#21

On the subject of muscle mass and exercise we know for sure the following: 1. all the people on the list of longest living persons were/are short petite females about 5 feet or less tall. Many engaged in non-stressful jobs like shopkeepers. 2. All the men on the list are/were 5 foot seven or so or shorter 3. None of the females on the list frequented the gym or build muscles 4. Tall people above 6 foot tall don’t make it pass 100. 5. People with large muscles don’t make it pass 100 either 6. The large muscle losses occur when people are hospitalized/bed ridden for a period of couple of weeks or more. It is hard to recover especially if you are older from such losses. I’m not discounting the value of the gym and light or moderate weight lifting especially so after such episodes and see the value. All that said in my mind conclusions are simple, keep yourself healthy by eating moderately and avoiding stress. Move often and perform physical tasks similar to shopkeepers tasks.

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#22

I think the “high protein for longevity” fad is frankly perplexing. As someone mentioned above, retaining good levels of muscle mass and strength into old age is obviously helpful, but that doesn’t require high protein. I’m 38, in very good shape (just being honest), and have been building muscle lately with no problem, and I don’t normally get 1.6 g of protein per kilogram, or whatever the recommendation is these days. At the risk of sounding like an ass, I’m going to straight up disagree with Attia, Blagosklonny, and others: you don’t need that much protein.

Now for older populations, anabolic resistance is a documented phenomenon, so I am totally willing to admit that higher levels of protein are appropriate for these age groups, and everyone is different, so I’m sure there will be some outliers who truly do need higher protein to build muscle. But for the average guy who sits around 160 pounds, 75 grams of protein a day is plenty in my experience. I’m not saying anyone should purposely limit it, but neither do I think there’s a lot of benefit in making sure you hit 120+ grams of protein a day.

In my personal experience with family members, the main problem with getting and keeping old folks strong is actually getting them to exercise, not a lack of protein.

#23

The problem with the assumption of a gradual decline in muscle mass that can be offset by a bit of effort and some protein is that the loss is not always gradual. When a person gets sick (cancer) or injured (broken hip) or has a big surgery (valve replacement), that person lies in bed for a while and loses a lot of muscle mass that is very hard to get back if he/she lost so much they can’t be mobile any longer.

We maintain extra functional capacity in order to be able to afford to lose a big chunk without going below the minimum threshold for recovery.

Think of it like insurance. If you didn’t need it, you got lucky.

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#24

Mind you, the mice in the trials ate mostly protein prior to being restricted. Unless you go full keto I don’t think it’s possible to have a protein intake that high.

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#25

To paraphrase I guy I overheard in the gym: “bro — you’re 38! Come at me when you’re my age!” (Or 83). I see personal trainers online who are 25 and keep saying “building muscle is easy if you put some effort into it!” I’m exaggerating, but I hope you see my point. The only men I see my age who have real muscles (or haven’t “degraded” are either taking TRT, HGH, anabolic steroids, or work out VERY hard (which for me I suspect seems to raise my T). The rest of us 50-year-olds are in the process of slowly decomposing. Maybe Rapamycin halts this, and we will see. But hard exercise definitely does it.

I went to the gym religiously for two straight years and got leaner and healthier, but not more muscle and not meaningfully stronger. This didn’t happen until I changed two things: lifted much heavier, and ate way more protein as a percent of my diet. I’m not a fool (usually) and I expect the heavy lifting did most of the …ummm, heavy lifting in strength/muscle building. But I don’t think that doing this with US RDA of protein was going to get me there either.

I’m unsure as to how protein impacts longevity (it seems to hinder it — methionine?). But looking around at the many elderly people I see with mobility and posture issues, I’m personally willing to give up some of my longevity objectives to live a fuller/more comfortable life (“the light the which burns twice as bright burns half as long” mentality, but only a sliver of this). I may be a special case because I watched my father suffer for 15+ years with sarcopenia that made life miserable (and I would not wish this on anyone), but I’d argue if your longevity supplements allow you to reach 100 but you are hobbling, you’ll be miserable as well. To combine these, I mix heavy lifting/ protein and separately pulse four-day fasts (and soon Rapamycin). I’m “betting” that I can move two steps forward and one step back in two separate dimensions and thus be two steps forward overall (just a theory). Also pulsing seems to be beneficial for humans as well.

These are my personal opinions about my own life and likely don’t reflect you or your protocols or beliefs. Sorry if I offended but that was just what may pass as a sense of humor for me.

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#26

Those are good points that core and back are important, any sort of back pain can be incredibly debilitating and having strong muscles here are great for maintaining posture.

