This gets cited here weekly, usually second-hand, so it is worth setting out what it does and does not establish.
Distribution matters less than total but it is not nothing. Roughly 25 to 40g per sitting with enough leucine to trigger synthesis, three or four times a day, is more effective than the same total in one enormous evening meal — and on a suppressed appetite the enormous evening meal is the one you will not finish anyway.
Where I think it is weakest: the subgroup findings are the part I trust least — with enough subgroups something is always significant, and these were not all pre-registered.
What I actually want to know is whether the RDA is the wrong reference entirely during rapid weight loss, and what the actual target should be. Not looking for reassurance. Looking for the part I have got wrong.
Figures above are from the primary publication rather than the press summary. If a number here disagrees with one you have, post yours and we will work out which of us is reading a secondary source.
HealthEcon_DC said:Distribution matters less than total but it is not nothing.
HealthEcon_DC has the substance of this right. The condition it depends on is worth stating. On a suppressed appetite the winning strategy is protein density per unit of volume, not per calorie. Isolate powders, Greek yoghurt and cottage cheese, egg whites, lean fish, and tinned tuna all deliver a lot of protein in a small physical volume. Front-load it: appetite is usually least suppressed in the first hours after waking and worst on the day or two after dosing, so get the majority in early in the day and early in the week.
If somebody has the primary source to hand I would rather cite it than paraphrase it.
HealthEcon_DC said:Distribution matters less than total but it is not nothing.
I will push back on the powder-first advice. It works and it also trains people out of eating food, and when the drug stops the habits are what remain. Getting protein from meals is slower and holds up better afterwards.
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Browse GL BiochemTaking the question as asked, rather than the general version of it. The RDA is the wrong reference and it is worth understanding why. 0.8 g/kg is the intake at which nitrogen balance is not negative in healthy weight-stable adults — a floor for deficiency prevention, not an optimum, and derived in a population that is not in a deficit. In a substantial energy deficit, protein requirement rises because amino acids are being oxidised for energy and because muscle protein synthesis is blunted. The literature on preserving lean mass during weight loss lands around 1.4 to 2.0 g/kg of reference body weight, which is roughly two to two and a half times the RDA.
DebRD_ATL said:On a suppressed appetite the winning strategy is protein density per unit of volume, not per calorie.
Can confirm. Same sequence, different timescale. Nothing to add that would improve it.