Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 00:00

Who you are, and the idea that skipping breakfast is fine, or that does not matter. This is just an opening hook. So, basically, we have a whole, as you know, math been with me for four years.

Dr. Don Layman 00:10

So, so the dietary guidelines call it a goal,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 00:13

okay?

Dr. Don Layman 00:14

They’re not saying the requirement changed, they’re not saying that the RDA changed, they’re saying this is a goal for healthy protein intake,

Dr. Heather Leidy 00:23

and this is something, too. We get asked all the time, they have – we probably have about 10 things that are flawed. So, I, in the lit, like,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 00:30

okay, well, let’s cover it all. I also have your questions. I mean, I was going to read it,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 00:33

but I

Dr. Heather Leidy 00:34

just deferred to you, and I got really busy, so I didn’t submit it, so I’m sorry. But I figured you’re probably covering everything.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 00:39

No, I have – I have what I believe to be, as I mean, I mean, I’ve never thought about protein before, but I think that I have everything

Dr. Heather Leidy 00:50

right. We always talked about this. The two biggest ones is that the record, you can’t have the saturated fat at 10% and still advocate for high protein, so that fundamentally, that’s what they always ask. Dieticians, even physicians, are asking that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 01:03

Okay, we are going to start with, I’m just going to let you guys take the floor, but I’ll just tee it up. I’m just going to say that Heather, you were, had you’ve been on the guidelines. This is your second time in the guidelines, or third, second.

Dr. Heather Leidy 01:13

So, okay, we need to establish, because we were not on the guidelines,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 01:16

okay?

Dr. Don Layman 01:17

We were consultant to the,

Dr. Heather Leidy 01:19

we were contractors,

Dr. Don Layman 01:21

contractors, that’s right, contractors

Dr. Heather Leidy 01:23

were government contractors, experts in the field of protein, and we’re asked to develop a scientific report.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 01:31

I’m going to protein, I’m going to let you guys,

Dr. Heather Leidy 01:34

and we don’t mean this, it’s just it’s a weird

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 01:36

NBA thing, and

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 01:38

of course I know, I mean, listen,

Dr. Heather Leidy 01:40

but I’m trying to figure out how do we say it though, so it makes it look like we were on, like I was on both. We contributed. Why don’t you say contributed?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 01:49

Okay, great.

Dr. Heather Leidy 01:50

That I, and that we both contributed the 2025 but then I also..

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 01:53

well, he didn’t contribute to 2025

Dr. Heather Leidy 01:55

Well, we did. We contributed our scientific

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 01:58

to the

Dr. Heather Leidy 01:59

2025 dietary guidelines,

Dr. Don Layman 02:00

it’s 2025

Dr. Heather Leidy 02:02

to 2030

Dr. Don Layman 02:02

is what we did.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 02:04

Yes, yes, but it was January 2026 that they released the new,

Dr. Heather Leidy 02:09

but they, that’s when they were just released. Yeah, I just don’t want to shut down, no, yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 02:13

there’s

Dr. Heather Leidy 02:13

just

Dr. Heather Leidy 02:14

nuances, and I don’t want to have to chime in and say

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 02:16

we don’t want

Speaker 1 02:17

to do that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 02:17

All right, well, but here’s what you can do, is because it’s so important that we get this right, you can be like, right, you’re gonna stop. It’s so important that we get this right, that you’re gonna be like, all right, you’re probably right, maybe stop. Yes, too important. Yeah, so basically, if I say something wrong, you interrupt me, we’ll backtrack a couple sentences, I’ll say something, something, something, I’ll shut them up, and then you guys will say something, okay?

Dr. Heather Leidy 02:44

And then just so we’re not overlapping, I will always defer to you first, but you can always

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 02:48

hear, right? It

Dr. Heather Leidy 02:48

depends. I mean, yeah, I don’t. And then I’m happy to chime in second, unless it’s related to the process,

Dr. Don Layman 02:53

sure,

Dr. Heather Leidy 02:54

or to,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 02:54

we have something to add. But yes, also have different.. I just mean that way

Dr. Heather Leidy 02:57

we’re not like trying to jump into.

Dr. Don Layman 03:00

we’re trying to figure out for our

Dr. Heather Leidy 03:02

this is a good run.

Dr. Don Layman 03:04

Jeff shows that are coming up as how we’re going to do this,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 03:07

and what is the date of the protein summit? That’s August.

Dr. Don Layman 03:10

August, it’s 1213

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 03:12

because we should up, you should put that in your calendar for August 12 and 13th,

Dr. Don Layman 03:18

might be 1112

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 03:21

and that’s in California. Where’s that? No,

Dr. Heather Leidy 03:22

it’s in

Dr. Don Layman 03:23

A and L.

Dr. Heather Leidy 03:24

Yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 03:24

College Station. Can you, can you just put that in there? What we’ll do is, we’ll set up interviews. I think that I should help introduce people. I do, because it would kind of soften the.. I mean, I, no offense, I watched Theresa Davis

Dr. Don Layman 03:39

lobby. Yeah, she’s awful,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 03:40

and I was like, oh my god, it’s a protein

Dr. Heather Leidy 03:45

summit.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 03:45

Three point,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 03:45

I know you guys think that someone else should do it, but I’m sorry. No,

Dr. Heather Leidy 03:49

we never said that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 03:50

You guys are ever.. I love you guys, little boring when it comes,

Dr. Heather Leidy 03:53

and I would say Shailene is on board between us, but it’s not that

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 03:57

it would just be better to have.. I’ll talk to Shaleen about it. Okay? Ready?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 04:01

Yeah, we’re all ready to go. what’s

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 04:05

up, friends. I’m Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, and this is a.. I’m just chewing gum. What’s up, friends? I’m Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, and this is a very important episode of the show today, we have two world-class protein experts in the house, Dr. Donald Layman. Never met him before. For those of you that don’t know, he’s my mentor of 25 years. Dr. Heather Leidy, who is an amazing, amazing scientist, also in the protein metabolism space. You’re both here today because I enjoy your company, primarily, but secondarily, the US government released the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans. That, in my opinion, has been the most significant change that we have ever seen in the dietary guideline history. These dietary guidelines. Lines cover 2025 to 2030 We are getting old, and they come out every five years. Care to discuss the changes, and actually, before that, perhaps your roles, so we can just set the stage.

Dr. Don Layman 05:20

Our role was as protein experts. We were asked to provide expert input into the HHS staff, who was really putting the guidelines together. So we were officially contractors to the Health and Human Services group,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 05:42

other Heather, same,

Dr. Heather Leidy 05:44

yeah, same. I mean, just for a little bit more visibility. I mean, we were contacted, much like, and you haven’t mentioned it, but I was also on the, I was on the 2020 dietary guideline advisory committee in the past, and so you know, when I was contacted with this, maybe a slightly different interaction on the front end, but you know it’s the same thing. There’s experts that get contacted to do certain things, and for us it was, and Don and I independently got contacted, and you know we expressed our area of interest, our expertise, and we were asked to develop our own questions about protein, and so what you see that then led into that informed the 2025 dietary guidelines, which is based on questions that Don and I put together, did the scientific review, and then you know completed our report.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 06:29

There seems to be a ton of controversy around this set of guidelines. Any thoughts as to why that

Dr. Don Layman 06:37

is? As you started out, it’s a significant change, I think for 45 years we’ve had guidelines where the sort of the fundamental principle evolved from avoiding saturated fat or cholesterol. I think that these guidelines have reprioritized the way you think about diets and how you’d structure it. I like to think of them as sort of a decision tree, so before the guidelines were all about what you should avoid and really aimed at eating a lot more carbohydrates and particularly refined grains. Now we’ve reprioritized it toward nutrient dense protein foods, and then making the rest of your decisions from that, so we’ve kind of shifted the priority of how you think about putting diets together.

Dr. Heather Leidy 07:24

Yeah, I would just say there’s the science part of it that might be the one that has caused the most buzz, but it also could just be the difference in the process. And so I think we are just back and forth of knowing really what it is, what has caused the most concern. And so you’ll hear the terms transparency, there’s a lack of transparency with this, and I would say if you go back to the reports that most people just don’t read, because they inform the guidelines. There was transparency in that process. There was rigor in the process, but it was different than the previous guidelines. And then, when you go back to look at the previous guideline framework, every iteration is a bit different. Sometimes experts are chosen on the front end, some they’re on the back end. Questions are asked by HHS or USDA. Sometimes the experts ask the questions, and so I think for us, I would say most of the scientific community, where the concern is, is this lack of transparency, where if you go back to the reports, there is a list. The transparency, I think, happened a little bit later on, whereas the other guidelines, the transparency was very early on, and so everybody understood the timing. There were public meetings, and for this one, that just didn’t happen in terms of we didn’t have that public interfacing. But the end game, you’ve said this all the time, the science is still there. The science has come out, it’s rigorous. We went through the very similar processes that we always have, so I still am trying to figure out, is it really the, you know, the recommendations themselves that are creating the bigger concern, or is the transparency, and I think it depends on who you ask. I think it’s that scientists have one one angle, because I’ve had a number of conversations with them, and that’s very different than if you’re talking about, you know, the pyramid, and the pyramid is then a separate one, right, in terms of what do we think about the pyramid. So, I think that’s just something we have to wrestle with because there’s two things that are playing into this,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 09:03

and do you think that it’s safe to say that there’s the process, which is over here in a bucket, and then there’s the end result of protein recommendations being 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kg. Right now, the saturated fat recommendation hasn’t changed, so there’s a series of protein, saturated fat, carbohydrate recommendations, there’s that, and then there’s the process. What I believe, or what I am seeing, is that if you can’t argue the science, meaning if you can’t dispute that 1.2 grams per kg of protein is better than point eight, let’s say that it is better. There’s a whole list of things that one couldn’t dispute in the science. If you can’t dispute the science, then maybe you’ll go after the process. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Dr. Don Layman 09:58

Yeah, I mean, I think. Process is always a good complaint. It’s an easy complaint, an easy stone to throw. As Heather was just saying, the science that we used is all there, and if people want to debate that, you know it’s there. You know, I think a lot of the things from the previous guidelines are still in the guideline again, we’ve just reordered it, I think, in the saturated fat, as you pointed out, that that guideline of 10% hasn’t changed, I think it should, but it hasn’t changed, but what we did was we changed it from a food focus, a defining aspect of how you demonized individual foods to making it a diet criteria, and so now you look at, you make your choices about foods, for example, whether it’s milk or eggs or meats, and then you can assess where you’re at in your, in your fat or saturated fat guideline, and decide, you know, how you’re going to proceed. Before it was a case where the saturated fat guideline we used to say eggs are unhealthy because they had 19% saturated fat, even though it’s only 1.6 grams, which is almost irrelevant. So I think the biggest change in how we dealt with fat is we shifted it from being a food target to being a diet target.

Dr. Heather Leidy 11:19

Yeah, and I would just say it goes back to one, it’s even to your first point that with visibility, and I think it’s for us as nutrition scientists interesting that people, everybody’s talking about it, neighbors, people at the store. I was at the airport and there were eight year olds behind me talking about the new pyramid, and so nothing else. It’s cool that we’re starting to have a re-emphasis on nutrition first and foremost, and then if you go back to the principles of eating real food, like conceptually that makes sense, and then you have to get down further, right? And so the only thing I would say with the protein piece, and we’ve talked about that, it’s more that this has just been highlighted and prioritized, but we didn’t actually change anything that’s been in there fundamentally, didn’t change the RDA, that was not even the intent, it was establishing a healthy range, and when you think about protein, it’s protein as a nutrient versus protein as a food, right? And the dietary guidelines are foods, but we can’t start looking at studies based on a food because every food has a different protein matrix, a protein amount, and so you have to go back to look at how much protein is a certain food in a dietary pattern, and so it’s just interesting, because if you look at the three previous dietary guideline patterns, almost all of them had a protein range of what we found to be effective from the science, but yet that just never got conveyed. If you look anywhere on the previous guidelines, it never even highlighted protein, even though those patterns included about what, 1.2 to 1.4 grams of protein per kilogram body weight, so it’s, it’s always been there. I think that we were able to do the scientific review for healthy weight, for weight management, to say, well, this is the range that we can see that we know is effective, and then prioritizing that first and foremost in dietary patterns. And so people think it’s this big shift that we’re eating far more protein, and it isn’t, it’s always been there. It just has been overlooked, and people aren’t consuming it. It could be for a lot of reasons, right? It could be that it’s because it’s never been highlighted in the guidelines, and so, or people were, you know, really being recommended to shy away from eating those types of foods, and now we’re just bringing attention back to the idea of starting your diet, your meal with protein,

Dr. Don Layman 13:20

and it doesn’t, it doesn’t necessarily suggest that everybody should be high protein. It just simply says that, based on body composition data, based on nutrient density data, we know that if people get into that 1.2 to 1.6 range, their likelihood of being adequate is really good. What

Dr. Heather Leidy 13:39

we want to just go back to this, you just said about high protein. Yeah, well, think about that. Are we is even one point to 1.6 considered high protein based on the AMDR?

