Are we overweight because we aren’t eating enough protein?

There are numerous reasons obesity rates have increased. One contributing factor could be the protein to calorie ratio of many foods.

This idea is called the protein leverage hypothesis.

This is the premise that you are driven to eat to a certain protein intake.

It is probably not as high as most body builders would imagine. But let’s say its ~15% of diet.

Now let’s acknowledge that if we eat highly processed foods with low protein content we would be driven to eat more of them regardless of the fact we have eaten enough.. nay too many calories already.

The theory that this plays at least a role in the obesity epidemic is supported by evidence in both animal studies and the interesting results of bariatric surgery.

The latter is of interest because in this surgery your gut is ‘replugged ‘ if you will so that food enters the gut at a later part of the small intestine.

This means you digest less of it but another side effect of this is that more undigested food is present further down the digestive tract than usual.

This is of importance as it is thought to signal to the Brian that more protein has been eaten because usually only protein (& fibre) which is harder to digest would be prominent at later stages in digestion.

So, could it be that hunger is elevated until a certain amount of protein had been consumed and to get this from a typical western diet filled with processed foods we need to eat a lot more in general thus we consume more calories than required and put on fat.

It’s an interesting theory and probably just one of many contributing factors.

Disclaimer: these are my views. I am not saying I am right and my opinions are not fixed. I will likely change them over time.

Please make up your own minds on the topics I discuss.