whey protein the truth behind this important supplement

New light on an old issue.

The question of the best protein source has long been a hotly debated conundrum,fuelled by the commercial interests of the ‘Meal Replacement Moguls’; few subjects have caused as much confusion. Their powerful propaganda machines, i.e. the magazines they own, would have you eating substances that could put your dog in the vet’s surgery, providing they were cheap enough and came with an attractive story. The marketing campaigns of many of these companies are an assault on your frontal lobe. The boundaries of innovation have really been tested by constantly changing the names of the production processes, for example, Cross-Flow, High-Altitude, Triple-Drop Micro Filtration – hardly re-inventing the wheel, eh? Then we have those ludicrous before and after shots. You know - the ones where the guy confuses six weeks’ training with ten years and comes back with a tan and some airbrush work but forgets to change his boxer shorts.
Around a year ago, an article entitled ‘Whey Out of Line’ by Jeff Feliciano, that appeared in Peak Training Journal, shed some light on key information about the dilemma of protein sourcing. The implications of and conclusions drawn from this article would change the whole methodology we employ when assessing the suitability of a protein. The R & D guys from many companies were left scrambling for their ‘brown trousers’. Meanwhile, subsequent articles in FLEX by Feliciano and Dr. James Wright would drive the final nails into the coffin.
The ‘Big Guns’ were caught with their pants down – this new information and technology would take a long time to put into effect. On top of this, they were already sitting on a mountain of whey that they would have to move first. A couple of companies chose the positive approach and set about a prolonged quest for the ultimate protein. Unfortunately, the majority chose a more negative approach. Articles defending whey were to be found everywhere, the better ones, like those of Will Brink, pointing out the less obvious virtues of whey; others with less integrity telling you that whey is the meaning of life and that you should sell your children for ion exchange material.
The problem was that everyone was missing the point. Messrs. Feliciano and Wright weren’t telling us that whey is bad, they weren’t even saying that whey isn’t the single best protein source, far from it. They were confirming what many of us had believed for years:
1. It is better to combine protein sources.
2. Too much of a single protein source in one serving leads to lower utilisation.
3. Protein scoring systems are misleading and there are other factors that influence absorption.
4. Protein percentage should not be the soul criterion for judging the suitability of a dairy protein.
Feliciano and Wright are members of the ‘Old School’, experts who have done their time in the trenches, they have looked the lion in the eye, they have smelled its breath. Authors of definitive hardcore information over the years, respected for not selling out, they knew what made an athlete tick. Nobody could make it clearer than these guys that there’s more to being a scientist than having your picture taken in a white coat. I took their work seriously and, while working on the development of a new protein supplement for Dorian Yates Approved, I decided to investigate further.
Point 1 is based on the principles of fast and slow proteins1 and basically focuses on the fact that different protein sources have different assimilation rates. With dairy proteins, these assimilation rates will depend on their degree and form of processing, e.g., a hydro-lysed whey protein isolate (WPI), with its shorter peptide chains, will be assimilated faster than a whey protein concentrate (WPC).
Conclusion: Research and common sense tells us that dairy proteins have superior digestibility and that by combining the best ones we will achieve a sustained release of proteins with resultant increased protein synthesis and decreased protein oxidisation. Therefore, an ideal protein formula would contain combined protein sources.
Point 2 is based on the fact that when large amounts of amino acids enter the bloodstream fast, the majority will be oxidised (used for energy)2, resulting in poor utilisation. This is the reason why hospitals use enteric feeds and supplements that contain relatively small servings of protein when dealing with wasting conditions such as cancer and AIDS.
Conclusion: As in point 1, combining proteins and in particular avoiding too large a quantity of shorter peptides will circumvent this problem. Therefore, an ideal protein formula would contain some hydrolysed whey and/or a WPI for fast protein synthesis, but this should not provide too large a percentage of the overall protein supplied.
Point 3 tells us that although scoring systems like PDCAAS, PER and NPU give us a pretty accurate picture of a protein digestibility, BV is fatally flawed on the grounds that this old system was based on the highest score possible being 100 (for egg). Now that we have whey isolates and hydrolysed proteins, the calculation system has been manipulated by some and rendered inaccurate3. In short, claims of BV over 100 are a mathematical impossibility and any of these companies claiming BV of 150+ are misleading you.
What has now become significant is the role that certain prebiotic/probiotic organisms play in protein digestion. These are known to dramatically enhance absorption and improve intestinal health4.