Dr. Don Layman 13:47

Yeah, I mean, people use those terms loosely all the time, you know. It is a higher protein, but the reality is the RDA is a really low protein diet, and you know, as Heather said we didn’t, we didn’t change that in any way. I think we maybe mentioned the RDA once in the entire report, so we didn’t do that, but I think it’s important to recognize that the previous dietary guidelines over the last 20 years have progressively diluted out the protein, even to the point of creating a protein ounce equivalent exchange concept that was totally false, so the guidelines actually diluted it out and obscured the fact that they were diluting out the quantity and quality of protein, and and I think we’ve just shifted the stage back to focusing on the protein based on its quality,

Dr. Heather Leidy 14:40

because it’s interesting, like the patterns have more protein, but then when you read the dietary guideline recommendations, it isn’t. It’s about shifting away from a protein focus that most will say the quotes where you’re eating enough protein, so it’s that in and of itself is contradictory, because what’s in the patterns is actually not what is conveyed within the reports, and then the shift of. Moving away from animal source proteins to plant proteins is not really, it’s not substantiated in any randomized control trial or high quality evidence. Yet they were still over time has been this push to really almost try to remove a lot of the animal based proteins as part of the diet,

Dr. Don Layman 15:15

and just like the misuse or obscure use of the word higher protein, enough protein just simply means that people were exceeding the minimum RDA. There’s no evidence that that is enough. It’s enough for nitrogen balance, but I can’t think of any health outcome that relates to nitrogen balance. People argue that they can’t see a change in lean body mass at the higher, you know, the 1.2 to 1.6 but I can’t think of a single health outcome that relates to nitrogen balance either. So

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 15:48

I want to just jump here, jump in here, and mention something, because I came to both of you, I had this experience where speaking to other physicians, what I have continued to hear are statements like the following: Americans are eating 1.1 gram of protein per kg, so the RDA, which is set at the minimum is point eight, Americans are eating 1.1 that there’s no data to support really higher than that point eight gram per kg, this is again, so

Dr. Don Layman 16:24

just to stop at that, that’s the average at 1.1 so that means 50% of people are above that, and 50% of people are below that, the question is, when they’re below that, where they actually at, we know that 20% of women over 60 are actually below the RDA

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 16:42

and and because of this, these statements, and what I have heard you say, and what I’ve heard you say is I went into the physician database. We have databases that only licensed physicians can use, and the goal of this data is that it’s really tier one information, it doesn’t come from blogs, it doesn’t come from anywhere. So I put something to the effect of show me the evidence in randomized control trials that a higher protein diet above point eight grams is going to be beneficial, and I wanted to share with you what I found, because as a physician who studied nutritional sciences. I’m reading this, going.. I can’t believe what I’m reading, but there must be some validity to this. This says key long-term randomized control trial findings: JAMA Internal Medicine 2018 trials, one of the few longer duration studies, six months directly comparing point eight grams versus 1.3 grams per kg a day in functionally limited older men, despite adequate power and rigorous methodology, higher protein intake did not increase lean body mass, muscle strength, power, physical function, or quality of life compared to the RDA, and I know what you’re saying, and but for the listener, or the viewer, or the other physician, or someone else, and again, this, this then went on to have multiple more statements, for example, here a 12 week RCT examining prolonged adaptation to low versus high protein intake found that basal muscle protein synthesis rates were maintained and did not differ between groups, and this next statement is this suggests potential metabolic adaptations to lower protein intakes over time. And then just one more, and I’m going to open the floor. 2024 randomized control trial in healthy older adults, 12 weeks found that increasing protein intake by 20 grams daily, whether plant or dairy-based, resulted in no significant increase in muscle function, blah blah blah blah.

Dr. Don Layman 18:52

I mean, if you go out and cherry pick studies, you can always find something, probably to support your bias. I mean, there was a paper I just read yesterday that was from the lease study, El is out of out of Great Britain, and they did the exact same sort of study, followed 530 people for a 10 year period, and they found that, and these were, I forget the exact age, but 65 plus, and they found that functional mobility, walking speed, strength, numbers of falls, morbid morbidity, and mortality all improved in individuals who were above 1.1 So, you know, they chose to cherry pick something. Okay, I’ll cherry pick one on the other side. The reality is, is that we know that there are a lot of people on very low protein intakes, and we think that from the science that we know about body composition, about healthy lean body mass, that the higher protein, when combined with lower carbohydrate diets, is very beneficial. Show,

Dr. Heather Leidy 20:00

so I would just say it depends on many things, right. And you, the first one you talked about, it was in older adults who were physically impaired as we age, or they weren’t healthy individuals, they also weren’t doing limited functional functionality. So it’s that piece, right? So you have to do with the life stages, and then also the health status of someone right, and we start looking that these studies are very, very different in nature, and so to your point, when you say about people cherry picking studies, that’s why you go back to something like a systematic review or a meta-analysis, right? That’s why the dietary guidelines, whether it be the previous ones or the current one, was founded in taking the totality of evidence, making sure that the criteria are very specific, and looking at the outcomes, you know, if you’re looking at muscle protein synthesis, very different than functional strength or lean mass, you know, we looked at it from healthy weight, most people think of weight management as weight loss, but that was expanded, it’s healthy weight, weight loss, or preventing weight gain, and within that, it’s looking at body weight, fat mass, and lean mass, and so you have to know what outcome you’re even looking at, and so I would say, and I’m blanking right now, I think there’s 15 meta-analysis that are out there looking at increased dietary protein on health outcomes, and 100% of them either show a beneficial effect on the health on the outcomes of interest, or no difference between normal and high. None of them, to my knowledge, at this point have studies that show a detrimental effect of having more protein at that level, and I would say I think most of those only go up to about 1.8 but even so, on the higher end, you just don’t see any detrimental effects when you’re looking at increasing protein. Most of these sub out carbohydrates usually refined carbohydrates for high quality protein, and so I think that’s the problem. It’s unfortunate that in that physician’s

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 21:44

database, and this is,

Dr. Heather Leidy 21:45

they don’t, why they’re not using meta-analysis.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 21:48

This is why I bring it up, because I’m assuming this is an unbiased computer system. We’re really gonna piss her off and just blow her mind today, because I couldn’t. I couldn’t sleep. I was so upset, because I feel for my fellow physician that doesn’t have access to individuals like you, that when I call you and I’m really upset that I’m hearing this, you said something again, number one, and just to bring this to a tangible component for the people that are in the trenches, maybe seeing other individuals as healthcare providers or coaches that when you change and increase dietary protein, it’s not all about the mass, the lean mass. Dietary protein, these amino acids, these essential amino acids have a multitude of effects that are not interchangeable with, say, fiber or a certain type of carbohydrate, because they are essential. They are an essential nutrient. You require them. I have a few other statements I would love for you both to clear up. You had said

Dr. Don Layman 22:55

I just.. I’d like to reiterate a statement Heather just said, but stated in a different way, there’s not a single study out there that has ever shown the art, the RDA of point eight is better than values above 1.1 not a single study that you can find on any parameter that can show you that, and that’s important. I, they’ll, they’ll say, well, the data is not consistent, it doesn’t always show that the higher protein is better, but it never ever shows that the lower protein is better, and that’s people need to keep that in mind.

Dr. Heather Leidy 23:31

Yeah, and just a comment, too, is a lot of times we just base it on more eating, or think about protein foods, particularly with the guidelines that it’s about the protein, and it is true with essential amino acids, but there’s so many other micronutrients that go into a protein food that is just, you know, to say that you’re removing them or limiting from the diet. I think is extremely concerning, because of all of the micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals that a protein-rich food can provide.

Dr. Don Layman 23:53

And those were the two pieces that Heather and I actually used in the dietary guidelines, was the body composition that higher protein, particularly when used with reduced carbohydrates, is beneficial to body composition, and the importance that protein foods are the most nutrient dense, and that that’s not a statement of plant or animal, that’s just simply protein foods are the most nutrient dense, both for amino acids, but also vitamins and minerals.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 24:24

One of the other things that physicians, I hear physicians say, especially when it comes to dietary protein, and what we’re seeing is that there’s no utility to protein unless someone is doing resistance training, and I’ll say this in a different way, that the higher end of the guidelines, as Heather crosses her arms, the higher, the higher end, meaning I’m sure that you somewhat disagree with this, that above 1.1 the only way protein is beneficial is that it. If you were doing resistance training, otherwise you shouldn’t have it. It’s going to turn to fat. This is the heard this from multiple

Dr. Don Layman 25:08

occasions. We can get to that point, but I mean, Heather and I have both published multiple studies that use the higher protein levels and have multiple outcomes, both in in body composition, but also in biomarker outcomes, or satiety, or thermogenesis. So, there’s a lot of protein outcomes that come with a higher protein above 1.1 Most of our work has been closer to 1.5 I think, for both of us, and so we have a lot of experience up in that range, and they always show benefits.

Dr. Heather Leidy 25:46

Now, I think it’s – I would say in the past too, when we started thinking about protein, right? It’s, oh, it was generally about lean mass muscle in athletes, and so I would say there’s more, far more data, maybe not now, I think it’s a little bit more even, but definitely, you know, 1015, 20 years ago, it was protein muscle mass, right. And then, when you include resistance training, obviously almost unanimously, you could see those benefits. So, it’s not that they don’t exist. The ACSM guidelines for protein go up to what, two, 2.1 2.3 and so it is a higher range for athletes, given the benefits of protein on muscle protein synthesis and lean mass with resistance training. You also see it with older adults, and that’s been refuted too, in terms of protein, how beneficial it is. And you generally see that tag team with protein and resistance training for muscle preservation, or even some muscle improvements, right? And so I think it’s always been there, but people are refuting the fact that there’s far more health benefits with protein at that range, the 1.2 to 1.6 outside of just looking at muscle, but it’s there. It’s not that the research is not there, and it doesn’t exist. It’s just that’s one framework, and then you look at all these other benefits, and you’ve kind of been in both worlds, right? I think you started your research kind of looking in that direction. I came in really looking at weight management and satiety and thermogenesis, and so my initial step in was very different.

Dr. Don Layman 27:02

Yeah, I mean, we were certainly interested in, in the muscle aspect of it. We were interested in muscle protein synthesis, and, and clearly that biomarker is always better at a higher level. Does it correctly relate into mass? Obviously, and in adults who are not doing a lot of resistance is just main maintenance resistance training. If you’re trying to gain mass, resistance training is definitely the dominant factor. Lower protein can minimize the gain, higher protein may benefit, but there’s when you’re talking about muscle mass and body composition, there’s always the other macronutrients, and so by having 2.2 grams per kg protein, you can replace carbohydrates, which most people who do bodybuilding or muscle development would say that’s a huge benefit to reducing body fat, and so there’s a lot of reasons beyond just, well, did it affect the muscle amount. We started doing weight loss partly because weight loss was interesting, but also because you couldn’t really study sarcopenia, you know. If we were interested in, does protein, as we get older, is that an important thing to do that’s hard to study, you’d have to do a controlled diet study for at least two decades to have power to study that, but we can do sort of the similar sort of thing with weight loss in a, you know, in a three month period where you can tangibly actually control diet that long, and we find that protein adding protein always benefits body composition.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:43

I was hoping that’s where I was hoping you would get to with these randomized control trials. They’re saying that anything above six months is a more appropriate duration, but what we are saying, and I think that we collectively agree that the change in muscle from a negative standpoint, a sarcopenic standpoint, if we think about the numbers over a decade, you’re losing maybe 8% per decade. Conversely, how we would see muscle effects with a randomized control trial would probably take more than 24 months.

Dr. Don Layman 29:18

I mean, most of our studies, if you power a study for body composition change, you basically need to get to a 10% change before you’re really going to be able to statistically detect it, and for sarcopenia, you know that’s that’s at least it’s more than a decade, you probably almost have to go two decades to have something you can really detect, and so there’s just no way that study is ever going to be run.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 29:44

And to wrap this up, for the physicians, healthcare providers, coaches, trainers, as they think about nutrition, when someone goes and they look at these databases, and it’ll say, well, there is no evidence when I asked you about it, just as I am. Right now, one of the things that you said is you’re getting really stuck in the definition of what is the, I don’t know how to say, but like the outcome that you were looking for, and that if it’s sarcopenia or muscle protection or lean mass protection, I mean the two are not synonymous, that it would take two decades, and that perhaps even the quote long-term randomized control trials are not adequate,

Dr. Don Layman 30:28

and Heather’s earlier point, the epidemiology, the survey data doesn’t give you that range of protein that people seem to gravitate to around the one to 1.2 range and the population that’s above that is actually fairly small. Yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 30:48

that I’m really glad that you brought that up, Heather. You talked about patterns, and then you talked about nutrients for people to understand the goal of the dietary guidelines is the way in which I understand is to direct patterns of eating is that

Dr. Heather Leidy 31:03

it is by definition the dietary guidelines are meant to make recommendations for foods, food groups, right, in a dietary pattern to meet your nutrient needs, right, or and to meet the recommendations that you have based on science. So, yes, we, and that’s why even with the current dietary guidelines, there isn’t a specific set name for the dietary pattern that’s in there, and when we talk about 1.2 to 1.6 you know, we’ve even talked about it, really is a flexible pattern, right, even within that range of protein and the types of proteins you can pick and choose, you know, whatever foods that you, that you want, and so, yeah, that is the fundamentally the dietary guidelines, it’s looking at foods, making recommendations on food groups that will give you the nutrients that you need,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 31:44

some

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 31:44

nutrients that we need.

Dr. Heather Leidy 31:45

Yeah, so that’s how it means, obviously, the DRIs are nutrient-based recommendations. And then from those, the dietary guidelines look and say, well, what types of foods, what patterns do we, can we recommend that can actually meet those or optimize? Right? I mean, it’s it’s meeting them first and foremost, but the

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 32:00

dietary reference intake, it’s meeting those, or is it meeting?

Dr. Heather Leidy 32:03

So, the DRIs are meeting. What are your requirements, if you will? And then the guidelines really translate that into foods and looking at dietary patterns, right? What type of pattern will give you the foods that will meet those? But I feel like, at least with this one, we’ve taken it a step further, and it’s not just meeting, it’s, you know, being able to establish what are some healthy amounts of foods in patterns that can give you the flexibility that you need, and to give you the health outcomes that we’re searching for in the US.

