Should you take whey protein powders or vegan protein powders if you have rheumatoid arthritis?
Clint Paddison explains how excess protein is an aggravator for Rheumatoid Arthritis and which protein powders are particularly bad for RA. Learn other ways to build muscle (and save money). For the determined gym junkie you will see a few products that Clint has used in the past occasionally.
Clint: G’day! It’s Clint here and today I wanna talk about Protein Powders whether or not they are good idea if you got Rheumatoid Arthritis and this is a very passionate topic of mine because when I was going through a lot of my early healing days and also on a raw food diet I lost a lot of weight and so during that period, I was very passionately seeking ways of gaining weight and I wanna talk about protein powders today from a great deal of experience and also from a scientific research.
The concerns of taking Protein Powder with arthritis
So, let’s first of all start with some of the concerns associated with taking protein powders because in general I find that they do more harm than good.
Let’s come over here to my little white board. I’ve put this together and I just want a big shout out to Linda here because she’s a Paddison Program client who has asked me this question about the protein powders and I want to thank her for inspiring this session.
Remember from my acronym BLAAME (Bacteria, Leaky Gut, Acidosis, Gastric Acid in the stomach, Mucosal Lining, and Enzymes) that this is the cause of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Now, within that excess protein adds acidity to the body so why would we want to add excess protein? Plant based protein, or otherwise, is all acidifying for the body. The opposite or most powerful antibody to excess protein is potassium. Assuming we’re not supplementing potassium or we’re not have a very high potassium diet, which I recommend by the way, then this protein is going to add acid to the body. Having excess protein through supplementation is definitely going to add inflammation to our body.
Secondly, we got to remember when we think about what’s going on with the RA is this undigested proteins are entering the blood stream and when they enter the blood stream they are then seen as an antigen by the body and antibody is created. Then these antibodies can then start to see that the joint lining as an enemy and also therefore begin a self-attack on the body. So, that’s the last thing we want is to adding more proteins that can become undigested and end up in the blood stream. And so, my question from a fundamental point of view whether or not you wanna be adding all these extra protein for the body to not only breakdown but also add acidity to the body and then add more potential antigens into the blood stream which aggravates more rheumatoid arthritis. So, and just for completeness, I also added here remember that excess protein is an enemy. Dietary fat causes more inflammation and simple sugars. They’re main problems. I just added these extra couple here just for the education process to be more complete rather just single out protein here.
Incidentally, you know those people who are on a crazy diet like a paleo diet might find that this is a nice reminder here and just a little you know kick-up the butts here. If you got animal products in your diet which are very high in protein and then very high in fat and even lean chicken is 30% fat because the fat is in the muscle cells so you just can’t heal on a paleo diet. I mean, you can improve cause you lose the oils, you lose the dairy for a lot of people but you just can’t heal to the point that I am talking about and what I want for my clients and I achieve myself.
How much protein do you really need?
Let’s review now how much protein we actually need. 1942, a researcher, Dr. William Rose showed that we only need 20g a day based on the maximum demand of a person based on the amino acid requirement for an individual. And they just doubled like just for fun so let’s not take any risks here so let’s double it. 37g a day is the World Health Organization requirement for the protein. That’s like 1 scoop of a protein powder if you’re not getting any protein from any other sources. Yet, there is protein in so many basically if you’re eating your daily calorie requirement, your daily energy requirement , so you’ll meeting at this then you again adding enough protein and it’s impossible not to get enough protein each day if you eat a diverse range of foods and you meet your daily calorie requirement. So, it’s that simple. Whether or not you have animals in your diet and you’re eating those bad foods and whether or not you are avoiding those foods for good health, you are going to meet your daily requirement. In fact, as I jumped down over here. Just if you only ate rice all day you would get 71g of protein. If you only ate potatoes all day you get 64g of protein. And so, the issue is not actually protein issue here if you’re underweight and if you’re trying to build strength. It’s a calorie issue. What we find is that people who are underweight or they’re trying to build strength, they’re just not eating enough food. They’ve discovered or they realized or they found that their food causes pain so people don’t need enough food. Practically when you shift on a plant-based diet you need to eat more food. This mean more physical sizes of the food or eat more often because the calorie density is lower than a high fat meat diary kind of diet.
