A Critical Examination of Dietary Protein Requirements, Benefits, and Excesses in Athletes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
There is likely no other dietary component that inspires as much debate, insofar as athletes are concerned, as protein. How much dietary protein is required, optimal, or excessive? Dietary guidelines from a variety of sources have settled on an adequate dietary protein intake for those over the age of 19 of ~0.8-0.9 g protein.kg body weight(-1).d(-1). According to U.S. and Canadian dietary reference intakes (33), the recommended allowance for protein of 0.8 g protein.kg(-1).d(-1) is "the average daily intake level that is sufficient to meet the nutrient requirement of nearly all [~98%] . . . healthy individuals" (p. 22). The panel also stated, "in view of the lack of compelling evidence to the contrary, no additional dietary protein is suggested for healthy adults undertaking resistance or endurance exercise" (33, p. 661). Currently, no group or groups of scientists involved in establishing dietary guidelines see a need for any statement that athletes or people engaging in regular physical activity require more protein than their sedentary counterparts. Popular magazines, numerous Web sites, trainers, and many athletes decry protein intakes even close to those recommended. Even joint position stands from policy-setting groups state that "protein recommendations for endurance athletes are 1.2 to 1.4 g/kg body weight per day, whereas those for resistance and strength-trained athletes may be as high as 1.6 to 1.7 g/kg body weight per day" (1, p. 1544). The divide between those setting dietary protein requirements and those who might be making practical recommendations for athletes appears substantial, but ultimately, most athletes indicate that they consume protein at levels beyond even the highest recommendations. Thus, one might conclude that any debate on protein "requirements" for athletes is inconsequential; however, a critical analysis of existing and new data reveals novel ideas and concepts that may represent some common ground between these apparently conflicted groups. The goal of this review was to provide a critical and thorough analysis of current data on protein requirements in an attempt to provide some guidance to athletes, trainers, coaches, and sport dietitians on athletes' protein intake. In addition, an effort was made to clearly distinguish between "required" dietary protein, "optimal" intakes, and intakes that are likely "excessive," perhaps not from the standpoint of health, but certainly from the standpoint of potentially compromised performance.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.008 | 0.020 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".