Dr. Don Layman 32:32

It was the 2010 guidelines that actually started with a pattern, and you know, I think it’s almost too prescriptive for people, they say, “Well, there’s a healthy US pattern, there’s a Mediterranean, there’s veg. I don’t really like any of those, so you know, I think that, you know, what Heather was saying is what we did was create a framework, and if you want to lean that framework toward vegetarian, or you want to lean it toward Mediterranean, you, it’s easy to do that, you can pick and choose how you make your foods. If you pick and choose your foods based, but hit within that 1.2 to 1.6 chances are you’re also going to meet your nutrient needs, which is kind of what we were going for. That if people understand that that’s kind of a goal range, then you’re probably going to be good for body composition, and also your nutrient content. If you’re out of that range, for whatever reason you choose, you need to know that those are both at risk. Does that mean you need to be supplementing? So, again, I think guidelines for the public, for the consumer, should give them some targets to understand where they should be looking, it’s not prescriptive that everybody has to do it this way, which is kind of where the last guideline sort of leaned, is kind of like, you know, we know best and you should all eat this way, and I think the current guidelines are fair and logical, and they’re flexible,

Dr. Heather Leidy 33:57

yeah, and it kind of leads into this discussion about the pyramid, right, the inverted pyramid, because a lot of times people are saying, well, you know, you don’t really have those patterns anymore, the my plates gone away, and now you have this pyramid, and how should we be understanding that? And it’s like I said, the two girls at the airport, they said, meet, meet, meet, I heard it like that, whatever the new changes, meet, meet, meet some green beans, and a lot of rice, and I look at that, you think of the pyramid, and it’s because there’s frozen green beans at the top and some rice with beans on the bottom, and I chuckled, and I’m like, I looked at them, and I think their mom thought I was crazy, and so I just moved on. I think that’s an education.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 34:32

Oh, by the

Dr. Heather Leidy 34:33

way, I was gonna like, yeah, my god, let’s not go there. I don’t want to be a creeper, but it raises the concept. What do we do with the pyramid? And I think if

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 34:40

old one or the new one,

Dr. Heather Leidy 34:41

the new one, it’s not meant to be prescriptive, it’s not meant, and unfortunately for those girls, they were picking foods that were on the pyramid, and that’s not the intent, it was showing images and then understanding concepts, right? So, for us, it’s, and I think for most people, they’re getting stuck on the idea that no, you don’t have to have it’s not just I have to have a ribeye and. Whole milk and banana or grapes, or it’s this is the concept. The concept is having real foods as protein-rich foods, you know, prioritizing animal source foods with fruits and vegetables together. There’s no priority there, it’s across the boards. And then being mindful of your carbohydrate intake and trying to highlight whole grains, right? And I think it kind of goes back to what you’re saying with what are the dietary galliums meant to do it’s giving you flexibility, giving you concepts, and then you have are permitted, based on your food choices and your likes and dislikes, to pick and choose those foods that can meet those

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 35:30

needs. Do you think that people have gotten stuck on the idea that the RDA and the guidelines, if I’m understanding correctly, that you were involved in the last set of the guidelines as well, you have been following the guidelines for at least 40 years. What I’m trying to unpack is this, this level of controversy over the guidelines, I think is overshadowing in part the positive implications that could happen if people put their I don’t know if bias is the right word, but put that aside and actually unravel what is it that these guidelines are meant to do and how they are then being deployed in the community, so one of the things that you had mentioned, Heather, is that the guidelines are to create patterns, so the point eight grams is the RDF protein, and then yes, we can move on from protein, but again, this is the most controversial part about the whole guidelines.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 36:35

I would

Dr. Heather Leidy 36:35

say that it’s been a ruse, I think, at this point that it’s all about protein, but then when you start talking further, it is about the saturated fat,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 36:42

and we’re gonna get there.

Dr. Heather Leidy 36:43

So, just want to make sure I don’t think it’s a

Dr. Don Layman 36:45

picture of steak eye and the

Dr. Heather Leidy 36:47

whole milk.

Dr. Don Layman 36:47

Yeah, that’s

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 36:48

the one. No, I was there. I was there with you, and I got a sign that had a big steak.

Dr. Don Layman 36:53

So did we,

Dr. Heather Leidy 36:54

actually? No, I got the sourdough, I got apple. No, I got the sourdough, and I moved it and switched back to

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 37:01

the beach while the ranchers tried to take my steak and I told them that I was gonna put their eye out with a pencil, but the statements that again I’m hearing from clinicians is that if we stay at the point eight grams per kg, anything above that is you shouldn’t be doing because there is no benefit, but then we talk about nutrient density, and to be clear, I would say that you’ve been arguing for 40 years, not to put a time on it, but 40 years that the RDA for protein was dangerously inadequate. Is that overstating? Maybe.

Dr. Don Layman 37:38

Yeah, I think I would go that direction again. I mean, it’s based on nitrogen balance, and I have spent 40 years staying away from the term nitrogen balance. I think that it is what it is. Nitrogen balance was evolved really out of animal science as a way of measuring growth, and when you’re actually having a tangible growth, you can change the nitrogen is accumulating, and you know you can measure that, but when you’re talking about non-growing adults who shouldn’t be gaining or losing nitrogen, what does nitrogen balance really mean in a short-term study? And, like I said earlier, I can’t think of any health outcome that it relates to, so you know, for 40 years I’ve avoided arguing the case, because it’s just so entrenched in nutrition that what we need to look for is other outcomes, and you know, body composition, nutrient density, you know, you know, glutathione, or an oxidative stress, cognitive function, and you know, serotonin and dopamine. I think those are outcomes that are important to protein, even glycemic regulation, with using protein to reduce carbohydrate, those are all outcomes that are very meaningful to protein and have absolutely nothing to do with nitrogen balance.

Dr. Heather Leidy 38:52

Yeah, and if I can just take this a step further, because I think that’s – I would question physicians on this key point, and that is the DRIs are not based on health outcomes for protein, so that’s the first piece, right? Nitrogen balance, right? So that’s the first one. And then I go back to say to them, all right, when you look at the guidelines, most support what’s in there. And then you have to go back and say, well, were there any protein-related questions in the past? And that is unanimously no

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 39:16

protein-related questions. There’s been collecting the data, because this is consensus data,

Dr. Heather Leidy 39:21

because so the guidelines obviously make recommendations on food. So, are there any protein food recommendations until 2025 No. So, we are under the assumption that the guidelines are appropriate with the dietary patterns, but yet there hadn’t been any protein-related questions, protein-specific food based or protein nutrient questions with a health outcome until now, so I think that’s why physicians really just dismiss protein, because whether the DRIs are set, have been set 1980 you were there

Dr. Don Layman 39:51

2005

Dr. Heather Leidy 39:52

yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 39:53

you were definitely there,

Dr. Heather Leidy 39:54

yeah, no, and so it’s they’re there, and because most people eat above point eight. We’re covered, right. That’s generally what most physicians say, but then that question of, is more better? If so, how much? What outcome are you referring to? That hasn’t been explored until recently. So, I feel like physicians still have this mindset. Nutrition scientists still have this mindset, because that’s never really been systematically asked and answered until 2025 and then when it was their framework has shifted, and now it’s a very different.. it’s we.. they feel like it’s the same. We’ve been saying this, the research has been coming alongside, but the.. the.. you know, USDA and HHS have never addressed these.. these questions to know. All right, well, we really should be making these recommendations based on these outcomes,

Dr. Don Layman 40:42

and that you know people continue to pick and choose how they interpret the DRIs. I mean, the DRIs for protein are 10 to 35% of calories, which is actually..

Dr. Heather Leidy 40:52

well, that’s the DGA, right? So, I mean, it’s that.. I mean, that’s another

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 40:56

so

Dr. Heather Leidy 40:57

tricky part, right? Because the

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 40:58

demands for the listener, it’s

Dr. Heather Leidy 41:00

the dietary guidelines for Americans, or the DG, but then the AMDRs really were developed for the dietary guidelines, so

Dr. Don Layman 41:08

they’re part of the dietary guidelines. I’m sorry, they’re part of the dietary reference intakes

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 41:13

that

Dr. Heather Leidy 41:13

led into the dietary guidelines.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 41:16

So, let’s pause. We have to explain this for everyone. Yeah, and hopefully the team will. Hey guys, create a little pop up. Okay, Matt, seriously, I want you guys – I’m talking to the team. I guess you guys make a chart so that it is easy to understand. We’re gonna take a beat, and you guys are going to also.. Matt, is it okay that our phones are on the floor? I don’t need.. okay, okay. Can you frame up as someone is looking at a visual to understand what we are talking about and where everything fits

Dr. Heather Leidy 41:46

in, because we haven’t even talked about upper limit, you want to start with the RDA,

Dr. Don Layman 41:49

so so the jurisdiction of the numbers is under the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute for food and nutrition, and they basically define what the RDA is going to be, and they also then attempt to try and determine if there’s an upper limit, so is there a range of nutrient intake, and you know, in some cases we have reasonable numbers, in other cases we have pretty vague numbers.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 42:21

Give me an example?

Dr. Don Layman 42:22

I don’t even know. Does vitamin D have an upper limit?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 42:28

Matt can pull it up right now, or also even

Dr. Heather Leidy 42:31

like vitamin C has an upper limit, but I’m blanking on how much. But there’s most of them are some vitamins and minerals that have upper limits. Macronutrients don’t.

Dr. Don Layman 42:39

Yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 42:39

upper limits are really about toxicity, so iron would have an upper limit, right? Any vitamin A, some of the fat solids.

Speaker 2 42:46

So the

Dr. Don Layman 42:47

upper limits haven’t been studied very well, but the concept was that for every nutrient there’s sort of a safe range. There’s an acceptable range in therapy.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 42:57

Could we define nutrient for people,

Dr. Don Layman 43:00

vitamin, mineral, amino acids, protein in general, carbohydrates, which I wanted to get to, because people are so enamored with the RDA for protein, and they ignore the fact that there may be an acceptable macronutrient distribution range, but there’s also an RDA for carbohydrates, which is set at 130 grams per day, and yet the dietary guidelines say that everyone should eat between 45 and 65% which is two to three times the RDA, with no justification. There’s no science to justify it, there’s no statement to justify it. So they totally ignore the RDA in that case, and yet are absolutely wedded to the RDA on protein. So,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 43:44

why do you think that? Do you have speculations as to how that?

Dr. Don Layman 43:48

I have lots of speculations on that

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 43:50

one, about four or five letter words,

Dr. Don Layman 43:54

you know. Certainly, the individuals who prefer a more vegetarian diet don’t like guidelines that require more protein, because that requires a lot more skill and thinking to do, and also, if you’re going to perpetuate an idea about saturated fat, then you can demonize food, so you’re better off with a low protein intake, so both of those, when you go to higher protein intakes, and you utilize animal protein as part of that, both the total protein is challenged and the saturated fat become challenged, and there’s a lot of people with a lot of invested interest in maintaining those two concepts,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 44:33

and then as you break out the National Academy of Science, is that right, which then informs

Dr. Don Layman 44:41

they provide the numbers, and you know Heather was saying earlier, then the dietary guidelines are supposedly the consumer-facing food interpretation of those guidelines. How do we put this into practice? So

Dr. Heather Leidy 44:54

they reference the RDA at times, and that’s why most of the terminology is we’re getting enough pro. Protein, and it’s based on the point eight grams, but then we have this range of protein, right, and so that’s typically, or what we would think is where the 10 to 35% of protein, right, within, so we have never defined the AMDR, so the AMDR is the acceptable macronutrient distribution range, and every macronutrient has one, and so for protein it’s 10 to 35% so theoretically that range should be used as part of a healthy dietary pattern, and as we’ve said in the report, and otherwise, that whole range has never been included. Generally, it’s about 14 to 15, maybe I’ll say 14 to 16% of protein has been what’s recommended in these dietary patterns, and so you know you have the recommendations that allow for more protein, but yet the dietary guidelines have never come out and said, well, you could even have a higher protein dietary pattern, because you’re still meeting all of the DRI, the recommendations, the requirements for protein, and we’re never – there’s no upper limit at the 30% of protein, we’re never even there, and even the modeling that we did in our report is actually nowhere near the 30% the 1.2 to 1.6 typically equates to what would you say about 20 to 25% something like that. And so, again, we’re it’s not even high protein, so it’s we always say higher because it is higher than what most is higher than the RDA, and it’s higher than what most Americans are consuming, but it’s still well within that range, that’s been recommended with the guidelines,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 46:24

and the AMDR, which is the acceptable macronutrient dietary

Dr. Heather Leidy 46:29

distribution,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 46:30

distribution range, that the distribution is that pattern, it’s not how much per meal rate, it’s the range at which you could consume,

Dr. Heather Leidy 46:39

so it’s the amount of calories in your diet that are coming from protein.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 46:42

My next question is, was that put into place for a reason, meaning was that put into place to ensure leucine requirements were hit, or that the essential amino acid requirements were hit? Why do we have an AMDR?