Conclusion: Whilst scoring systems are important, other factors have been demonstrated to improve absorption. Therefore, an ideal protein formula would contain materials with high PDCAAS, PER and NPU scores. However, the addition of prebiotics such as oligosaccharides would be a major asset.
Point 4 is perhaps the most important point and concerns the properties unique only to some dairy protein sources. As you may know, to qualify as a WPI, a protein percentage of 90% and over has to be attained. Less than this figure qualifies as a WPC. Statistically, this figure becomes insignificant when you consider some of the constituents and properties of the WPCs produced by certain processes. Although a WPC is higher in fat than an isolate, it is worth remembering that the growth factors are found mainly in the fat globule membrane and that when combined with a good hydrolysed whey, the overall fat percentage is still low.
Filtration processes that maintain key fractions like the immuno-supportive lactoferrin, GMP, alpha-lactalbumin and the immunoglobulins are now being recognised as being the single most important factor in WPC production. Why? Because research indicates that these fractions can impart their qualities to us, including the growth factors! Trials performed in Finland studying the effects of oral bovine colostrums supplementation on strength athletes resulted in elevated plasma IGF-15. When you consider how long ago MET-RX came out and its use of undenatured milk proteins, it demonstrates how far ahead of the field it actually was. None of its imitators used this material, naively believing instead that it was just a case of protein, carbs and fat. As you may have noticed, we have only mentioned filtration processes when discussing whey production. “What about ionic exchange?” I hear you say. Let’s take a quick look at why we don’t want to be using ion exchange whey:
1. Ion exchange whey contains less than 25% of the calcium found in cross flow microfiltration material.
2. Ion exchange whey contains more than twice the sodium found in CFM material.
3. CFM processing is a natural process where the protein is treated gently, thereby preserving its biological activity. With ionic exchange, proteins are separated on the basis of their electric charge, using chemical reagents like hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide. This eliminates important bioactive fractions and renders some others inert.
4. Have you heard of glycomacropeptides? GMPs are biologically active proteins that influence protein digestion via stimulating the release of a chemical called cholecystokinin. Ion exchange whey contains no GMPs.
5. The commonest claim for ion exchange whey is that it is high in BCAAs, found mainly in its BETALACTOGLOBULIN. Whilst this is relatively true, ALPHA–LACTALBUMIN, the main fraction in human milk, has an extremely high chemical score (63% of its amino acids are essential) and binds the minerals calcium, zinc, cobalt and magnesium. Filtration processing also produces material high in BCAAs.
6. Beta-lactoglobulin, which does not occur in human milk, is a source of many allergic reactions, some of which can be very serious. At the very least, this will translate to digestion problems.
Perhaps the most thought-provoking revelation by Feliciano and Wright was the claim that whey possesses no anti-catabolic properties at all. This completely flew in the face of everything we had been told by the pro-whey movement. However, this claim was not made without some pretty weighty evidence. A couple of years ago, a ground-breaking piece of research revealed that when 16 healthy, well-fed, young individuals were supplemented with either whey or a special casein product, after an overnight fast, only the casein inhibited whole body protein breakdown i.e. only the casein was anti-catabolic. Significantly, this study only used healthy individuals, thereby giving a more accurate reflection of the implication to athletes2. The material used was micellar undenatured casein. This material also contains high amounts of important fractions like GMP and casomorphins.
Many products boast their glutamine content, but a more suitable addition would be peptide-bonded glutamine – known to have far superior absorption, nitrogen retention and GH-releasing properties.
Conclusion: Undenatured milk proteins have much to offer over their more heavily processed counterparts, clearly indicating that protein percentage is not the only claim worth listening to. Careful attention should be paid to processing techniques to ensure that growth factors are not rendered inert. Therefore, an ideal protein formula would also contain undenatured milk protein, in particular, a specialised high-fraction WPC. The ultimate formula would also contain undenatured micellar casein (not to be confused with regular casein or caseinate, both of which are poor quality materials) and peptide-bonded glutamine. If I had to make one more addition, it would be egg white protein because of its high scores on all the various systems, high digestibility and similarity to alpha-lactalbumin.
Taking all this information into account, I enlisted the expertise of some of the top brains in the field for my personal project - designing the ultimate protein supplement. I consulted experts from the enteric nutrition companies, technical consultants to the dairy industry and various food scientists around the world. I spoke with specialists dealing with cancer and AIDS research as well as trauma centres that studied wasting conditions and burns victims. The results were worth all the work. As they say, education is the best defence.