The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 64. Dive into the Battle of Plant vs Animal Protein for Strength and Aging with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

Key takeaways you’ll learn in this episode: Can you increase muscle span? (The number of years you have healthy skeletal muscle.) Plant vs animal-based proteins. The 4 biggest factors in building a healthy training and diet plan. Order Dr. Gabrielle Lyon’s book Forever Strong  https://www.amazon.com/shop/garybrecka/list/FCJNQHDNI27C?ref_=aipsflist_aipsfgarybrecka Get weekly tips from Gary Brecka on how to optimize your health and lifestyle routines - go to https://www.theultimatehuman.com/ For more info on Gary, please click here: ⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/thegarybrecka ECHO GO PLUS HYDROGEN WATER BOTTLE http://echowater.com BODY HEALTH - USE CODE ULTIMATE10 for 10% OFF YOUR ORDER https://bodyhealth.com/ultimate Are you concerned about losing muscle as you age? Gary Brecka is sitting down with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, the New York Times bestselling author of “Forever Strong” and the founder of Muscle-Centric Medicine®. Dr. Lyon is discussing her new concept of "muscle span,” measuring longevity not just by lifespan and healthspan, but also by the number of years someone has healthy skeletal muscle. From how much protein to eat to the quality of proteins, you’ll learn practical steps you can take through resistance training and dietary changes to prevent age-related muscle loss and maximize your muscle span! 00:00 - Who is Dr. Gabrielle Lyon? 02:15 - How to increase muscle span. (The number of years you have healthy skeletal muscle.) 04:45 - What causes muscle loss? (Sarcopenia) 09:45 - Which impacts muscle maintenance more, diet or resistance training? 11:00 - Why working out allows your body to utilize protein better. 13:00 - How much protein do you need to maintain skeletal muscle? 15:00 - Can you have too much protein? 16:30 - Are plant-based proteins as good as meat? 18:00 - The 4 biggest factors in building a healthy training and diet plan. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: @DrGabrielleLyon Gary Brecka: @garybrecka The Ultimate Human: @ultimatehumanpod Subscribe on YouTube: @ultimatehumanpodcast The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user’s own risk. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I think people believe that at some point it's too late. They've lost too much muscle. Maybe they're in their 60s, maybe they're in their 70s, and they're like, it is what it is, and I can't stop it, I can't reverse it. The truth is, neither of those is true. You can always build muscle. You can always get stronger.

We see studies, 70s and Bs, getting stronger, building muscle. If you were to pick, is it dietary protein or resistance training, which is gonna have a bigger impact on skeletal muscle? It's absolutely. When you think about what can an older person do or someone who's listening to this to improve their muscle span? Well, number one, it's understanding that.

Hey guys, welcome back to the ultimate human podcast. Today is another short, but we are going to take a deviation from our normally scheduled shorts because we have a very special guest in the house, and I thought that you guys would really like to hear from her. She's spending the night here at the biohacking palace, and we started talking, and she brought up a new concept that she was working on, and I'm like, this is so good, even though we have a podcast out there and you guys have probably seen it, maybe even read her book.

I just thought that this was such a unique thing that we should put it out there in one of my Thursday shorts. So I hope you guys enjoy this. Welcome back to The Ultimate Human, Dr. Gabrielle Lyons. This is so fun. And by the way, your place is so big, we're yelling for each other at the other,

Gary, Gabrielle, what's up? so fun. And by the way, your place is so big. We're yelling for each other at the other. Gary, Gabrielle. She's in there checking out my cold plunge. And like, so where do I find her when I get to my house? In the gym. I am very jealous about your cold plunge. I mean, this is a never ending. It's just going to never die. The cold plunge.