Dr. Don Layman 47:01

I think it’s just really to reflect that what is a safe range that from any anything that we know, safe

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 47:10

range, but think about diabetes, safe range, essentially a 300 gram for a metabolically unhealthy person, 300

Dr. Don Layman 47:18

grams of carbohydrates, not going to be healthy. Yeah, I mean, and even 45% of calories is probably not healthy, and so that’s, you know, that’s my problem, is that the guidelines have decided one RDA is important and the other RDA is not, and that’s just not scientifically valid. And so, you know I think those ranges are basically useful to a consumer-facing audience that say this is what we think you can have, this is your range of choice, and I think we’re trying to move into an era of personalized nutrition, personalized healthcare for in nutrition, and that the

Dr. Heather Leidy 48:00

person who is more toward diabetes needs that low carbohydrate, but there may be somebody who’s struggling more with heart disease, lipid problems, who a lower fat diet makes sense. But having a public health guideline, one guideline that says everybody should be that way, I think is where we’ve got to get away from, and again, I think the new guidelines allow for that, allow for people to recognize what their situation is, and also bring in their own personal preference of what they want to eat. Yes, I think the ranges are helpful for, and we’ll hear this all the time from dietitians, that they’re it’s helpful because it gives you an idea of a starting point, and I would say to your point, if you’re prioritizing protein and you’re looking at your protein foods, then yeah, you can be at the higher percent at 20 25% and then you know, depending on your health condition, you know that 40 to 45% with carbohydrates is probably where you need to be, and then fat kind of takes care of itself in the middle, right, so these percentages I don’t think inherently are are bad or inappropriate when you’re trying to do a pattern, it just seems like most Americans don’t understand that, right? So, that’s the other problem. The AMDRs maybe aren’t working, or maybe it’s because we have this small range that proteins at 14 or 15, and so we don’t need to go any more than that. So, I don’t know, maybe it’s that consumers aren’t understanding how you would use an AMDR, as you know, as a muscle head, like we did. We knew exactly what our AMDRs are, our macros are.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 49:22

I know exactly protein,

Dr. Heather Leidy 49:24

you know, the grams, and so, but for most consumers, that’s not the case. And so, I think that’s why, if we can get back to a pattern of types of foods, prioritizing protein, right? And you’ve said this, you can go back and say it again, in terms of how you think of the diet, because I love how you add this context. If somebody’s sitting down with wanting to make a dinner, what should they focus on?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 49:44

Just cooking

Dr. Heather Leidy 49:45

it right, but it’s starting with where

Dr. Don Layman 49:48

did we order it

Dr. Heather Leidy 49:50

from? It’s starting with protein foods, and then working your way from there.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 49:53

But now I have to ask the elephant in the room question, which is everything we’re like, you’re so weird, that’s not an elephant in the room, but it. Is for me, we are talking about protein, but you have said numerous times that we don’t have a protein requirement. What we really have that sucks is having a mentee that we, you talk to every day, we don’t have a protein requirement, but we, what we really have is an essential amino acid requirement. Okay, can you unpack that a bit? Because the guidelines, it doesn’t really take into account that,

Dr. Don Layman 50:33

so we all have a requirement for 20 amino acids to make the protein that’s in the body and also the other metabolic aspects, 11 of them we potentially can make, nine of them we can’t, so they’re called essential or or indispensable, protein ends up just being really the delivery system for getting those that represents the food sources of where we get those amino acids, so I think the era coming up, I think one of the things we’re going to have to be more, you know, we, we don’t, we treat protein sort of like it’s a vitamin pill, we say, you know, we might have a vitamin pill that has 14 vitamins in it, and we don’t sort of, and then we don’t spend a lot of time discussing the color of the pill, that’s kind of like discussing the type of protein. What we really discuss are the 14 vitamins, and we need to think more about the individual amino acids that are in that pill, in that protein. And so I think that’s the next era, and that gets into the difference between does protein cause a change in lean body mass with protein, those amino acids have lots of other roles, and we know that some of them are signals like leucine and protein synthesis, or leucine is provides the nitrogen that allows us to make other amino acids like arginine, which is essential for blood pressure, we know that tryptophan is essential for serotonin, which is related to sleep and mood. We know that phenylalanine is related to dopamine and your cognitive function. We know that methionine is related to glutathione and oxidant. So, there’s all these other roles that is totally obscured by a focus on, well, it didn’t change lean body mass, and it gets into that you started to allude to it earlier about oxidation of amino acids, or are they wasted? Well, all of those things that I just mentioned are actually amino acids getting metabolized. So, does that mean having serotonin to allow your brain to function as a waste, I mean, that’s the, that’s the lack of understanding of amino acid metabolism that is prevalent out there,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 52:48

and my fear is, again, as I’m a practicing physician still to this day, I think that, God willing, I will always be, because it’s important to be able to help guide people. The reason I bring this up is because if you have point eight grams per kg and people are saying, okay, well, everyone is getting enough, as you pointed out, if Americans are consuming 1.1 50% are above, but 50% are below, and then if we are still continuing to hear a narrative that red meat is dangerous, which we still are, even though the guidelines have put them on a pyramid and cardboard cutouts, which is awesome. I wish I would have kept it. There is still decades of narrative and inherited scientific belief, which comes from physicians and people that we’re already eating and consuming too much, and where I’m going with this is I am concerned, especially with the use of GLP ones, which then further reduce appetite, and with aging, people are not consuming or are at risk. There are nutrients of concern, and for.. and this is my longest monolog ever. When I say nutrients of concern, I am talking about those essential amino acids, because if you know, I think about my 70 year old mom, who probably doesn’t listen to this podcast, 75 sorry, mom, but her, she doesn’t have a big appetite, and if she’s already hearing the message, she’s eating enough protein, and I get concerned about her ability to produce glutathione. Then I have to turn my attention to the essential amino acids, for example, leucine, which the totality recommendation is two to three grams per day, which, if you would then translate that over to dietary protein intake, that’s like 30 grams, which I understand is below the RDA, but that that is what I’m concerned about.

Dr. Don Layman 54:47

Yeah, and I’m concerned that our knowledge of the essential amino acids is largely based on nitrogen balance type techniques, also, and that. You know, if you, if you look at the individual requirement for the essential amino acids, they’re about 25% of the total protein, but if you look in the human body, they make up 50% of the proteins of the amino acids in our body.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 55:14

Will you just pause and explain that a little bit?

Dr. Don Layman 55:16

So, you know, when you’re putting together a protein, you’re putting together using these amino acids like building blocks to put it together, and if you look within the total human body and look the essential amino acids make up 50% in the body of all those amino acids, but if you look at the dietary guidelines, the guidelines say that only getting 25% of those amino acids is enough, and I worry about that, because it’s based on techniques that don’t really look at the metabolic outcome, so you know, I think that’s an area that is going to have to get explored more, and my concern with it is in the plant-based narrative that people should have more plant-based diets. Americans, as they do that, shift to using grains. They don’t shift to using beans and lentils and things that would be higher protein quality. So, of the plant-based protein in the American diet, more than 80% of it comes from grains, and almost all of it from wheat, which is limiting or deficient in at least four of those essential amino acids. So, we’ve done a lot of modeling with that, and if you get below 50% animal proteins in your diet with the current American pattern of using grains, you will be deficient in essential amino acids.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 56:38

I gotta pause you here, because I think

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 56:40

this is

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 56:40

too complicated.

Dr. Don Layman 56:47

Heather passed out

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 56:49

in the report. Are you tracking? I want you to be tracking a

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 56:54

section here.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 56:56

No, we are going to talk about it, but I want to make sure you’re tracking this, but this really, you guys are laughing, but this is super important. I think that there’s a way, but we can affect clinicians’ understanding, and the people that are there’s just so much to clear up now. I’m sorry, I interrupted you, but the what was the last

Dr. Heather Leidy 57:22

75%

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 57:23

Okay, this is what right I want to understand what that looks like. What an example of that would be, kind of. So, basically, if someone is a

Dr. Don Layman 57:35

what are Americans eating, or whatever,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 57:37

if Americans are eating, I kind of lost my train of thought. I had a question, and I was asking him if you were paying attention, but um, so your, your concern about the idea that wheat, there is still the message that we’re eating enough protein, like just,

Dr. Don Layman 57:52

and so, so what we know for absolute certainty over the last 40 years of the dietary guidelines and the food guide pyramid is that has changed the dietary pattern, we know that when it appeared that egg consumption, dairy consumption, beef consumption went down by 35 to 40% across the board, and people say, well, protein didn’t really change because people started eating more chicken, and that’s true, but they started eating it in forms that weren’t as healthy, they started eating as barbecued wings, and they started eating it as fried and breaded chicken patties and chicken fingers and all kinds of things like that. So they brought with it a lot of carbohydrates and fats, as opposed, and what we know is that with the pyramid, they increased their grain consumption by 40% they increase their consumption of seed oils by 55%

Dr. Heather Leidy 58:46

Original, the original pyramid,

Dr. Don Layman 58:47

the original pyramid, you know, they made all of those changes. People say, well, the pyramid didn’t cause those changes, but actually it did shift people in 2010 The dietary guidelines recognize that, and they dropped the pyramid. They recognized that people had increased their dietary intake of calories by 350 grams, and Steve Simpson from Australia hypothesized that that was part of a dilution of the protein that the human body, the humans actually eat toward a protein target, and basically, by diluting the protein in the diet with carbohydrates, we ended up eating more carbs to maintain that protein intake, so the net effect was we lowered the quality of the protein, we increased our carb intake, or increased our calorie intake, and we started getting our fats from synthetic forms, hydrogenated vegetable oils, and seed oils, and basically that came with trans fats, which were two to three times more toxic than saturated fats ever were, and so you know everything about it distorted the diet,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 59:53

but you said something that really piqued my interest that I believe is important, and that was that 50 per. Percent of the protein consumption or content of a human’s diet, if that is, if 50% or less comes from, is it animals?

Dr. Don Layman 1:00:13

Yeah, either way,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:00:14

however you want to say that. So, 50% or less comes from protein, animal-based protein sources. People are not going to hit their nutrients,

Dr. Don Layman 1:00:26

so, so, in animal

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:00:27

essential

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:00:28

amino acids,

Dr. Don Layman 1:00:28

so in

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:00:29

not nutrients in totality, but the essential,

Dr. Don Layman 1:00:32

so in animal foods in general, essential amino acids make up 45 to 50% of the of the amino acids in that food. In plant-based foods, it’s more like 35% so you’d have to eat a lot more of them. What we know from when people go more plant-based, they decrease the quantity of the protein they eat, and they also begin to decrease the quality, because of that, both essential amino acids and also bioavailability. If you look at the NHANES data, our national survey data, what you find is that when people shift that way, they shift to eating more grains. They don’t eat a lot more beans and lentils and nuts and seeds, they shift toward grains. Beans and lentils make up less than 10% of even the plant-based, actually, of the total protein, but only about 18% of the plant-based protein, so the rest is all coming from those very poor quality grains, and so we’ve modeled that, and basically, if you’re getting, you know, as you go from a high protein animal protein, say 100% you can meet your essential amino acid requirements with less than 40 grams of protein per day, if that’s your only target, but as you go down less animal protein toward more and more plant-based, assuming that you’re always making it from grains at the point of 50% if you get below 50% animal proteins, then the RDA for protein can’t possibly meet your essential amino acid needs, so you have to then eat more and more protein to get to it. So, if you get down to a vegetarian, a vegan-based diet, you’re going to probably have to be in the 100, and you’re going to probably be approaching 120 to 130 grams of protein to meet your essential amino acid requirements.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:02:25

It’s important, and also not discussed again. There’s the macronutrient intake within the micronutrient, and then the actual quality, because in my mind, if we’re increasing our carbohydrate intake, and I really want to wrap up the protein conversation, but we can’t wrap it up without talking about essential amino acids, and in part their utility. The idea that we would increase carbohydrates, in my mind, we would then distort the amino acid composition of the diet and decrease the amino acid composition, the essential amino acid composition composition of diet. Would you agree with that?

Dr. Don Layman 1:03:06

Okay,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:03:07

right. If we are reducing our quality protein, and then following in line with the patterns of what people are eating, if they’re moving to wheat-based protein, which, for example, we know is low in brown chain amino acids and low in lysine, then we

Dr. Don Layman 1:03:22

thionine and tryptophan, and then if

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:03:24

you take it one step further, we know that methionine is really important for glutathione production and cysteine, and as we think about an aging population, I know we are focused on protein as a whole, but one step beyond that is the individual needs of these essential amino acids, and that was a long roundabout way to kind of get to because we are going to talk about fat and saturated fat is a part of fat, and I think to be fair to protein we have to address the essential amino acids and how we’re going to get that, and I think with aging, if people are going to choose that way of eating, it’s okay, but then supplementing with essential amino acids has utility, the lower the protein intake, the lower the quality, then one would supplement,

Dr. Don Layman 1:04:14

and most of the other nutrients, the vitamins and minerals also come with those foods, and I mean, you can go to fortified foods or you can use supplements, but people need to be aware of those liabilities, and I, again, I don’t think the intent of the guidelines now are to be as prescriptive as before. They’re basically to say these are the these are the goals, and when you get outside of the goals, you need to know what liabilities go with that, and I think that again, I think the major changes were reprioritizing how people look at the fat and the saturated fat. We’re saying that you should get your fat if saturated fat is important to you, and frankly, I don’t think most it’s important to most people, but when. That aside, if saturated fat is important to you, you should get it from real foods. You shouldn’t get it from hydrogenated vegetable oils that are put into cookies and, and cakes and pastries. We know that is the number one source of calories in the American diet, and

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:05:18

saturated fat,

Dr. Don Layman 1:05:19

no, is cookies and pastries, and then number two is bread, and number three is sugar added soft drinks, and number four is is chips and crackers. Those four categories of food make up 25% of the calories in the American diet, and they have essentially no nutritional value.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:05:42

To wrap up, and by the way, I have seen you eat all of the things on that list, just to be fair. What I.. this

Dr. Don Layman 1:05:49

is actually

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:05:50

now. Here comes my personal question. How much protein do you eat per day? And from your perspective, how many grams, which, by the way, I know this because you have not changed your dietary pattern in 20 years,

Dr. Don Layman 1:06:01

boring, right?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:06:02

Yes, but how much protein do you eat today?

Dr. Don Layman 1:06:05

I’m usually hit. I aim between 100 and 120

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:06:09

I wish I wrote that down and then showed it, so that I could say that between 100 and 120

Dr. Don Layman 1:06:15

Yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:06:15

is it

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:06:16

fair to say that the more active you are, perhaps the lower your protein is for that day, maybe close to, closer to 100 Do you think about it that way?

Dr. Don Layman 1:06:25

No, I don’t really tie it directly to activity. I think it’s just more randomness, but I’m, as you know, I’m pretty careful about first meal and last meal of the day, are pretty high protein, they’re both going to have at least 40 grams in them, better

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:06:42

define high now.

Dr. Don Layman 1:06:43

Yeah, they’re going to be higher than what most people eat, other than the people sitting in this table. But you know, I’m pretty careful that I’m exceeding what I think I need for protein synthesis that time of the day. So, you know, those two will get me into the 8090 range, and then really the other is, you know, what do I do for that middle meal, and as you pointed out, as you’ve pointed out a couple of times, I’m getting older, and so my calorie needs are low, so I’m usually more concerned about calories at that meal than I am necessarily about protein.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:07:24

Final word, I feel like this is the what is it? Family Feud. Final answer is between 100 120

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:07:31

Yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:07:31

do you ever go below 100 Would you ever recommend someone go below 100 grams?

