AMA #19: Collagen vs. Whey Protein, Creatine, Smelling Salts, Stimulants & More

Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. I'm also wearing my Roka red lens glasses, which block both blue light and green light, both of which are so-called short-wavelength light. That's because we are recording this AMA at night, and the lights in here are very bright, and bright lights at night will quash your melatonin, which is the hormone of sleepiness. Bright lights at night also increase cortisol levels, and by blocking those short wavelengths of light, you offset the reductions in melatonin and the increases in cortisol that would otherwise occur. And I always make the general recommendation that whether or not you decide to wear blue-green blockers or blue blockers or simply no blockers, that you dim your lights at night. It will greatly facilitate your transition to sleep and the quality of your sleep. 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We also have a lifetime membership that again is a one-time payment. You can find out more about that lifetime membership at hubermanlab.com/premium. For those of you that are already premium channel members, please go to hubermanlab.com/premium to download the premium member feed in order to access the entire episode today. And for those of you who are not premium members, you can still hear the first 20 minutes of today's episode and determine whether or not becoming a premium member is right for you. And now, without further ado, I will answer your questions. The first question for today's AMA is, "Quote, is there a distinct health advantage to using bone broth or collagen protein versus whey protein? I get this question pretty often and I touched on this in the episode that I did with Dr. Lane Norton, but I think the key thing to remember here is that while protein is one of the three macronutrients, right? Proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, not all proteins are created equal. Now, what differentiates different protein sources has a lot to do with how easily those proteins are assimilated into our body and their amino acid content. Now, in general, how bioavailable a protein is, as well as its quality or protein score, relates to a number of things, not the least of which is the amount of leucine, which is a particular essential amino acid that we need to get from food. So, why is leucine important? Well, leucine is an essential amino acid, you need to get it from food, and some protein sources, such as whey protein, for instance, but also beef, chicken, eggs, etc., have high levels of leucine as compared to other types of protein. For instance, collagen protein and some, not all, bone broths, and I'll explain what I mean by that in a moment. So, if we just step back from this question and ask it in two parts, remember the question was, is there a distinct health advantage to using bone broth or collagen protein versus whey protein? One can be very confident in the answer to that, which is whey protein contains relatively high amounts of the amino acid leucine, and therefore is going to be the superior form of protein if your goal is to grow muscle and or get stronger, to repair muscle, either muscle damage caused by exercise, or simply to engage protein synthesis. Remember, even if you haven't been exercising intensely or doing any resistance training, and by the way, you should be doing resistance training and cardiovascular training, but independent of exercise, dietary protein, in particular dietary proteins that contain high amounts of leucine, or I should say relatively high amounts of leucine, like whey protein, will help induce so-called muscle protein synthesis, which is generally good for us. Again, and it's occurring even if we're not exercising. If we are exercising, especially if we're exercising very hard, and in particular if we're doing a lot of resistance training, or frankly any amount of resistance training that's taken near or to failure, right? So, doesn't even have to be heavy weight, but if you're stressing the muscles hard, then having a quality protein source that's bioavailable, that is you can assimilate it, and that has relatively high leucine content, is going to be advantageous. So, through that lens, I can confidently answer the question by saying that a quality whey protein would be a better choice for a protein as compared to bone broth or a collagen protein, which have relatively low amounts of leucine. And if you look at their essential amino acid profile, just sort of across the board, not just focusing on leucine, and compare that to whey protein, we would easily say that whey protein is the superior form of protein. Again, both based on its bioavailability and its amino acid composition. Now, does that mean that bone broth and collagen protein are not valuable at all? No, I didn't say that, okay? So, when are bone broth and collagen proteins valuable? So, this has also come up in several Huberman Lab Podcast episodes, namely the episode that I did with Dr. Layne Norton, also the episode that I did about skin health, because there are some data, not a ton, but there are some data showing that people who regularly ingest collagen protein can observe some improvements in skin elasticity and