Protein Needs Increase as we age!!

Lets face it, some people take excessive amounts of protein to ‘look good’. However, for some people, protein provides much more than that. They are looking for the health benefits. Protein, for one, improves bone health as well as increase muscle mass, resulting in an all round stronger body frame.

But let’s look into the future a little bit. About how you want to feeling in 20, 30 and even 40 years time. In my opinion, the definition of a high-quality life as we age is our ability to stay independent. And that means having enough strength to perform daily tasks.

One of the major health challenges as we get older is the decline of muscle mass and therefore, strength. A low protein intake can case this.

So, the strength and muscle mass you are building right now by working out and exercising, basically goes into a savings account that you can rely on in future years.

As we age training doesn’t get any easier unfortunately. We require more exercise and therefore more protein to achieve the same muscular adaptations as to when we were in our youth. Moore et al. (2015) showed older men are less sensitive to protein intake than younger men. They need a greater relative protein intake per meal to maximally stimulate protein synthesis in the muscle (31 grams vs. 19 grams).

By maintaining a high protein diet, you stand the best chance of maintaining or even improving your body composition and strength as you get older. If you’re healthy, a high protein diet will not have negative consequences.