Dr. Don Layman 1:07:38

People are really low, you know, women, for example, that are at, you know, less than 100 pounds. If you use 1.5 are going to be below 100 grams.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:07:52

I don’t recommend anyone go below 100. Yeah,

Dr. Don Layman 1:07:54

we, I was getting to the point that we have studied a lot of women relative to biomarkers of glycemic regulations and and and horn insulin and glucagon and and lipid metabolism and things like that, and we find that a lot of the benefits we see of a higher protein have to be above the 100 gram range, so if you’re if you’re looking for things of satiety and thermogenesis and glycemic regulation. You really need to be in that range, or you’re not going to get it. We find that if women drift below it into the 90 or lower, they’ll lose all of the benefits of a higher protein diet,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:08:35

and we hear all the time, because when you’re smaller, right, we’re smaller women.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:08:40

Yes, yes, yes,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:08:42

but I’ll have many people, smaller women, will come up and say this is impossible to eat that much, and then when you start breaking it down, there’s three to four ounces of meat or poultry, or you start showing them it’s, you know, a cup of Greek yogurt, and then they’re already at that 90 to 100 level, so I think it’s a misconception at times when you have somebody that’s smaller and they think they just can’t eat that much protein, and then when you start putting it in foods and meals and patterns, it’s like, oh yeah, this is very doable, small number of people that actually would have a problem eating that much,

Dr. Don Layman 1:09:13

but it comes back to the animal protein again, that you know, you know, four ounces of chicken breast will give you 32 grams of protein that requires three cups of cooked beans to do it, and, and I couldn’t eat that much, little load 100 pound female, but

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:09:31

I just

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:09:31

want to add, though, we’re never saying it’s this or this, right? That’s why variety and mixing and matching, and we’ve even said that in our report, you know, beans, peas, and lentils, legumes are a great source of fiber and folate, and can add some protein to the diet.

Dr. Don Layman 1:09:45

We actually increase the amount of the recommendation

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:09:48

with carbs, and I want to, you know, and as 100 and, I don’t know, maybe 110 pounds. As a female, I am one of those people, I do not like to eat in the morning. I, as you see, well, maybe you didn’t see, but I am all over the place all the time, moving very fast. For me, what I do is I might have one or two eggs that are hard-boiled fast, and then I’ll add in essential amino acids. I’ll add in a scoop of essential amino acids. As you know, this I use Body health tastes great. I put strawberry, strawberry in water, strawberry in tea, one scoop with my eggs, and that way, I mean, I don’t know how big your appetite in the morning is, but mine’s not huge, and so this allows me for that first meal to hit 40 or so, the equivalent nutrient density of 40, roughly 40 grams in the morning, so I don’t know how much protein you eat in totality. What is your go-to now? These are the personal questions. We know Don, Don also adds in dessert. He didn’t say that, but for your free when you personally consume protein, what is your.. because you train

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:10:58

right? Yeah, I mean, I’m older now, but I mean I still have that mentality, and I, we still have

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:11:02

more mature.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:11:04

There we go. Just say old. Old sounds much better. Take it, and don’t call me a senior power lifter, because that’s really bad. 140 to 150 grams a day,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:11:12

that’s great. 140 to 150 grams a day. How tall are you?

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:11:16

551, now. Too many years of squatting.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:11:21

Okay, incredible. Are you?

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:11:22

And I’m 128 130

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:11:24

Do you do supplementation, or is that all food?

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:11:27

I all foods, but I am a breakfast researcher, and I love breakfast. So, for me, very different profile in the morning, that it all comes from foods. A lot of times it’s eggs. How

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:11:38

many

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:11:38

Greek for egg whites only? Because I don’t like the taste of yolk, so I don’t want this. I just don’t like the taste of yolk. So, for me, I do like Greek yogurt, some lean meat, steak, like flank steak, sirloin. I add that to the mix, have it every day, whole grain, and that to me, I really do like a bigger breakfast. And then, for me, it’s timing, you know, same thing for lunch, very similar dinner, and I usually have one or two snacks that are generally Greek yogurt, something like that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:12:06

I love hearing that, that you’re getting between 130 to 150 grams of protein. Most women really struggle to get that, and they’re thinking, “Oh, it’s so much, and it can totally be done if you cannot get it through diet, because to be fair, it would be six eggs to equal that first six whole eggs, or six, not doesn’t have to be whole, but it’s close to that to hit that protein, I can’t do that, so if you are listening and you’re out there and you really want to hit your protein target in the morning, a smaller meal, a little bit of Greek yogurt with essential amino acids can totally work. The other thing that you had said, which is how I first found you, was your research on teenagers eating high protein versus low protein breakfast,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:12:55

and we do the same thing. I mean, they eat about our.. in all of our studies, about a year ago, we completed a study in 150 breakfast skipping teens, so the mindset that most initially said they skip breakfast for various reasons, and then they start the study. If you have healthy food or food in general, they will eat it. That’s what we found. And,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:13:12

oh, really, it’s just not available to them

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:13:14

most of the time. That’s what they’ll say, that they wanted to sleep as late as possible, and so having to get up and make something was just not something they were going to do, and a lot of breakfast skippers actually don’t like ready to eat cereals. They don’t like carbohydrate rich foods in the morning, at least generally. That’s what the survey would suggest. More of it’s that they stayed up too late, and so they had to get up and go. And so, when we do these interventions that include about 24 to 30 grams of protein, most of which is animal-based sources, we have 90% compliance. And we did a six month feeding trial

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:13:42

that’s

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:13:42

great,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:13:43

gave foods to normal and high protein, another group that continued to skip breakfast, and so we consistently see improvements in a lot of health outcomes with these studies, and so it is doable, it’s the next step, is how do you make that right, so research is great, it works, how do you implement that in a family that skip breakfast that don’t have those foods readily available, and so I’m actually anxious to see what happens with the school breakfast meals, the programs, because now with the recommendations to bring some animal source proteins back, some eggs or lean meats and dairy, emphasizing that, I mean, I think that’s going to be a benefit, and that’s what a lot of that research suggests with breakfast,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:14:20

what did the.. you also did fMRI studies on their brains. What did that show?

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:14:25

So that was a bit different. So the fMRI is looking at a functional image. We base it on food cravings and food reward, and so that’s kind of pairs well with satiety, that you know we know, or at least we propose that eating more protein is more filling, more satiating, and we weren’t sure about whether it has an effect on food reward or food cravings, and so within those trials they would eat our breakfast meals, and then you know we would always do fMRI right before generally people start to overeat, which is usually the afternoon or evening, and so that’s when they would go into the scanner and we would show highly appealing pictures of foods. Is compared those to non-appetizing other images, and we show that when they had a breakfast that was higher in protein, their food cravings were blunted. Those, the cortical limbic regions of the brain that are tied into food reward and food motivation, those were blunted.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:15:15

What I believe is so important from that perspective is people will think I’m just mentally weak, or I need a quick energy pick-me-up, and looking at fMRI studies, it shows that actually it’s not just your, what’s the word, your preferences, meaning well, I’m just going to grab this, this cookie, or whatever, that there are things happening in the brain that that are changing.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:15:41

Oh yeah, I mean, and then you know we’ve also done some cognitive function assessments, and we did this in the schools in Kansas City. And so when you start thinking about brain and performance, we are also seeing with those studies, and it was published, I think, two months ago, that those that were eating a higher protein breakfast was called an egg cellent breakfast in the classroom. So we wonder why eggs were their eggs, they were obviously eggs that they actually performed better on those cognitive function tests, compared to the kids that skip breakfast, and compared to the kids that ate breakfast at home, and we, I mean, dietary recalls, as you know, are tricky in, in these are middle school students, I would suspect that the quality of the of the breakfast at home was just not as good, it was a grab and go, a lot of times were grain based, and so we showed that, you know, in those trials, those that were higher protein animal based foods, three hours later, they actually had better cognitive performance on various tasks.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:16:32

Was it dose dependent, meaning did it have to hit that, you know, in my mind, the muscle health component, for example, two and a half grams of leucine to then have an effect versus say if it was five grams of protein,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:16:45

yeah. So you’re putting your like tightly controlled hat on, which is what I usually do. These were schools, all right. So we, they did eat, is not the something that we could quantify, but you know, generally the meals provided about 20 grams of protein. I’m smiling because I love tightly controlled trials, and I would love to say that, but it was helter skelter, like sometimes they would eat, sometimes they would eat on the day of testing, they did eat that, but it was about 20 grams of protein, but we couldn’t do a dose response study within that trial, but it does, it does lend itself to say, are there additional benefits with protein? Right, I mean, obviously it goes back to, you know, muscle health, obviously, you know, looking at essential amino acids, nutrient quality, and then you are starting to see some of these other ones that, to your point, can get linked back to a lot of these mechanisms, right, with amino acids, and we’re just not there yet, like that. The research

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:17:30

hasn’t

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:17:30

gone that way, that is. And then I promise I’ll be done talking about protein, but that’s actually my biggest concern. All of us who have been in medicine or science for a period of time, we have an evolution of our thinking, and of course, as meatheads, no pun intended, but probably so. My first desire was body composition. Selfishly, I was very interested into muscle. Yes, Lane Norton sat in the back. I was a much better student. I sat in the front row. Lane never let him live that down, but I was very interested in one thing, then, and then obviously through my career it was then muscle, and then sarcopenia, doing geriatrics, but now to me it is, it is this individualized protein, which is not the right word, I’m gonna say this again to me now, it’s this individualized nutrient profile, and to me, I think that as individuals age and as I see various stressors in people’s lives, that we don’t have a way of saying, hey, you are someone who doesn’t make glutathione well, and this is a master antioxidant, and in fact, we can look at your blood and say, you know what, you are someone that needs to a supplement with glutathione or b have potentially a diet higher in methionine or some type of ratio, and so my interest now is what are those health outcomes later on that we are missing with this broad conversation, so that that is just selfishly where I’m starting to think, yeah, I would just say, for me, it’s been this long history of, there were some mechanistic data, right? I’d say most of it would be muscle protein synthesis.

Dr. Don Layman 1:19:09

Absolutely,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:19:10

there needs to be a lot more research on those other endpoints, but it goes back to the dietary guidelines. I think, for me personally, is, you know, this is what is consumer facing, and so having that holistic recommendation of, you know, this is the types of foods, this is the priority in your protein. I think sometimes the science will come along once those things occur. I mean, we’ve had enough, I think, evidence, consistent evidence for weight management or healthy weight. I think that’s why the guidelines have been so instrumental. Some of these other health benefits, I think we need to, you know, obviously target, but as you know, with the dietary guidelines, it’s typically they look at less mechanisms and more clinical outcomes, cardiovascular disease risk, cancer risks, neurocognitive function is one, and I think that’s where essential amino acids could play a role there, but it’s hard, you play in both worlds, right, I mean, both. Of us have done mechanistic, evident mechanistic work, and I think there’s a lot with essential amino acids that need to be there, but I just look at the fact that where we are in 2025 we’re having a conversation about protein, we haven’t had it before, and I think it’s okay for consumers to understand that, that it’s okay, because I think for many years they haven’t had that conversation that it’s okay to have the protein that you’re having,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:20:20

yeah, and we know that by the data, protein consumption, beef consumption, egg consumption, dairy consumption, these are down beef consumpies

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:20:30

down from in the past.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:20:32

Okay. Well, then I should say that. Okay, it’s not all,

Dr. Don Layman 1:20:35

yeah.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:20:36

Okay,

Dr. Don Layman 1:20:36

I

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:20:37

scratch

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:20:37

that. I’ll just say that we know that something like beef consumption is down.

Dr. Don Layman 1:20:41

Yeah, I think it’s population specific. I think that we were talking about 1.1 is an average, but we know that a lot of, particularly women, are very low and they’re avoiding those kinds of animal foods.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:20:57

And adolescent females, I mean, it’s very clear with ending state and others that they are the ones that actually are deficient in protein below the level of the RDA for adolescence,

Dr. Don Layman 1:21:06

and older women over 60 are also a very high percentage, and so one of the other comments you made earlier that I think is useful for everybody to keep in mind is that the meal amount that a student would get, a school-age student versus an older adult. We, there’s been a lot of research in the last 20 years that as we get older, our efficiency of protein use goes down, and we think that the meal distribution probably becomes more important. A 20 gram protein meal for a 14 year old is very different than a than a 20 gram meal for a 45 year old, and so you know the levels that she was using actually are reasonably high for that age group, where we might not consider a 20 gram meal good for any of us as to max out the systems we’re interested in, so I wouldn’t want the listeners to come away thinking, wow, all those kids aren’t getting enough, because that’s that’s reasonable amount for school age kids.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:22:13

Well, and we would say, too, I don’t think there’s definitive evidence, or we would have maybe tried to add that in the recommendations, in terms of per meal, right across the boards, because again, the dietary guidelines have to be generalized, you know, across at least in adults or kids, and we’re just not there yet, right? And a lot of it has to do with there’s so many confounder confounding factors, it does go back to the quality of the protein, I think, also drives the amount within a meal, and so then when you’re, but when you’re looking at 1.2 1.6 you kind of do the math right, and you look at your patterns, and you know it is generally for most people somewhere between 20 and 40 grams, right, 2030 grams. I mean every time you’re sitting down to have something to eat, and so very doable, but then it can be flexible based on somebody’s preferences,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:22:57

and then I do want to move to saturated fat, because that is for the scientists seems to be really the big sticking point. Dietary guidelines, from my understanding, is to inform and quote guide consumers. Is that fair to say?

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:23:13

Well, the past guidelines were actually not meant for consumers.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:23:16

These were these,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:23:17

I would say, these were more consumer facing, and the guidelines were very clear on that, so yes, for 2025 it was these were abbreviated again, also sticking point for most scientists, because they’re they’re not as expansive, but I think the goal was to be consumer facing, so people could read them and understand.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:23:33

My second question, are dietary guidelines for Americans designed to treat disease, or are they designed for a healthy, air quotes, person?

