat a fucking vegetable dude.
Plenty of swole guys are vegetarian. Not Vegan. The difference is vegetarians don’t tell everyone.
deleted by creator
Which one is cheaper?
Can’t speak for this specific blend sourcing they used in this study, but soy protein is usually cheaper in much of the world. It’s why most protein bars use soy protein isolate
Was gonna comment this. More people need to know about this
Makes sense
Last time I looked into plant based. Like pea and rice protein. It was expensive af. Like double the price of whey per pound. Don’t know about soy pricing.
Both of those (pea and rice) are just starchy AF before processing. My best guess is that isolating pea/rice protein is a real bitch to pull off since most of it isn’t protein to begin with. Soy should be cheaper but that might be changing here real soon…
I would imagine the plant based group had more heavy metals, if given most brands
Don’t animals accumulate the heavy metals they consume from plants?
Plants naturally pick up heavy metals from the soil they grow in, generally these are rather small amounts and both humans and animals can process them. There is almost no danger in consuming plants unless the soil is dangerously contaminated (generally an industrial source, or occasionally a fluke a geography).
The problem comes with the concentrated protein supplements, as it also concentrates the contaminants. Protein supplements are generally sourced from the fruit of the plant, e.g. the bean from soy or the pea from pea. This is also where much of the soil nutrients bioaccumulate, as the plant is sending a bunch of water to the fruit in order to make it grow. When millions of soybeans are then ground up and concentrated into protein powder, the lead/cadmium/arsenic/Mercury remain behind in the powder - still in low amounts, but enough that if someone is using large amounts of the supplement daily they can be ingesting a lot more heavy metals than they are aware of.
With animal-sourced proteins, contamination is generally lower (although plenty of brands still have concerning levels) simply because the protein is sourced from places where heavy metals don’t preferentially accumulate. E.g. lead bioaccumulates in bones and teeth, cow-sources protein is generally whey (from milk) or more rarely from the muscles - both places naturally lower in lead Owing to the cow’s biochemistry.
For the record, I am a vegetarian (vegan + eggs) and use vegan protein supplements. I buy from brands which publish third party testing results on heavy metals contamination by lot to help control this exposure risk.
Most of the plant-based protein on the market is sourced from China and seems to be contaminated with high levels of lead - probably due to poor processing controls, and far in excess of natural plant or animal sources.
If it follows the chocolate heavy metal contaminants across brands, it’s likely the machinery used to grind things.
Unfortunately Chinese manufacturers have a long history of using harmful fillers in consumables, even for the non-export market so it’s hard to tell how much is accidental and how much intentional.
I dunno if I would consider that to be the norm…those people got the death penalty for what they did, after all.
They got the death penalty more for being dumb enough to get caught. Chinese goods - from aircraft parts and concrete to food and clothing have repeatedly been found to have dangerously cut corners and/or inadequately ensured product safety.
The study says they sourced their proteins from “Not Company LTDA”, which seems to be Chilean.
Oh, it’s so much worse than that - NotCo (the sponsor of the study, not just the source of the protein) is using an LLM to create plant-based alternatives to animal-based foods, such as milk, burgers, and mayonnaise. And just because they’re based in Chile, I wouldn’t take that to mean that’s where the plant protein is coming from, as they’re just the “designers” of these foods, not the manufacturers.
According to the research I read, in this community, for some reason it’s the plant protein supplements that have more
I assume you are referring to the consumer reports headlines, they have been greatly misleading. They have been using an extremely low level as their bar for concern. Here’s a recent piece talking about that
This is an unachievable safety target, significantly below the lead you get from average daily food consumption
[…]
But compared to the FDA’s more realistic numbers, 6.3 micrograms is 71.6 percent of the reference level for women of childearing age, meaning it’s safe even for at-risk individuals. For adult males, who are more likely to glug protein shakes, the risk is negligible. Children, with some exceptions, shouldn’t be consuming protein powder at all
[…]
And it bears noting that Consumer Reports’s tests showed levels of lead that were higher than tests of Huel carried out by the National Sanitation Foundation, an independent testing body, which showed that a serving of Huel Black came in under 3.6 micrograms
(https://archive.is/y6ZHk for paywall)
There is no safe level of lead in consumables. The standards being tossed around are basically about forcing government or corporate action, not about what’s actually healthy to consume.
Sure, but they intentionally built in large margins to these reference. Of course zero lead is ideal, but it’s not what happens in practice. The metric consumer reports used has a 1000x safety factor vs the FDA’s 10x safety factor
The FDA’s studies of dietary lead exposure show that the average American adult consumes between 1.7 and 5.3 micrograms daily through their normal food intake
[…]
The FDA, as part of its “Closer to Zero” campaign and using a 10X safety factor, has set its reference levels at 2.2 micrograms per day for children and 8.8 for women of childbearing age (to protect against accidental fetal exposure). This means that regularly exceeding these might pose health risks.
[…]
California’s Prop 65, however, used a far higher 1,000X safety factor (1,000 times lower than minimal known unsafe levels) to arrive at 0.5 micrograms of lead per day as its reference level.
From the same article as above
“The American Conference of Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) develops Biological Exposure Indices (BEI) as guidance values for assessing biological monitoring results in occupational settings by individuals trained in the discipline of industrial hygiene to assist in the control of potential workplace health hazards and for no other use. These values are not fine lines between safe and dangerous concentrations and should not be used by individuals without training in the discipline of industrial hygiene.” https://archive.cdc.gov/www_atsdr_cdc_gov/csem/leadtoxicity/safety_standards.html
The truth is none of the standards are based entirely on safe/not-safe levels - they know none of it is safe, but governments are hesitant to hold corporations responsible. And zero-lead is what “happens in practice” for responsible manufacturers. It’s not some unavoidable contaminant that can’t be removed.
Maybe you are correct. But I have seen hundreds of papers and claims about to not worry about this or that, since I began reading news in the 1970s. And I have noticed a trend of smart people being wrong.
I think it’s good to be cautious
No shit
Have you ever considered how many times you’ve thought “no shit” in response to something completely wrong?
Scientists: Meticulously design and implement study to develop evidence, contribute to knowledge base.
Internet Dudebro: “No shit.”
What was animal gender ?
huh?