appearance. Now, are these dramatic effects? Not so much, but are these significant effects? That is, are they statistically significant as compared to a control condition of either no collagen protein or a different protein source? And there one can find manuscripts that show, yes, indeed, ingesting collagen protein, and by the way, bone broth has high amounts of collagen. So, we're treating bone broth and collagen protein sort of, um, in combination here, or we are considering them in combination. And one would say that the amino acids that are contained in bone broth and collagen protein actually have been shown to support skin elasticity and appearance when ingested at levels of 15 g per day over a period of about 2 weeks or more. Okay, so through the lens of which protein source might be best for improving skin health and appearance, the answer in this case would be that the bone broth and collagen protein is going to be superior to whey protein. However, keep in mind that bone broth and collagen protein contain calories, right? They contain protein and calories. Sometimes they contain calories also from fat, rarely from carbohydrate, but you need to check the packaging and see what else is in there. So, that raises the question, should you be taking bone broth {slash} collagen protein, I would say either or, maybe both, but either or and whey protein, or rather, let's ask the question more scientifically, will taking whey protein support skin health and appearance in a way that either mimics or can replace the positive effects that one gets from bone broth and collagen protein? And the answer there would be, no, at least not in any direct way. There's no evidence, or at least there are no studies that I'm aware of, of people taking whey protein as a way to improve skin health and appearance. Now, that said, recovering from exercise, inducing muscle protein synthesis, these are things that are generally good for your body. So, they are going to support overall health, immune health, your general sense of vigor. Uh there's all sorts of downstream things that happen when you stress your muscles and then recover them, or even if you just eat a protein like whey protein, and keep in mind there are other proteins that have high leucine content that lend themselves as whey protein does to muscle protein synthesis. So, that's going to create an overall milieu, an environment of health. It certainly isn't the only path to health, but it's going to create a general milieu of health in the right context, provided you're ingesting it at the right amounts and at the right times. And by the way, when I say that, I know people are thinking, "Well, how much is the right amount?" I am of the belief that most people who are seeking muscle protein synthesis, recovery from exercise, and general health would do well to ingest approximately, I'm not super neurotic about these things, approximately 1 g of quality protein per pound of lean body weight or desired body weight. Okay? Or, if you want to be a little looser about it, some people will just say 1 g of quality protein per pound of body weight each day. Okay, so that's going to vary from person to person. So, how much whey protein? Well, depends on how much other protein you're ingesting. So, let's simplify things here. If, in trying to get that 1 g of protein per pound of body weight or so, you have a limited budget, as most people do, I would personally suggest that you get a significant portion of whatever that protein requirement is. Maybe it's 150 g, maybe it's 200 g, maybe it's 100 g, depending on your size. I would suggest getting 60 to 70% of that from whole food sources. So, it could be quality lean meats, chicken, eggs, fish. If you're a vegetarian, yes, there are combinations of things like beans and rice that will allow you to achieve the proper combinations of essential amino acids. There are some sources of non-animal proteins that will meet all those amino acid needs. You can look these up, they're easy to find online. Now, there's also casein protein, you know, milk protein. I would suggest getting most of your protein for muscle protein synthesis and for recovery from exercise from whole food sources. And then the remaining 30% or so, and I suppose this could be as high as 50% if you're having trouble eating enough during the day, could come from a protein powder, so to speak, or a protein bar. And whey protein is an excellent source of protein in that instance. And those whey proteins are available out there with minimal amounts or zero amounts of carbohydrate in them. Some of them have sweeteners like stevia, some don't. Um they vary in cost a bit. Uh they vary in flavor a bit, in mixability a bit. So, you have to find what works for you. These are now pretty easy to find out there. You just have to pick the one that's right for you and for your budget. That's to meet your 1 g of protein per pound of body weight sort of threshold. And again, you don't have to be super neurotic about reaching that threshold every single day. I'm about 100 kg or about 220 lb. I'm probably a little bit lighter now, maybe 210 lb. I probably get anywhere from 175 to 210 g of protein per day. I know that from having tracked it recently, but I'm not neurotic about making sure