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:23:49

I would say in ours it’s probably one I wouldn’t say necessarily treat, treat, and nutrition gets a little tricky, but I would say with these, and how these were approached, it is healthy to individuals that have comorbidities, whether it is obesity or cardiovascular disease risk, diabetes, those three health outcomes were not critically or systematically assessed across all the research questions, but I would say, and we’ve talked about this, if you can control or manage obesity and get individuals down to a healthy weight, ultimately it’s not about weight, it’s about visceral fat or body composition, or right, but that generally is what we’re seeing, that in most people say, well, this is it’s all about weight loss, and no, it’s where you are if you’re healthy and you want to prevent unhealthy fat gain. These guidelines are developed for that reason, that’s why it’s not just a certain number, you’ve said this all the time, this is not just 1.2 it’s one point 10 to 1.6 Pick and choose what foods you want within that, so it’s a flexible range, and so it is healthy versus along with people that have certain types of conditions and chronic diseases.

Dr. Don Layman 1:24:52

People have criticized the report because we did use what were weight loss. Us they were energy restricted diets,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:25:03

because I get that all the time, not all of them. So, when we do a systematic review, it had, like, the intent was, you know, healthy weight, it was weight loss, and it was also weight maintenance after weight loss. So, it was all of those things, and the only reason I’m adamant about that is, because every question is, why did you just use weight loss, and we didn’t, but unfortunately, most of the data that’s out there is with energy restriction,

Dr. Don Layman 1:25:26

but the point I was going to get to is we know that 75% of Americans are overweight, and so the question is, how many calories excess are they eating, and if you really ask for that, it’s between 305 100 calories, and so what we actually did was look at studies that were 300 to 500 calorie restrictions. In other words, we were normalizing people, and basically most of the studies, the people came into equilibrium at a new weight, they were long enough that they actually would plateau. So I would argue that we just simply normalized the individuals, and the idea that we shouldn’t have used any energy restriction means that the people making that argument are arguing we should have dietary guidelines to keep people fat, and that simply is a really lousy argument on my opinion.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:26:15

I’m really glad that you guys both share in this viewpoint, because the reality is most people are struggling with overweight or obesity, and if we ignore that and we create guidelines, or you guys help inform guidelines, it would be very irresponsible to make it in a way that would keep people sick,

Dr. Don Layman 1:26:36

and your original comment question was about, you know, are they for chronic or are they for disease, and I, I think the guidelines have been drifting toward more chronic disease.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:26:45

I would say from what, 2020 for sure.

Dr. Don Layman 1:26:47

I mean, so you know, the issues of obesity and diabetes have definitely heart disease have definitely been there,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:26:53

but I would say that hasn’t been – it really wasn’t emphasized in the 2025 but if you look at the underpinnings with reduced carbohydrates, increased protein, you’re basically touching a lot of those chronic diseases, whether it’s obesity or diabetes.

Dr. Don Layman 1:27:05

I mean, 2025 the one that was written that we ignored was basically all about saturated fat. I mean, there was nothing in it that really got away from saturated fat, saturated fat and fiber.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:27:18

Well, that in changing priorities with protein.

Dr. Don Layman 1:27:21

Yeah, I mean, but that was driven by saturated fat. Saturated fat and fiber drove all of the other decisions.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:27:28

The current recommendations say that your saturated fat should be 10% or less, now

Dr. Don Layman 1:27:39

10% of calories,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:27:40

10% of calories.

Dr. Don Layman 1:27:42

So, if you’re eating 4000 calories, you can have 44 grams per day, but if you’re only eating 1400 you can only have 1600 or 16 grams. Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:27:54

One more, one more statement along those lines. If the dietary guidelines are not meant to say, quote, treat disease or be a medical intervention, which they’re not. Is that fair to say? They’re not designed to be a medical intervention. It’s just to help to inform and to be able to create a healthy dietary pattern. The goal, from the way I understand it is that saturated fat is part of this heart healthy hypothesis. Okay, and I stand to be completely corrected that for those individuals that have an LDL above 130 milligrams per deciliter, that’s about what, 2024 25% of the population, and those that have LDL cholesterol greater than 160 milligrams per deciliter, is probably what, 5%

Dr. Don Layman 1:28:51

yeah, five and a half,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:28:53

which, if we were to round all that together, 30% of people might have treatable cholesterol, if we’re looking at LDL cholesterol,

Dr. Don Layman 1:29:01

and that’s kind of consistent with mortality. Heart diseases mortality is around 30%

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:29:07

which means 70% of the population doesn’t have an issue with that yet. We’re making guidelines to saturated fat to affect LDL cholesterol, and then, so that’s one point, which then reduces, in many people’s views, higher protein foods, which you have to eat something else. So, to say this succinctly, is the reduction of 10% saturated fat. I just want to, I want you guys to help me understand why that exists. If I don’t know 70% of the population, that, that it’s, it’s not going to make a difference for them, but it will inform the rest of their dietary choices.

Dr. Don Layman 1:29:52

We may have different opinions about it, but basically it goes back to 1980 in the very first dietary guide. Nine, that 10% number came out of thin air in a committee, and we’ve basically had it ever since. Is there a better number? I think that’s probably why it didn’t change this time. Is 11% or 9% a better number? I don’t think there’s any data to pick a better number, so I think that’s why it didn’t change. I think if you look at the big picture, though, where we get our saturated fat has changed. As we talked previously, we’ve changed our animal protein sources, and that changed our carb, our source of fat. We now get more than a third of our saturated fat comes from hydrogenated seed oil, it’s, you know, it’s synthetic, you know, it’s a synthetic fat, and up until 2020 those synthetic fats were filled with trans fatty acids, which everyone recognizes was a problem, and so when we see a lot of these surveys about health and longevity, and things like that. One has to realize they were all underpinned by trans fats, so you know, arguing that that was a good choice, I think, is a really weak argument.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:31:13

So, why, why, why didn’t it change?

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:31:19

Why didn’t it change again? We don’t have enough evidence to remove the 10% A lot of it, as you had said, it’s confounded by the trans fats that were in the diet at a certain point in time, and so we don’t really have those randomized control trials.

Dr. Don Layman 1:31:32

Why didn’t it change that? I think you have to always say how many reputations and how much money is based on keeping it, and I think you have to go down that rabbit hole.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:31:42

I would just go with, we don’t, because there’s too many confounders with the types of fats that were in the diets and the lack of control within the diets that we do have in terms of the scientific evidence that we just can’t make that determination yet. But there’s more and more systematic reviews and meta-analysis coming out, and so if you read Tom Brenna’s report within there, it is very clear,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:32:02

which,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:32:02

by the way, he was on the podcast.

Speaker 1 1:32:04

Oh,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:32:05

sweet

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:32:05

shout out to Tom, he

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:32:07

was hysterical. I’m sure he was hysterical, and he was talking about that this saturated fat heart healthy hypothesis, that much of the data, it was a very interesting conversation. He was saying that the saturated fat 10% data came from hydrogenated whale blubber in an effort to keep people alive during a world war to prevent them from starvation. He said it was never intended for it to be utilized, and people weren’t thinking about 30 years later heart disease, they were concerned about survival in the moment, and what he also said, which he kind of whispered to me after, and I was like, Tom, why didn’t you talk about, I don’t know, I was too controversial. He said that there were motives to keep it there, and that it is clear that it’s really low-quality evidence, and that saturated fat is being lumped underneath hydrogenated whale blubber, and it’s not even, it’s not in the same category,

Dr. Don Layman 1:33:09

it’s just that number has really very little data to back it up. I mean, if you want to make arguments about saturated fat and polyunsaturated fats and LDLs, and some of the scientific relationships, you can find some pretty good data, but to translate that into a number like 10% of calories, you know, you know, jokingly made the suggestion that, you know, it’s okay to have one person eating 45 grams and somebody else is unhealthy at 16, that makes no biochemical sense, you can’t come up with a mechanism to make that make sense, so it’s just a really bad number. If saturated fat is really toxic, then they should come up with a number, and then it becomes a testable hypothesis. If somebody says, well, 25 grams of saturated fat is going to kill you, well, that’s testable, but as long as it’s a percentage of calories, then it’s a vague number, and it’s not really ever testable.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:34:04

The only thing I would say, though, is that it doesn’t refute the guidelines. We don’t look at it and say, well, the 10% is still there, so we remove it, or it’s there. What do you do with it, right? And so I think we were a little bit different, that you, I think when we were looking at the report and then translating it to the evidence, and then we did some modeling, you know. I think initially we thought, well, that’s going to be our sticking point, we’re going to be over the 10% sat fat when you start having animal protein foods at

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:34:30

the 1.2 to 1.6 So modeling out the diet, when you,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:34:33

yeah, and so those that have, I mean, I’ve done a little bit of modeling in the past, and a lot more now, is that you have composites foods, right, for different food categories, where you’re, you know, if it’s animal source foods, you’re taking red meat, you’re taking chicken, and you’re putting them together, and you know, for the protein foods, and the same thing for vegetables and fruits. And I was surprised when you mix and match different varieties. Our saturated fat, with the modeling that we did in the report, was 8% So I’m not supporting 10% I’m just saying I think people hear the 10% and they think, well, maybe it should go away, but it’s still there, so you can’t have that much protein, you can’t have that much protein coming from animal source foods, and I can tell you, when you go back and model it, it is doable, is it doable based on the pyramid, and that would be no, it’s a concept, so you go back to the pyramid that we have, and yes, can you have a ribeye and whole milk every eating occasion, every day? Not if you want to meet your 10% saturated fat, which is questionable, but it’s a concept, and so I think for me it’s having people understand the pyramid. These are foods that you can include, but you have to be mindful, and it has to be flexible, and so when you do that, if you want to have more foods that have saturated fat, maybe at breakfast, then maybe you need to have less at lunch or dinner, right? So, it’s, you know, if you really like full-fat Greek yogurt, maybe have leaner meat later on, and when you do that, you get 8% So, we weren’t even at the 10% with a 2000 calorie diet, and so I think we hear this a lot, that this is not possible to have that, and that’s what’s showing on the pyramid, and one we don’t even know for sure what 10% saturated fat should or shouldn’t be there. Nonetheless, it is still there, but you can still model a flexible pattern as long as you’re mindful of the food choices that you’re making,

Dr. Don Layman 1:36:13

and we both run multiple studies, our random control trials with that kind of modeling that 10% I keep thinking about the pyramid, though, and people want to micromanage what each of those pictures look like, and so, okay, that ribeye is a large picture, but right next to it’s a whole turkey. I don’t know if anybody gets a chicken or chicken, whatever, I don’t, I don’t know that anybody has ever recommended people should sit down and have a whole chicken, and, and down at the bottom of the pyramid is a whole bunch of bananas. It’s four. I don’t know that anybody has ever recommended you should eat four bananas per day, or at the top is a whole bunch of care. So, to translate, and over on the other side, there’s one almond and one nut, you know, and one walnut, I think. So, those aren’t designed to be serving sizes, they’re designed to be pictures, and so the micromanaging that pyramid based on what you’re decided you’re going to be offended by is really just out of line.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:37:12

But it’s the same thing with, if you go back and look at my plate, which has been here since what, 2010 I believe, or maybe 2010 I think, yeah, there weren’t foods on there, right? So there were just names of, you know, vegetables and whole grains, and then protein. The problem is, is then protein started to get diluted down from animal to plant, but they weren’t. They were helpful, I think, to a lot of dietitians, because they knew what they were doing. But to consumers, it’s like, well, what types of foods am I supposed to eat, right? And so I think the pyramid is, it’s kind of a good mix of here’s some foods, but that doesn’t mean that these are the only ones that you can pick and choose from, so, and not that we care, but we just, to be for full disclosure, we had no say, no recommendations, no suggestions, no review of the inverted pyramid. I think probably you and I would have a very different pyramid based on, but it comes down to preferences, right? I think everybody would have a different pyramid based on the foods that you eat versus those that, but if you just have the names, you know, I think that’s really the concept,

Dr. Don Layman 1:38:04

and all the foods are sort of there to your point, for allowing people to pick it. Yeah, it’s not that every one of those foods gets in every one of your meals, you know, that’s just not. And the more I’ve looked at the pyramid, the more I like elements of it. I mean, at the top, basically, it’s prioritizing protein and high fiber foods, happen to be vegetables. I think it’s not other people should note that it’s not fruits and vegetables, it’s vegetables and fruits, higher fiber. And if you look at the vegetables, if you look at the fruits, it’s all the berries at the top, and as it goes down, it gets the grapes and bananas, lower fiber, higher carbs. So I think the pyramid actually reflects a lot of the choices that are there. And then at the bottom you have the grains, those are your last choice based on your calories. If you’re a marathon runner burning 5000 calories per day, then you probably need a lot of those carbs, and if you’re a sedentary person who sits in an office all day, the idea of 130 might be your max, and I, that’s how people should think about

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:39:13

1. Was there ever from your perspective? Well, actually, Heather, the last guidelines were very reflective of the guidelines prior to that, and then prior to that, right? When the first guidelines came out to 2025 guidelines were there a lot of changes from you

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:39:32

mean the advisory committee report?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:39:33

Yeah, so the report that was produced, so for example, this new report prioritizing

Dr. Don Layman 1:39:39

the 420 page report from the guidelines committee,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:39:43

meaning the first iteration of the dietary guidelines, the recommendations there was, you know, the top seven recommendations, which was limit saturated fat, limit sugar,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:39:59

so just to clarify. Right, for people, well, or maybe not. We can cut this out, but it’s important. It’s an important nuance. So, there’s the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee report. So, I think that’s what you’re referring to.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:40:11

What I’m trying,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:40:11

because that’s a 2025 right? But then that one was re-reviewed, and then we have the Scientific Foundation report, that’s the one that led into the 2025 dietary guidelines for Americans. The 2020 advisory report never went into a dietary guideline. I just want to be clear on that. So, that one never went into that. It stopped.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:40:31

So, I should.. I should rephrase this. Matt, how are we doing on time?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:40:34

Good hour for you.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:40:35

Okay. What can you grab me a caffeinated drink? Do you mind right here? What I. what I want to get it really quick, it’s in this moment, is that they didn’t really change, so the inception of dietary guidelines until you guys came along,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:40:51

right, it

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:40:52

didn’t jump at all, and so I’m just, I want to highlight that the amount of pushback they

Dr. Don Layman 1:40:56

double down, right, but I anti-protein, and

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:40:59

also I want to make sure that you guys are getting in to say everything that you want to say, because I also wanted, so I wanted to point out that, yeah, I wanted to point out that, does anyone need anything? Are you guys good? I’m good, but I wanted to point out that they didn’t change, but again, I don’t, I don’t know, they didn’t really change, and so, of course, there was no pushback, and no one cared about every five years, they were all the same.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:41:23

Well, I would.. I mean, that’s why we.. I got all puffed up, because it did change with protein. I mean, there was a bigger emphasis with plant proteins. They wanted to reorganize, so

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:41:32

I would love.. Can we talk about that? I do think that that’s valuable, because nobody.. it wasn’t controversial up until you guys came along, for oh, for

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:41:43

sure, yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:41:43

for

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:41:44

anybody that,

Dr. Don Layman 1:41:46

yeah, wasn’t studying, yeah, I’d

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:41:48

like to

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:41:49

highlight, I mean,

Dr. Don Layman 1:41:52

we at my, you know, my group, we had written multiple papers about the protein ounce equivalents, and how distorted it was in terms of interpreting protein, so you know it was being ignored by the,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:42:08

I mean,

Dr. Don Layman 1:42:08

guideline committee, but

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:42:10

I don’t know if it’s, I mean, if we don’t need to go down that path, it’s probably more appropriate about this, the social equity, that was the bigger difference, but again, nobody got upset about that. It was included, except

Speaker 1 1:42:22

scientists.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:42:23

I want to make sure that we cover

Dr. Don Layman 1:42:24

me.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:42:25

I want to make sure that we cover all the things that are criticized, because I, I did want to touch on, but I don’t want to make it negative, because your colleagues were real

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:42:38

well.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:42:38

So, that was, we should address that. Then the social wasn’t social equity and inclusion.