Yeah, we just gave the guys a plunge. Ryan just got a nasty gram from Dr. Gabrielle because she's like, you have a nicer cold plunge than I do. I can't. Don't talk to me. I love those guys. But, you know, you talk about a concept. Everybody knows you as the muscle doc. And, you know, you talk a lot about muscle in your book and how it is linked to longevity and everything and how it actually functions as an organ. Most people don't

think about muscle as an organ. I think we think about skin, liver, lungs, pancreas, kidneys. We don't think about muscle. And I love this new term that you've coined and I want to share it with the audience today. So talk a little bit about that. Well, first of all, you're the first person that I've ever spoken about this. So me and my million subscribers on YouTube. But I actually haven't brought this forward because, so my book, Forever Strong, is all about this concept that muscle is the organ of longevity. That it is above and beyond,

you found me in the gym, I'm very interested in exercise because that's fun, but skeletal muscle, your survivability from nearly every kind of disease and just in life is gonna improve with the more healthy muscle you have. Now my new concept, so my original concept is muscle-centric medicine.

The diseases- Very familiar with that. You've opened the first muscle-centric clinic. It's actually in the process right now. But my new concept is something called muscle span. We have the idea of lifespan, which is how long you live. And then of course there's health span, which is how long you live in good health.

And then there's muscle span. Yeah, I loved it so much. I was like, have you trademarked that yet? She goes, yes, I already did. The idea of muscle span, the amount of years you have healthy skeletal muscle. And really it's in three parts. It's when you're young, as you're growing up, you're training, you're building tendons and collagen and skeletal muscle.

Then of course, midlife, where you are maintaining and hopefully putting on skeletal muscle, right? Really training that system. And then the last portion of muscle span is obviously what you are doing to prevent sarcopenia. Age-related muscle wasting. That's right. You know what's astounding is, you know, in the mortality space, which was my previous career, you know, we knew that frailty in older ages

was a tremendous risk factor for mortality. And it increased the risk of all-cause mortality. Peter T. talks about this in his book when he talks about grip strength. You talk about it in your book. And I think that I'm really excited that it's coming to the forefront because I think people believe that at some point it's too late, right? They've lost too much muscle. Maybe they're in their 60s. Maybe they're in their sixties, maybe they're in their seventies and they're like,

you know, it is what it is and I can't stop it. I can't reverse it. Yeah. But the truth is neither of those is true. That's true. Right. You can always build muscle.

You can always get stronger. You can always build muscle. We see studies, seventies, eighties, eight year olds. That's what's really so exciting. We take it such for granted in, in younger ages, you know? Yeah. always build muscle. We see studies, 70s, 80s, 80 year olds. That's what's really so exciting. Getting stronger, building muscle.

We take it such for granted in younger ages, you know. Yeah. And I think that there's a way that we can prevent that. There's primary and secondary sarcopenia. Primary sarcopenia is likely from some kind of genetic issue, right? Genetic issue with the muscle. Oh, just general muscle wasting at any age. Well, I would say genetic or yeah, I suppose it would be any age. And then secondary sarcopenia would be really this idea of lifestyle causing sarcopenia, lifestyle decrease in physical activity,

unhealthy skeletal muscle, sedentary behavior. You know, sedentary behavior is not the opposite of activity. Sedentary behavior is a disease state within itself. And so there are things in which people can do and interject earlier that I think that we're missing the boat. So most people start worrying about sarcopenia. So you'll see at age 50, you might see men seem to lose it quicker. You might see 10% loss of skeletal muscle mass in a decade. So there's skeletal muscle mass loss.

There's cross-sectional area changes. There's all kinds of changes. Those are scary because you actually see the diameter of the thigh, for example, doesn't change much. The ratio of fat to muscle really changes much. When you see these cross-sectional images and of the same thigh, 10 years apart, 15 years apart, 20 years apart.

And it looks like the muscle's literally just melting towards the center. And you get fat infiltration. I think that this is all preventable. The thing about muscle span is that I think that there are some indications for youth sarcopenia. Wow. Which is crazy.

