JJ Virgin argues that ultra-low-protein diets ignore protein's role in muscle maintenance and longevity. Leucine activates mTOR, which builds muscle, but chronic high mTOR may increase cancer risk. Her solution: eat protein three times daily with fasting windows between, letting mTOR rise and fall naturally.
There's a huge battle in our world of health and longevity around protein. And in fact, I just got asked to be on the board of an app, and I was super excited about it. And I was like, well, what's the philosophy before I even look at this? Because I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. They go, oh, it's Trainium-based. I went, oh, okay, this will be cool. Looked at the app, very low protein. In fact, the breakfast recommendation was oatmeal and a banana. And I was like, oh darn it, can't do it. There's this idea out there that if we keep protein low, we'll keep mTOR low, and we won't get cancer and will slow down aging. Then you contrast that with the protein side that want to eat protein in pulsed amounts and then boost mTOR, because when you eat protein, there is an essential amino acid, leucine, that triggers something called mTOR that you need to build muscle. You don't want that high all the time, that could increase your risk of cancer. You don't want it low all the time, that will mean that you become frail and sarcopenic. You want to come up and down. It's just like anything in our body. If cortisol was low all the time, you would never get out of bed. If insulin was low all the time, we would be breaking down. We wouldn't be able to build muscle. So we need things to come up high at the right times, come back down when they are not needed. And that's where I come with protein, is like, eat protein 3 times a day and then don't eat in between and have a good overnight fast so you have time for your mTOR up, your mTOR down, your body rebuilding, your body breaking down. We're always in this natural building up and breaking down process, and protein helps facilitate that and make sure that we are not breaking down more than we're building up.