Dr. Don Layman 1:42:43

Yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:42:43

I mean, this is the time

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:42:45

that that was the first guidelines that focused on that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:42:48

It doesn’t have to be stated in an..

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:42:50

I don’t know, I’m fine not having that discussion.

Dr. Don Layman 1:42:53

Yeah, I don’t know that I don’t know that that adds anything.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:42:59

It doesn’t to us. It’s just that is one of the ones that

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:43:01

very confused people are like,

Dr. Don Layman 1:43:03

I mean, the general public doesn’t

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:43:05

know

Dr. Don Layman 1:43:05

that was there,

Speaker 1 1:43:06

they don’t even,

Dr. Don Layman 1:43:06

and so I’m not sure that that’s useful to a podcast.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:43:10

Okay, what else do you think that

Dr. Don Layman 1:43:13

was the biggest difference? It’s just, I mean, the, yeah, the I think the most offensive thing that that group did was they double down on the saturated fat, and they did it to, you know, Chris Gardner came out and said the only way to change it is, you know, replace beef with beans, you know, that was the total outcome, and you know that, you know, that’s just not.. I

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:43:35

guess we haven’t really, we have emphasized it, but I mean, there are benefits of ultra-processed foods at times, but the problem is, is Americans are consuming a lot of ultra-processed foods that are high in saturated fat, and I think that’s the problem, and so they, that group, never really brought that up, that where the saturated fat was coming from,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:43:53

but I think that, you know, you guys want

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:43:55

to put, is it, do you have, you guys decided where you’d like to take this next,

Dr. Don Layman 1:44:01

we’re going to take it.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:44:03

Yeah, because I have thoughts, but you guys,

Dr. Don Layman 1:44:05

we’re going to try and teach people to use those guidelines in a productive way, you know, as a decision tree, as a sequence of how you put together a diet.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:44:16

But would it make sense, because you, there was so much pushback from, like, don’t put this in here, like ASN, and these other, but

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:44:25

that was the transparency.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:44:26

Okay,

Dr. Don Layman 1:44:28

they’re offended that they didn’t get asked for any input.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:44:31

I mean, they won’t, they’ll say that, and then they’ll.. we’re going to have presentations that come out later. I mean,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:44:38

but I just may not be able to address whatever is useful for physicians,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:44:42

they’re not talking about this, the shift. Well, they are talking about red.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:44:46

I mean,

Dr. Don Layman 1:44:46

I think I think that we’re into a phase now where we need better instruction about how to utilize these new guidelines that people need to understand. It provides a decision process that carbohydrates and fats are really nothing but energy and the diet, and how you decide between those two depend on who you are.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:45:10

Should we talk about carbohydrates a little bit more? The again, the floor is yours and yours, because I have a list here of, we talked about protein quality animal, we didn’t talk about dyads, that might be too complicated. Satiety, we touched on satiety, appetite, the dietary guidelines. Again, it remains very controversial in this space, so you know, making it real for people. For example,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:45:41

genification. Do you ever talk to the sports, like the athletes or like the gym enthusiasts? I’ve never actually had that conversation about the new guidelines. We hear we talk about, we talk to physicians and dietitians. Right now, I haven’t. I mean, I, my own gym, so I don’t go out anymore. I’m assuming they’re like cheerleading

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:45:58

this. They are.

Dr. Don Layman 1:45:59

Yeah. Well, finally.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:46:01

Yeah,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:46:02

so it’s just, I’m just curious, because if they have a problem, then maybe we’re not, they

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:46:06

don’t, because they’re like, obviously,

Dr. Don Layman 1:46:11

that’s the word, obviously,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:46:14

but but what they’re also seeing is then they’re seeing pushback from those that are the American Medical Association just came out with a, we should move more plant-based, so it’s directly opposed to the information that you guys are putting out there, and I, I think that that’s something that I would touch on, because you guys are,

Dr. Don Layman 1:46:36

and that is such a, I mean, you was just sort of

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:46:39

not

Dr. Don Layman 1:46:40

putting together, I mean, that’s a, that’s a fiber statement more than a protein statement.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:46:45

Do you want me to talk about that? No,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:46:48

I mean, I don’t think this is even worth bringing up, but I mean, I would say 90% of people’s issues is political.

Speaker 2 1:46:54

Yeah,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:46:54

that’s it. There’s been, and I like the visibility that has occurred, but because most of the commercial ads and the push have been political. The rest doesn’t matter if you’re not on that side.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:47:06

What about

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:47:07

so I think, and I don’t think that for us that’s something we need to talk about, but that is the one that’s just blaringly obvious, that if you were to remove this, if I mean, I’m not, regardless or not, if you were on, if we had done this,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:47:17

I know

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:47:18

five years ago,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:47:19

correct?

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:47:20

I can’t imagine we’d have that much pushback,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:47:23

except for Gardner,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:47:24

right? But it wouldn’t be at the same level. I just don’t.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:47:28

So I agree with you, because I went to the White House under the Biden administration for women. No one gave a shit. No one gave a shit. Oh, but then I was there because it took me years dragging Dawn, like get this girl out of here, but then that was, oh my god, you’re this and that, and I’m like, dude, I’ve been trying to do this for the last 10 years, so but we could talk about the proteinification, because now what’s happening is there’s a lot of people here, protein, and then there’s a junk, there’s a whole bunch of junk protein.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:48:07

Yeah, can we should have that discussion. That’s the translation piece.

Dr. Don Layman 1:48:11

I, you know, I think the I think the uproar would have been similar in 2010 if it had jumped to a protein centric approach, because the saturated fat is still the elephant in the room

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:48:25

change,

Dr. Don Layman 1:48:26

but but the perception of it did. Now you’re supposed to get it from animal foods, and that’s that would have offended the statin arena. The American Heart Association would have been equally offended in 20

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:48:42

consumers would, if, if they did what happened now, five years ago, without the media attention, consumers wouldn’t understand any of this. That was my point. It got attention because

Dr. Don Layman 1:48:53

the, oh, I see Kennedy, and

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:48:56

it was big. It’s go big,

Dr. Don Layman 1:48:58

sure,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:48:58

make more ads have, and that didn’t happen then, so it would have rolled out, people would have ignored it.

Dr. Don Layman 1:49:03

Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:49:04

that’s all. You would have still had the scientists complaining about certain things, but like it wouldn’t have reached this

Dr. Don Layman 1:49:10

level. The media actually was pretty mellow about the new guidelines. Oh, they said, you know, it’s sort of like, oh, well, the proteins kind of what everybody’s thinking. Yeah, well, the fat didn’t change. That’s not that bad.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:49:27

Yeah. Okay. So, do you guys want to.. I don’t know. What do you want to wrap up?

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:49:32

I mean, the only thing we probably should say is, if you want to ask that is based on supplementation or fortified protein-fortified foods, or something like that to say with our recommendations. Now the guidelines, obviously it’s food first, but that is what people think now, right? So everything is very add more protein to this, this, or this, and that’s definitely not what we’re advocating,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:49:52

and that I think is confusing to people. Matt, do you have any pickups? Also, so one of the other. Things, is you know, this is both children, teenagers are at risk of growing up in a culture where ultra-processed carbohydrates have replaced protein at breakfast. Again, these are just some of the things that people have come up with. Is there a permanent consequence of early protein inadequacy? It’s not obviously inadequate, but it’s suboptimal.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:50:18

Well, they are inadequate. Female adolescent girls are not so, maybe required.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:50:23

I say again, this is, I think, all really important.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:50:27

I feel like we had that

Dr. Don Layman 1:50:29

conversation. I don’t

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:50:30

mind resetting, but I feel like we’re already there for that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:50:33

Nope, I mean, I talk about this all the time, so I’m, you know, at risk to repeat myself, which I don’t want to do. Would you want to cover a well-planned plant-based diet? No. How would you take the guidelines and make them a well-planned plant-based diet? No,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:50:50

I mean, outside of the fact that we actually have a plant-based diet, depending on what your criteria, what your criteria are.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:50:55

Okay,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:50:55

it’s a point of contention, though. It’s like it’s argumentative. I mean, we are.. we

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:50:59

don’t

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:50:59

need to do that, but again, we don’t need to do that. I really was, I was really glad that you guys pointed out the pro, like that was just a big one that hadn’t, you know, you guys need to be talking about it, correcting people’s perspective, which you did. I’m just, whatever, pontificating the.. I do think maybe mentioning the what do you think ultra processed and the proteinification, and then we can wrap up. Yeah,

Dr. Don Layman 1:51:27

sure. Okay,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:51:28

I mean, I could talk about this all day. Heather looks like she needs to do push-ups. You look like you’re fading, that it’s time for your afternoon caffeine, which you missed because you should have had that an

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:51:38

hour ago.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:51:39

I’m a caffeine non-responder.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:51:41

Oh, that’s horrible. I would say so. Am I pretty

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:51:43

jacked as it is, so it doesn’t really matter.

Speaker 3 1:51:45

I’d

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:51:46

probably not. I’d probably be off the wall.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:51:48

All right, so I’m gonna.. I’m gonna ready. I

Dr. Don Layman 1:51:54

can do that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:51:56

All three of us agree that the idea of approaching forward facing. finally we’re just like, okay. Thank goodness, but I went to go pick up some popcorn, because Friday night is Friday movie night. In fact, we might be watching Elf for the 500th and 35th time, and I was really surprised to see protein in my popcorn. They had proteinification eyes. I just made that word up. My popcorn, as well as almost everything else I’m seeing, including coffee, you name it. Now we’ve got this added protein and everything. Do you think that that is helpful or harmful or neutral?

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:52:36

You want to go? Why don’t

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:52:37

we start

Dr. Don Layman 1:52:37

with I just say no, and then we can say we’ll go with no, and then we’ll unfold. Is it necessary? No, it

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:52:45

is food first, always. Whether you’re, and anything in practice is you can get your the amount of protein that’s needed and other every other nutrient from whole foods, right? So I think first and foremost, that’s unless you are a very specific athlete, right, resistance-trained strength athlete, and you’re unable to get the amount of protein that you need because those needs are higher, that’s probably an exception, but I would say for consumers it’s just not necessary. Then the question is, is can they be useful in certain circumstances, right?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:53:20

But also, the protein. Sorry to interrupt you. What I’m seeing is I’m looking at the back of the label, and it’s protein from wheat, or it’s protein from it’s not..

Dr. Don Layman 1:53:30

it’s just

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:53:31

well, most

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:53:32

now is coming from pee. If you look at a lot of the ones that are added, it could be soybean. I would say the majority that I’m seeing, because now that’s all I do, I go through the stores, and

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:53:40

so if you guys see someone who’s just

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:53:42

it’s me, so I laugh because the joke, I think we’ve even said this was, I mean, I mean this not scientifically, but I’m like, okay, so we’re going to make this recommendation, nobody’s going to follow it anyways, so it doesn’t matter, so this is the first time that we make a recommendation of more protein, and then everybody’s following it, so it’s a kind of funny concept that you know, for 20 years nobody even looked at the guidelines, can come out with protein, and now there’s protein in everything. Wow,

Dr. Don Layman 1:54:09

my take is, you know, if it looks like fairy dust, it probably isn’t very useful, but

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:54:15

misleading.