Two separate phenotypes, we don't have a standard classification of it. This is a new concept. And I think that because of how sedentary our behaviors are and the way in which our nutrition is, that sarcopenia has a youth phenotype, meaning it can start much earlier. Now, when you think about

what are the most impactful preventions, they're diet and exercise. And the other thing that I was thinking about is, we wait until menopause, or we wait until our testosterone decreases that we begin to think about skeletal muscle mass. But what happens if we thought about this five to 10 years earlier? Yeah. Yeah. You know what's amazing? In 2013, 14, 15, 16,

I was an investor in a CrossFit gym. And one of the things that they did for community outreach was they invited all the grade schools and grammar schools for free that bring kids in. And they would do basic fitness tests, like basic things like sitting down on a box jump that was 12 inches off the ground and standing up. They would do try to do fun things with the kids, dead hangs and jump lunges and things. What blew my mind, literally blew my mind,

it's seared in my mind to this day, was we brought in a class of sixth or seventh graders. And all they had to do was squat down and touch their butt to one of our little box jumps that was 12 inches off the floor. So it's 12 inches off the floor, and then just stand up. The number of kids that could not squat down and touch their butt, that looked healthy, could not just squat down and touch their butt to a 12-inch high box jump without rolling to the side and putting their hand on the floor, or without pushing up off the box jump, they couldn't get up from this hyper squatted position below 90 degrees. And man, the light bulb went off in me. And I was like, wow, first of all, what happened to physical education in public schools?

That's a whole different issue. You know, we exchanged it for God knows what, but we're not really doing PE. I had PE when I was, it was mandatory when I was in grade school. And, and just, I just thought about, wow, man, these kids are so deconditioned. Yeah. And they look healthy. So I wasn't talking about obese kids or sick kids, relatively healthy kids. And they were all excited about it and they would come in. And some of them popped down and popped up. But there was 30% of them or so that could not squat down and touch their butt and stand up.

And I was absolutely astounded by it. I mean, that's something that you'll probably never forget. And we are, I don't remember the number, but the rates of childhood obesity, it's- 45%. Yeah. Continues to grow. On prepubescent children who are obese. Yeah.

I actually just had a podcast before you got here today. So you did. It's sitting on a stat on the floor right here. And the study is cited in my previous podcast with Justin from Kettle and Fire. So this concept of muscle span, which I love that because it's sort of linking lifespan and muscle. And I think there's increasingly more evidence. And thanks to people like yourself, it's becoming more well-known. Because I think we think of muscle as vanity. And we don't think of muscle as vanity and we don't think of muscle

as a functional organ and to change our concept of, of muscle is healthy. So what is, what does muscle span really mean? It means that the length of time we have healthy skeletal muscle, the length of time we have healthy skeletal muscle, you know, and it's interesting because people think that we age in a way that is a linear decline and it's not. It's a period of catabolic crises and Doug Patton Jones was one of the original individuals that really put this together. And so when we age, it's moments of intense insult.

So someone might get pneumonia, be on bedrest for five days or break an ankle or a hip. There's a series of catabolic crises. And as people age and if they don't train, you know, training is a much bigger stimulus than diet. But 100% of people eat. If you were to pick, is it diet, resistance, is it diet, dietary protein or resistance training which is going to have a bigger impact on skeletal muscle it's absolutely training you cannot however build and maintain healthy skeletal muscle without dietary protein right so the two go hand in hand

but when you think about what could an older person do or someone who's listening to this what could they do right that's exactly what i was going to ask you. To improve their muscle span. Well, number one, it's understanding that resistance, that all movement has to be incorporated daily. Right. It's not, you don't work out for an hour a day and then you sit. You're moving, you're walking, you're doing whatever it is that you're doing as active as you can be right understanding that when you do activity you have now sensitized your muscle to dietary protein and this is you know the hormetic stress causing the muscle to call for protein well for technically for amino acids um well from my understanding is when you contract skeletal muscle, right? There's this four real

inputs into skeletal muscle for muscle protein synthesis, which is in essence what we would consider a biomarker for health, which is, you know, we don't directly get muscle protein synthesis and then put on muscle. It's not a one-to-one, but what we believe is, is if you do resistance training and it could be something very simple. It could be just stretch related. Body weight exercises. Right, so yes. And then have dietary protein, older muscle responds like younger muscle.