that every day I get 210 g or 200 g. I'll let it vary a little bit. And sometimes it gets a bit lower and sometimes it gets a little bit higher. At least that works for me. Um I'm also not in a mode of life where I'm trying to put on a lot of muscle or something like that. So, if you are, maybe you need to pay a bit more attention to the details. But, so that's to get your protein ration per day. And of course, you also need to make sure you're getting sufficient I believe you should get sufficient vegetables, fruits, and if it's in your um nutrition plan, starches, uh you know, things like rice and oatmeal and things like that, if that's what you do. I realize today people are doing a variety of different things. Now, the bone broth and collagen protein, yes, will factor into your total protein count, that protein ration of 1 g per pound of body weight per day, but keep in mind that if you evaluate bone broth or especially powdered collagen proteins through the lens of what is high-quality, bioavailable, high leucine content protein, collagen protein, or rather powdered collagen protein, doesn't scale up that well. And so, I would say if you are interested in improving your skin health and appearance, sure, go ahead and add 15 g of collagen protein in powdered form per day or have some bone broth. I happen to really like bone broth. It also has a fair amount of protein, and I believe, I need to double-check this, but I believe that some of them actually have fair amounts of leucine, just not as high as whey protein. Okay, so I want to be clear about that because the question was about a comparison between bone broth, collagen protein, and whey protein. One last thing about skin health as it relates to whey protein. On the episode I did about skin health, I read a number of papers, and then we addressed these papers again when I had Dr. Teo Soleimani on the podcast. He's actually a derm-onc, or a dermatologist-oncologist, specializes in skin cancers, but also the cosmetic aspects of skin care. You know, what makes skin have nice levels of elasticity, reducing things like rosacea, psoriasis, and acne. And in that discussion and in the papers that I covered in the solo episode it was clear that one of the things that has been shown to contribute to acne in some people, okay, not all, but in some people is having a high leucine content in the diet. Okay, so this runs countercurrent to everything I've said before, but I would be remiss if I didn't say this. Whey protein has been evaluated for its tendency to increase acne in some people. And it seems to be related to leucine, which it again is quite present in whey protein, and leucine's ability to increase certain components of the cell growth pathway involving mTOR, mammalian target of rapamycin. There's a whole discussion to have about mTOR that we don't have time to get into right now. I don't think you should be afraid of whey protein because you think it will induce acne. What seems to be the case here is that the high leucine content and probably other things in whey protein that are effective in increasing insulin lead to increases in mTOR which internally to changes in the skin that sometimes show up as increased acne. Again, I'm not saying that taking whey protein will increase your acne. What I am saying is if you have issues with acne, you might try taking out whey protein for a couple of days or weeks and by doing so, see whether or not whey protein is causing or exacerbating those acne symptoms. I personally have never noticed that issue with whey protein, but others might and indeed there are some peer-reviewed manuscripts that point to that. And as a final point, one thing that became clear in offline discussions with Dr. Teyo Soleymani about this whey protein leucine acne thing is that for women in particular whose hormone cycle across the month they may find that whey protein and other high leucine protein sources will exacerbate or create acne at particular phases of their cycle because of the interaction between that mTOR pathway and some of the hormones that fluctuate during different phases of the menstrual cycle. So, we all have to learn to be scientists of ourselves. That is to try something, see if we like it, see if we don't, ask ourselves why, right? If you get stomach discomfort from a given brand of whey protein, please don't take that one again, right? You have to find what works for you and then pay attention to whether or not, for instance, if you're a woman and you're seeing some increase in acne or other skin symptoms by taking whey protein at a particular phase of your cycle, maybe you stop taking it during that phase and take it only in other phases. Or, if you have no issues, go ahead and take it. For men whose hormones obviously don't cycle as much throughout the month, if at all, they're going to cycle depending on sleep, etc., stress, etc., but you get the idea. If you are experiencing troubling levels of acne, take whey protein out altogether, maybe replace it with a casein protein, or other high-quality protein, and see how you react. Again, become a scientist of yourself, you'll be glad you did. Thank you for joining me for the beginning of this ask me anything episode. 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