Humans strongly regulate their protein intake, leading to increased consumption, if protein is diluted in their diets. Modern-day processed foods, rich in fats and carbohydrates, dilute protein, prompting people to consume more calories trying to meet their protein needs.
This “protein leverage” mechanism is being identified as a significant factor driving the obesity epidemic. Addressing this requires an integrated approach to understand and combat the multiple interplaying causes of obesity.
Key Facts:Humans have a strong innate drive to regulate protein intake, resulting in increased food consumption when protein is diluted by fats and carbs in processed foods.
Studies show that changing protein requirements across one’s life, combined with lifestyle changes, can increase obesity risk.
Early exposure to high-protein diets, such as through certain infant formulas, might set up increased protein requirements and a greater susceptibility to obesity in later years.
Humans, like many other species, regulate protein intake more strongly than any other dietary component and so if protein is diluted there is a compensatory increase in food intake.
The hypothesis proposes that the dilution of protein in modern-day diets by fat and carbohydrate-rich processed foods is driving increased energy intake as the body seeks to satisfy its natural protein drive—eating unnecessary calories until it does so.
These include, for example, changing requirements for protein at certain life stages (such as the transition to menopause), as well as a combined impact with changes in activity levels or energy expenditure (e.g., retiring athletes or young people moving towards more sedentary lifestyles).
It is only through situating specific nutrients and biological factors within their broader context that we can hope to identify sustainable intervention points for slowing and reversing the incidence of obesity and associated complications.
With WHO declaring obesity as the largest health threat facing humanity, the authors argue that there needs to be a focus on integrative approaches that examine how various contributors interact in obesity, rather than looking at them as competing explanations.
Protein appetite as an integrator in the obesity system: the protein leverage hypothesis, proposes that the dilution of protein in modern food supplies by fat and carbohydrate-rich highly processed foods has resulted in increased energy intake through protein leverage.