Really? Yeah. So it engages in hypertrophy and hyperplasia. It has a muscle protein synthetic response like a younger individual. And really the hallmark of this was Kat Sanos' work really showed that a young individual will respond to, let's say, protein, dietary protein, will respond to nearly any stimulus of protein. Maybe it's 10 grams, maybe it's 20. But an older individual, when you

give them 20 grams of protein, they won't respond. But if you exercise them first and you exercise their muscle and then give them dietary protein, their muscle responds like a younger muscle. Wow. And so it then goes through this, it has this muscle protein synthetic response, and it helps overcome what we call anabolic resistance or aging. And so old muscle can respond like young muscle. I mean, it makes a lot of sense.

If you don't load a bone, it doesn't strengthen. If you don't actually strain a muscle, it doesn't grow. If you don't challenge the immune system, it weakens. And so this is back to the basics of a hormetic stress causing the body not only to strengthen, but causing it to call for certain nutrients. And it sounds to me like in older ages, it's increasingly more important

to not just feed yourself protein. And I think there's some indications that I've been reading lately that we actually need more protein in older ages. Even Dr. Walter Longo, who I interviewed a few months ago at University of Southern California, talked about the increased need of protein in older ages. And not just the need for protein, the increased need for increased protein in older ages.

Yeah. And so that's absolutely right. We know that the current recommendations are based on 25-year-old healthy males, 0.8 grams per kg or 0.37 grams per pound of body weight. That is the minimum to prevent deficiencies. And one has to recognize it doesn't take into account the quality of the protein, where the protein comes from, doesn't take into account the various amino acids that we need. And so as we age, the big thing with aging is impaired protein turnover. Protein turnover is muscle, is enzymes, is you name it, hormones, anything, any structure, any compound in the body, but- Made from amino acids.

From amino acids, a gut hormone, gut turnover, liver, intestines. Impaired protein turnover is a real problem with aging. We turn over around 300 grams of protein a day. We might ingest 100, which means the body's responsible for making up the rest. And as we age, that process becomes less efficient. And so it's making up the rest by assembling that protein from amino acids.

So if you're amino acid deficient, it can't assemble a protein. Very good point. I was talking to someone the other day about target-specific protein and saying that you really can't target tissue in the body with protein. For example, we don't eat our nails to grow our nails. We don't eat our hair to grow our hair. We can't eat collagen and have it show up as collagen. It will show up as amino acids, but not as collagen. But then we got into the whole discussion about the protein turnover, if that's the right term. You take in 30 grams of whey protein, you assimilate about a third of that, roughly. And so do you think that there are certain proteins that people should be eating

that have higher bioavailability? What about people that are vegans or vegetarians? Should they be supplementing with protein? Should they be supplementing with amino acids? I think that these are all good questions. And I would say we digest and absorb all the protein that we take in. So if someone takes in 100 grams of protein, they digest all 100. Where I think the concept of a meal threshold or an amino acid threshold comes in is really targeted at skeletal muscle. For example, to simplify this,

if someone eats 55 grams of protein, let's say 50 to 55 grams of protein, then you've now maximally stimulated skeletal muscle because of, again, these different amino acids. We'll say leucine is a primary, which is an essential. When that happens, is there any benefit above that 55 gram? Not for muscle per se, but for the rest of the body. But you would certainly absorb all of it.

Now, the question becomes, how do we design a real life diet that's valuable? And could you eat plant proteins and get enough? You could, as long as you eat more and maybe closer to 1.6 to 1.8 grams per kg, if I was gonna give a number. And why would you say more? Because it's less bioavailable and turns over to less essential amino acids.

