Bad Wigins wrote:
The USDA recommendations are for the general populace. Of course athletes need more.
As I stated, serious runners need more CALORIES than the average sedentary person. When one consumes more CALORIES, they almost always also increase their protein. It's not usually a big concern for serious runners. People trying to put on serious muscle mass certainly need to focus on increasing protein, but that is not what the typical distance runners is trying to do.
Bad Wigins wrote:And unless you have certain medical conditions, there's no harm in getting too much but there is in getting too little. I eat about a gram a pound or a little less.
There can be harm, even without "certain medical conditions." Look up Rabbit Starvation syndrome. Yes, this is unlikely for most people, but some people are quite capable of thinking: 'there is No LIMIT to too much protein! (as you suggested to them). Therefore I am going on an all or 90% protein diet.' It could actually make them quite sick/do damage to them.
Furthermore, in animal studies, consuming over 30% of total calories as protein over a lifetime leads to long term liver damage. In humans this has not been rigorously studied, but the rational is there for possible negative effects on the liver from a lifetime of a very high protein diet.
Another issue: In one rat study, a western high sat fat, high sugar diet, induced atherosclerosis (as it always does). The high carb low sat fat diet did not (as is always doesn't). The 3rd diet kept the high sat fat portion of the western diet, but cut carbs/sugar and replaced them with protein. Despite no changes in typical CVD risk factors (cholesterol levels, weight gain, etc), the high protein, high fat, low carb group developed the most and most severe atherosclerotic lesions. This was due to less ability to repair epithelial tissue damage. This could have been due to reduced carbohydrates, or increased protein. But the fact remains: the high protein diet was the worst of the bunch for CVD.
Vascular effects of a low-carbohydrate high-protein diet
5418–15423 PNAS September 8, 2009 vol. 106 no. 36
now of course animal studies are not always fully applicable to humans. But because of the fact that the models generally match what happens in human CVD, they at least should give one pause, and NOT to state:
'No amount of protein, or % of calories from protein is too much. This can do NO harm to you', as you stated. That is too certain and too extreme.