Protein powders to gain weight
When there is a lack of muscle growth for most RA patients they’re just not exercising enough. Muscles will not grow without being used. The body only has enough muscle on it to sustain the requirements that you put up on it everyday. Because the body doesn’t want to nurture and provide fuel and nutrients and blood flow to additional muscle mass in the body. If you don’t use it, the body is too efficient for that. It wants to preserve energy and preserve its resources. So, if you are asking your muscle to grow it won’t grow. The best way if you just want to gain weight is just to engage muscles that you want to grow. Sounds simple but people don’t do it. And so while the best body parts to grow are your glute muscles which is basically your backside muscles. Your hamstrings and your quadriceps. These parts of the body are the largest muscle group if you engage those through some simple standing lunges or some walking lunges or some squats or some assisted squats holding on to a bar and going down, these will build muscle mass quickly.
Here is an example. I, when I was underweight, ate just pretty much rice, I got an mega miso meal in my program that you’re familiar with if you are a client. Or you can find out more about it if you become a client. Just by eating rice everyday and going to the gym and exercising not just my legs and lower body but also my upper body. And, by having about 2 or 3 glasses of orange juice a day, I put on about 5 kilos in under a month. I mean, huge amounts of muscle gain you’d be satisfied with that at any stage of your body-building career. It was tremendous without taking protein powders, without eating high fat or high protein foods like nuts or seeds and anything like that. It’s totally doable, right? And so I think what we all think is a protein powder requirement is actually a calorie issue getting enough energy and exercising to build muscles so that we don’t add to this excess protein which can add to our acidity in the body and also the other molecular mimicry issues that I talked about.
Whey protein powders and arthritis
The final thing to cover here is never get a dairy version such as whey protein powder. They’re disgusting, very highly aggravating to cancer and are an allergenic source of protein for rheumatoid arthritis patients. Whey is a cow milk derivative so you want to avoid this if you have an autoimmune disease.
Plant based protein powders and arthritis
What I’ve been given in the past by people I get products given to me – this stuff. This is a plant-based one after I’ve just told you that I don’t think you should but some people just you can’t teach them right. So this is one that I recommend if you are in the US. I know that this somewhere a product in the states also stocked here in Australia, so that’s a good option. Recommend that if for instance you’re really weight training or your inflammation’s under control. Really low levels of inflammation and you feel you can handle some more protein then fine. But if you are in the balance and you’re really trying to get your pain levels to a minimum each day and it’s being problematic and it’s just not going very far, this is not the stage that you’re at. You need to be at the earlier stage of the Paddison Program and working through more on the baseline foods until you can tolerate more advance foods like protein powders. The other one which is here in Australia, and again I got given this and you’ll laugh because this is actually primal protein, right? And you know that I think that Paleo diet is a atrocity to humanity but this is a primal protein so it was given to me as a gift. This is a vegan company and they are servicing the paleo market. So even though they don’t endorse that way of eating either, it’s a huge market there for people specially who go to the gym and think that you need to eat a lot of meat products to enhance their physical training. No doubt, obviously you can really bulk up on animal foods but, is that healthy? That’s a completely different question. Anyway, the point that I wanna make here is that Prana On is a fabulous very very successful and clean source of protein in Australia and they are broadening to the international market. If you can source this and you’re basically committed and determined to have protein powders then I recommend this above all else but the sun warrior if you can’t source Prana On.
Okay, let me wrap this up. First of all thanks for watching this video and if you have some questions, let me know, make a comment below this video and if you have any help that I might be able to help you with, I recommend joining our support forum. That’s the best place to be if you’d like personal help from me. So until I see you in the forum, or I create another video, all the best and happy healing! Lots of love!