Dr. Don Layman 1:54:16

Yeah, I think so. I think that, and I think hopefully we’re going to see some front of package labeling things that are going to change in the next year, so you know, I think that you know if you, if you see popcorn with one gram or two grams, that’s an irrelevant thing,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:54:33

protein,

Dr. Don Layman 1:54:35

yeah, and then you should look and see, but there’s my threshold for it being a meaningful protein is 10 grams. If it has less than 10 grams in it, you probably shouldn’t think of it as a protein food. It’s not really going to be beneficial,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:54:52

and the only reason I said it is definitely not necessary, but you can use it for certain things, because we do know that there’s certain amount of protein that can be satiating, but. Me, I spent most of my career looking at that, and I can tell you, protein powders and shakes, or having these things that are added to some things, you don’t get this tidy effect that you do if you’re sitting down to have a breakfast burrito versus a breakfast shake, or adding a scoop of protein to regular yogurt, or something like that. So, there is something inherently about what we call the protein matrix, or the like a matrix of food that can be helpful, right? So I always think of a scoop of protein really helpful for certain things if you are a weightlifter or strength athlete. What

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:55:32

about on a GLP one, or having reduced

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:55:34

possible? But I guess I go back to usually scoops of protein have protein, which is essential amino acids great, they’re missing all the other nutrients, and so for even GLP one users, and we were doing some studies right now looking at normal and high protein in GLP one users, and those that are coming off of GLP ones, they need the protein foods because they provide the nutrients that they’re deficient in. We know that there’s a higher.. I just read an article that said about now we have vitamin C deficiency in GLP ones and really iron deficiency, because they’re reducing their calories so or their food so much, they’re not eating a lot of those foods, and so I just go back to now, you can’t get vitamin C from protein, that’s not what I meant, but we have to be careful because you know it’s finding those foods that you’re that they like to eat and they’re willing to eat, but they come with that nutrient package that you just don’t get with a scoop of protein, so that’s my only concern, that I think, and most of these are adding just those proteins, you’re not adding the other components that go in with whole protein foods.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:56:29

It would be, it would be very difficult to do that, and there’s probably even components beyond vitamins and minerals that we don’t even know about. To mirror that is when we think about the phytonutrients, anthocyanins, and in other types of foods, there’s the carnocyanins, whatever I’m making it up, but the equivalent of a phytonutrient and animal-based protein. Now,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:56:51

with that said, there are certain life stages that I would highly recommend something like that. So, in teens, we know that they’re deficient in aging populations, where they are really, they struggle with eating that amount of food

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:57:02

deficient in essential amino acids, yeah,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:57:04

and nutrients, but I would say yes, both protein, but mainly essential amino, essential amino acids, maybe pregnancy and lactation, or menopause. So there are very specific life stages where I think they can be helpful if you’re not getting it within your foods, or anybody, I guess.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:57:19

I mean, I am meeting those needs. This is what I’ve seen as a practicing physician over years, is people that are on calorie restriction, even if it’s if it’s medication induced, if it’s medical challenge, if they, if they have some kind of struggle, if they are ill, chronically ill, going through chemotherapy, or their taste buds, all of these things then become a challenge, and where I was going with this is the idea of ultra-processed foods, having popcorn with your protein, the quality of the nutrients, like those essential amino acids, it’s missing.

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:57:56

Yeah, the only thing I would say, for example, as a snack, if you don’t truly need a snack, but you’re hungry. I like a good protein chip, that’s just me. So, I have a bag of protein. Yeah, there’s many now.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:58:07

Some,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:58:08

you okay if I say brands on here? Quest chips, I love, like,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:58:12

what’s your favorite flavor?

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:58:13

I think it’s the chili. It’s very zesty, and it’s made out of whey protein. Okay, and so I take that over any day. Is it filling? Absolutely not.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:58:21

It’s not filling,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:58:21

but I like the taste of it, and I wanted something to eat in the afternoon, and it’s 20 or 20 – it’s like 20 grams of protein. The

Dr. Don Layman 1:58:29

discussion just switched from

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:58:31

had me a lemon,

Dr. Don Layman 1:58:34

but I think there’s an interesting distinction between somebody sprinkling one gram of protein into popcorn as fairy dust versus using protein to replace carbohydrates for society, for a sack. I think I think those are two very different things, and, and you know, I think you have to kind of look, is it was it one gram of protein or was it 678, grams of protein that you replace carbohydrates with? Those are very different answer,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:59:01

and I think the same thing with, like, the breakfast cereals. At first, my response was, you don’t need it. It’s probably true, but there’s a lot of breakfast cereals now that have, again, is seven or eight grams sufficient? Probably not. It’s 15 to 20, and you’re replacing carbohydrates that you don’t really need,

Dr. Don Layman 1:59:16

and most of those are also getting higher fiber, and they’re getting higher fiber, so you’re getting two other components of satiety, you’re getting protein and fiber, and you know, I wouldn’t want anyone coming away thinking that Heather and I, in any way, are arguing against fiber in the diet. You know, the third bullet in the guidelines is vegetables. You know,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:59:37

well, I mean, you threw this in here, but it’s.. we just want to emphasize again, we recommended more beans, peas, and lentils than anybody

Dr. Don Layman 1:59:43

ever, so you know history

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:59:44

of ever,

Dr. Heather Leidy 1:59:48

because they’re valuable in the diet,

Dr. Don Layman 1:59:49

and so you know it’s we’re definitely protein centric in terms of how you should think about your diet, but within that there’s a lot of range to what you can make. Your decision, and then you know, what does that mean to the rest of the diet,

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:00:04

and along those lines, we kind of touch on this with, do you need them, but they can be helpful. I would say, too, the caution is, is typically with protein in things, usually comes added sugar, right, and we just know there’s just very little, there’s no value to added sugar, unless it’s, I would say, I said that before, and then I forgot, in schools it goes down to, would you rather have kids not drink anything or have chocolate milk, and we know that you would have chocolate milk, and there’s added sugars in there, so there are certain times I would say for most consumers, just be mindful of protein that typically comes along with added sugars, and like a lot of the bars, or some of those other products.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:00:39

Okay, if you, and this is where we switch, take off your scientific, keep it on halfway, like if you were going to, so you don’t, you, this is unanimous, that you don’t agree to the fairy dust sprinkle of the high protein cupcake that has five grams of protein,

Dr. Don Layman 2:01:00

no cupcake would get to five, but go ahead, one or two

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:01:05

have 10, or like Legacy.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:01:07

No, Legacy is

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:01:12

a those

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:01:15

came to the house and was brought like Pop-Tarts, and I thought she was eating a Pop-Tarts, ready to remove her from my home. And then she showed me the.. and again, we have no relationship to this company, Legacy Pop-Tarts. And she was like, gee, there it’s

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:01:33

either 10 or 15 grams,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:01:34

but it’s whey protein, whey protein, they’re delicious. All right, well, we gotta.. we gotta get some legacy, but we’ll offer some legacy. Bruce, I’m gonna call Bruce. Do

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:01:44

I recommend them,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:01:46

but this is important, because if you had to choose again, we there people have to eat. We do live in a very convenient, forward world. If okay, if it gets to 10 grams of whey protein in a Pop-Tart, are you okay with that? Are you happy with that?

Dr. Don Layman 2:02:03

I mean, if the choice is Captain Crunch versus 10 gram Pop-Tart with 10 grams of whey protein, I’ll put, I’ll pick that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:02:11

What if it was 10 grams of hemp protein?

Dr. Don Layman 2:02:15

Okay.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:02:16

Whoa, what about you? No,

Dr. Don Layman 2:02:20

I mean, to

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:02:21

begin with,

Dr. Don Layman 2:02:22

you asked, you asked me a chemistry question, as opposed to a taste question.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:02:28

What are other.. okay, when I think about eating, and we put this together in the Forever Shown playbook, we actually re.. we brought the plate back, we did it, was it was great. The recommendation is obviously eat the meals, but if you’re not going to eat the meals and that you’re going to have a snack, the snack should be balanced. It was higher protein. When you say higher protein, it’s 200 calories or less, because we’re not eating a meal, we’re just trying to deal with hunger. Snack foods, are there high protein snack foods that you like and would go to,

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:03:01

well, for me, hands down, it’s Greek yogurt with nuts or granola,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:03:05

and you are not looking for

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:03:08

a plain

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:03:09

Greek, plain Greek yogurt,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:03:10

extra sugar, but you’re not looking for an amino acid threshold, you are looking for something right

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:03:16

to, it’s

Dr. Don Layman 2:03:17

not a protein issue, it’s a satiety issue.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:03:20

Well, these, we have to be able to translate the science to do

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:03:23

well,

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:03:23

and nutrients, right? Again, Greek yogurt provides a lot of other nutrients that can be helpful in the diet.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:03:29

Okay, I love that. What’s yours? Oh yeah, what did he do? He doesn’t eat snacks. Oh, she might have a bite.

Dr. Don Layman 2:03:37

I mean, I use those. I mean, we use, we used a lot of things

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:03:41

that were, what do you do?

Dr. Don Layman 2:03:45

Yogurt, nuts, I like things like

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:03:48

chocolate chop cookies,

Dr. Don Layman 2:03:49

deli meat with cheese, you know, something we did, like

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:03:54

I heard that was a carcinogen,

Dr. Don Layman 2:03:55

ham and cheese roll

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:03:56

ups, I heard that processed meats, and

Dr. Don Layman 2:04:00

I use the word processed?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:04:02

Well, dally me. Okay. Well, technically it would be initial processing, right?

Dr. Don Layman 2:04:09

You think that slicing ham makes it

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:04:12

processed? No, better not. Okay,

Dr. Don Layman 2:04:16

you don’t have to have processed. I mean, you could choose ones with nitrates or something in it, but you can easily choose not to have it.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:04:22

This is true. Turkey just

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:04:24

depends on what you’re defining as process,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:04:26

right?

Dr. Don Layman 2:04:27

Hamburger is not processed just because it’s ground,

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:04:30

but I think all ham has sodium, if I remember. So I think by default,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:04:34

here’s what he’s gonna say: you could have a turkey breast that is sliced, that would be considered

Dr. Don Layman 2:04:38

sure.

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:04:39

He said ham,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:04:40

but

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:04:40

also

Dr. Don Layman 2:04:41

cheese waiter asked me if I had healthy snacks. He just asked me what I use to be healthy

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:04:48

with this fair. What about something like so you said protein chips? Quest is your favorite. I’m gonna buy those. I wouldn’t try it at least. The what about something like edamame? What. That be a useful,

Dr. Don Layman 2:05:02

sure.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:05:03

I mean, not

Dr. Don Layman 2:05:03

for me, but yeah,

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:05:05

I like the,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:05:06

yeah, we like those

Dr. Don Layman 2:05:08

only if they’re highly salted

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:05:11

protein bars. Do you care where the source of protein comes from if it’s for satiety?

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:05:17

So you’re asking personal questions, not recommendation questions, right? So,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:05:21

I care about you guys already contributed enough to the scientific world, but people also want to know what you do.

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:05:29

So, I have bear bells every day.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:05:30

Okay?

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:05:31

Why 20 grams of whey protein, no added sugars, fat appropriates, 200 calories, great snack. Do I feel full on them? No, but it’s additional protein, additional essential amino acids for me, and it helps curb some things, because I’m going to have something else, I’m going to have something, because I just want something to eat, and so a lot of times it’s the fact that mentally I know I’m eating 20 grams of protein, so I think I personally feel better about myself, and they taste good, it’s like, I mean, I don’t even really like sweets, but bars, so that’s what I look for, I look for the protein added sugar ratio.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:06:03

Okay,

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:06:03

and the calories too.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:06:05

How high in sugar are you willing to go?

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:06:07

Five, usually just five grams, because there’s bars now that have that, and I also look for ones that don’t have a lot of sugar alcohols, but

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:06:15

fair.

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:06:16

But there’s not that many out there.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:06:17

There are not.

Dr. Don Layman 2:06:18

I don’t use a lot of bars, but I sometimes have them when I travel, but I don’t pay much attention to brands. There was one, there’s, I think, one called One now that is pretty good, and it’s whey protein.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:06:32

Yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:06:33

well, I’m gonna, not that anyone asked me, but what

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:06:36

is your favorite bar?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:06:38

Well, I don’t do a ton of bars, just because I don’t like the texture. What I will do is, I’ll do it, makes me very unpopular, especially on the airplane, but it’s okay. I will bring a hard-boiled egg, and then I’ll have a pack of essential amino acids, which I’m.. I’ll give you one. I use a hard-boiled egg, not too hard boiled, so it’s kind of in the middle, and then a pack of body health perfect to me now, and then I’ll drink extra water. So,

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:07:09

could David Church on, right?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:07:11

I have not, but

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:07:12

oh well, you need to get him out. He eats your breakfast,

Speaker 1 2:07:16

I think

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:07:17

it’s verbatim,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:07:17

and I just find that this is a great breakfast. It’s also a great snack, and you know it’s interesting because you don’t want to feel full, or you want to feel full, because otherwise you feel hungry. You said I don’t actually, meaning you know that you’re gonna have something else, so that you feel more full. I don’t like feeling full, and I think a lot of people, you know, I just feel better. I like feeling full at night,

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:07:40

what it depends on how you define that, right? So, I can put my injustice behavior. Okay, so full doesn’t mean stuffed, okay? Full just means are satisfied. You’re

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:07:49

just.. I

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:07:49

like feeling a little bit hungry. I like feeling a little bit hungry.

Dr. Don Layman 2:07:53

I think most people would be better off if they felt that.. if that was the goal,

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:07:58

or just listening. I would say number one is listening to your cues.

Dr. Don Layman 2:08:03

Most people do overeat, and that means they was a satiety thing. Most people do overeat, they don’t go to the cues or satiety, and they probably are overeating at least 30% on the calories when they feel that way.

Dr. Heather Leidy 2:08:21

Yep, our biggest concern is we know protein has a health halo in whatever foods, not red meat, I guess. If you remove that or animal source foods, I mean that’s questionable, but like packaged foods, it has that health halo, and so people will generally purchase those. I would suspect overeat because they think it’s healthy. Same thing with fiber, but fiber never tasted is good, usually protein doesn’t have that weird flavor, unless it is, but even pea protein now is a lot better than it used to be. But I would say now that it’s bars are tricky, but a lot of things added to other foods it just tastes good. So I would imagine people are going to take them, eat them, and not be mindful of their calorie goals and what’s needed.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:09:00

Well, doctors, Dr. Layman, nice to see you again. The most frequent requested guest and guest, Dr. Heather Leidy. Thank you both for being on the show. I’m going to link your Twitter. I am not going to link your Twitter because you don’t have a Twitter, but maybe your lab or website, if people are interested to learn more about you guys. And truly,

Dr. Don Layman 2:09:26

a pleasure, as always.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:09:28

You better say that. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Okay, we have

2:09:37

we.