Both of those reasons. So you have less bioavailable and turns over to less essential amino acids? Both of those reasons. So you have less bioavailability. You also have a different amino acid profile. Whereas, for example, the bioavailability from eggs would be roughly 100%. It's highly bioavailable protein. The protein from meat or fish, it's all highly bioavailable.

Plant protein is typically, aside from an isolate, which an isolate has a higher bioavailability because it's just an isolate, is bound to fiber. Right. Bound to some plant source. So when we think about what is practical information that we can tell people to improve their muscle span, it really is twofold.

Pre-treat the body with resistance training. Always do resistance training. And, you know, we can come back to zone two cardio. I don't necessarily believe that the kind of volume that people are talking about is going to be healthy for aging. I think that joints and things wear down. The other component is how do we design a diet that is meaningful for muscle span?

And that would be, you could easily say one gram per pound ideal body weight. One gram per pound, okay. The next question would be how do you dose it? And the evidence would support that first and last meal being the most important. First meal between 40 and 50 grams, last meal could be the same.

That middle meal is really just to get your protein in. And then the third component would be where is the quality of your protein coming from? Can you stimulate skeletal muscle purely by plant proteins? Absolutely. You just need more. And then the next question is,

is it just a protein conversation or are there things like creatine and zinc and B12? I just recently started taking creatine. I got to say, I do feel pretty good. Just five grams. So five grams is good for muscle. And Darren at Kanda's work would say that 10 to 12 grams is good for brain. Really? Well, I'm going to 12 grams is good for brain. Really? Mm-hmm.

Well, I'm going to triple my creatine for sure. He would actually be a wonderful guest, Dr. Darren Kandao. He's amazing. Dr. Darren, you're invited onto the podcast if you see this. Shout out to the doctor. He's a creatine expert. Oh, is he a creatine expert? Yes.

That is what his research is in. So I think that we have to think about how do we design a diet that is important and manageable for muscle span and that is clearly based on dietary protein, whatever the source is. And then thinking about if you are aging, then the nutrient density has to be higher. Where are you getting the protein? I think that when you are younger, you know, and this is just my perspective. If you are younger, you have more flexibility to be vegan or vegetarian. As you age and your calorie consumption goes down, then you really have to think about how are you going to design a diet that perhaps is easy to follow and has a lower total calorie load with high quality protein. And in the case of being vegan or vegetarian, just develop a supplementation regimen that helps you make up for the deficiency in protein.

It's not that you can't do those things. That's right. You can absolutely do those things. And then the other thing is, you know, we don't train to become better at exercise. Right. We train to become better at life. Right. And so how do we design a training program that will take us through the different phases of muscle span. When you're

young, you can pretty much do whatever. It is really important to train tendons and be, you know, be out there. Do you mean like functional movements? Yes. So where can my audience that hasn't seen the podcast that we did together, where can my audience find you? You can find me at drgabriellelyon.com. And that's L-Y-O-N. That's right. I have a great podcast, The Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show, a New York Times bestselling book, Forever Strong. Thank you for your support. Which I have read and we have hosted you about your book on the show. Yes, thank you for the support.

So my website, oh, you know what? I also have a clinic with providers and nutritionists and they can learn all about it. And we actually have a community which was inspired by you. Last time I was here, remember? Really? That's amazing. You're telling me all about it. And we actually have a community, which was inspired by you. Oh, thank you. Last time I was here, remember? Really? That's amazing. You were telling me all about the community that you have. Yes, I've got the rule brackets.

So we have a community. They can learn all about it on my website, drgabrielyne.com and Instagram, all the places that you can find me. I'm sure I forgot something. Where's your clinic? So it is remote. Okay.

We have a remote clinic. We're opening one in new york and i see patients in person in houston wonderful guys please check out dr gabrielle lion check out the podcast that we did with her and her podcast show the dr gabrielle lion show and as always guys that's just science