I will say that I think you get greater muscle building leverage to mental effort expended when training the leg muscles, simply due to their size relative to your other muscles. My favorite exercise to do when I can’t make it to the gym is to simply do jumping squats. I find that I can reliably work up a sweat and get that soreness feeling in my leg muscles where I know I had a good workout. I find that trying to get the equivalent amount of muscle activity by doing pushups or situps takes alot more mental effort where I really need to push myself. The big exception is doing lateral pull downs, something about pulling down that bar just feels really good where I want to keep on going.

I like to recommend the leg press machine to older relatives who don’t often workout. I think they get a good bang for their buck when it comes to mental effort building their leg muscles, while the machine is safer and easier on the joints than jumping exercises.

#27

I’m not offended at all. It just seems to me like some of the advocates of high protein seem to be saying that the problem of reduced muscle mass or sarcopenia basically boils down to, or can be solved by, raising protein intake alone. I disagree. I hear you that building muscle is harder at 50+ than 38, but then at that point, it’s likely not protein that’s your problem, it’s reduced levels of sex hormones, and 200 grams of protein a day won’t do a single thing to help you there.

And then, not that this is applicable to everyone, some people start late, but ideally, you won’t be trying to build ANY muscle after 40. Your best days for that are behind you. Better to build the muscle in your twenties and then maintain the rest of your life. It’s way easier that way.

#28

@JKPrime all good points, but my question would be do I care more about absolute longevity or increased health span and does muscle mass help that?

#29

You can build muscle on a high protein diet and training even in old age.

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#30

Old people without sufficient muscle don’t have a great life expectancy. Even if they have lower mTOR activity than old athletes with high protein intake, it’s the athletes who will outlive them.

#31

We are agreed: eating protein alone will not build muscle, nor likely promote longevity. And exercise alone will likely build muscle (assuming basic nutrition). But if you are exercising, I think eating more protein might help (my experience).

Getting some male hormones (testosterone or anabolic steroids) alone will build muscle (although muscle quality may not be optimal) — I’m not yet ready to try this, but I must admit the ease of it from the outside is tempting. You’ll also get leaner ( based on what I’ve seen happen to friends). But it all works so much better when you exercise. And specifically lift (heavy resistance, with some HIIT). That is IF you want to build muscle.

If you’re not exercising, I can’t imagine your longevity will be that much better than average. But when I look at many/most longevity experts, they look more like Dilbert and less like Michael Phelps — what am I missing?

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#32

As long as we have a loose definition of athletes. I would say “active people “. I just read an article in which prior Olympic athletes were found to not live longer.

#33

I agree, and I stress again that I do not advocate intentionally reducing protein intake, I just don’t think that raising your protein intake, assuming you already get “enough,” is going to do a lot to help you. I suppose the whole point of the debate is “what constitutes ‘enough,’” I just happen to think that for most people it’s not really that high and that a lot of people can just take one or two scoops of protein a day in addition to a decent diet and quit thinking about protein altogether.

At the end, you raise another good point that I have thought of too. Most longevity experts (and, perhaps more notably) and most centenarians do not exactly look like athletes. This could obviously be correlative and not causative, but I think it weakens any argument that muscle mass must be a high priority for aging people. I don’t like saying this either, as someone who loves the gym, loves lifting, and loves the aesthetic of a muscled body.

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#34

Well I care about extending both the healthspan and lifespan. The question is how to get there. To me everyday walking and doing a few crunches and push-ups (also stretching , yoga, tai chi as alternatives) every couple of days is simple, attainable and sustainable way to maintain muscles. I think of building big muscles in a similar way as about bmi. It is good to maintain your healthy bmi. However, anything less than that and the benefits are questionable and your health focus may be better spent somewhere else.

#35

Another thing I’ve learned recently from a sigma nutrition podcast with Dr. Nicola Guess is that people with insulin resistance can have dysfunctional glucose sensing (by the pancreas) which results in an insufficient insulin response to food intake. However those people retain a sensitivity to protein which does increase the insulin response. So eating protein with carbs will improve the insulin response in those people. BCAAs seem to have the best response as I recall.

#36

Joseph_Lavelle, Can you explain some of the techniques for falling? With my falls which are rare and usually happen when hiking it happens very fast and the body and mind seem to know what to do. But, I suppose training would give the mind another course of action to take.

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#37

Generally agree. I guess the question is do you need extra after middle age knowing you’re going to lose steadily as you get older?

#38

“I just happen to think that for most people it’s not really that high and that a lot of people can just take one or two scoops of protein a day in addition to a decent diet and quit thinking about protein altogether.”

Not sure what you mean here? Standard US diet is 60-100 gms a day and 2 scoops of protein powder adds another 40. That sounds like a large amount?

#39

That’s what I mean, if you’re eating decently, one scoop of protein is around ~25 grams. I think for most people, that’s all you need and it’s really not worth spending more time thinking about after that.

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#40

@Jay I’ll look for YouTube videos and post here.