Protein shakes destroy your kidneys faster than steroids. Nephrologists found one scoop daily causes 480% more kidney damage after tracking 71,000 adults from 1994 to 2023. Here's the bad news, folks. This study never happened. What does this say about social media health claims? It really just says one thing in my opinion. Hey folks, Dr. Mike Israetel for RP Strength and I have a question for you. Is whey protein poisoning your kidneys? >> >> There is a new study on how absolutely terrible protein shakes are for your kidneys making its way around social media. >> >> Specifically, a post about it on Instagram by @maythesciencebewithyou. Scott, does not sound affirming and comforting? >> Does. >> Summarizes the study and explains just how scary the implications are. This post has over 13,000 shares. No doubt to many of our boomer relatives who will inform us at the next holiday party about just how poisonous protein shakes really are. Scott, how many times have old relatives of yours or school teachers told you that creatine's going to kill your kidneys? >> Oh, yeah. That's a big one. >> A yearly occurrence. But, things in this case are not as they seem. Let's take a look at the slides of this post together. It's a 10 slide carousel and fact check the living out of them. Slide number one says, and I'm going to try to read this verbatim. >> >> Protein shakes destroy your kidneys faster than steroids. Nephrologists Scott, that's intellectually intimidating enough for me to believe it offhand. I don't know what a is. Sounds like a pretty smart person. Nephrologist found one scoop daily causes 480% more kidney damage. Than than what? I'm not sure. Here's the result after tracking 71,000 adults from 1994 to 2023. Holy crap, you guys know this would be two things. Crazy bad for health, 480% more kidney damage sounds like a lot more kidney damage to me, and one of the biggest medical studies of all time, 71,000 people. Holy crap. On to slide number two. Dr. Richard Johnson >> >> Scott, I just realized >> Woah. >> This guy's real name, right? But Dick Johnson's >> That's the only real thing about this. Spoiler alert, Dick Johnson's a great name. I would have thought they'd made that up. That's actually a real human being. Dr. Richard Johnson >> >> I could just imagine him back in his undergrad days hitting on girls in the bar. She's like, "What's your name?" He's like, "Dick." She's like, "Shut up. What's your last name?" "Dick Johnson." Like, "Get out of my face." Like, "I swear to god that's my name." Dr. Richard Johnson, University of Colorado Kidney Disease Director for 29 years. Tracked 71,000 adults from 1994 to 2023. His discovery devastated supplement industry. I did not misspeak. Not the supplement industry, supplement industry. This is where we think things are starting to fall through the cracks. People drinking protein shakes daily had kidney function declining 480% faster. Scott, I just noticed that was a different claim than 480% more kidney damage. >> Right. Yes. >> Okay. But 480, Scott, are you officially afraid of 480? That's a big number. That's 4.8 times the size of 100, which is already bad. Kidney stones, 89% more frequent. Renal, that also means kidney, failure developing 12 years earlier than whole food protein eaters consuming same grams of protein, I guess. All right. To the commentary. Here's the bad news, folks. Dr. Richard Johnson does actually direct kidney research at the University of Colorado and is an exceptional authority on the matter. Good news. Dr. Johnson has publicly stated that neither he nor anyone else has ever conducted a study like this. Guys, literally this study never happened. Okay, maybe this guy who made this post used outdated AI that mis-types and misspells, so it's really unlikely, and it hallucinated the specific study, but other studies are out there and say similar things, right? And by the way, AIs almost never make grammatical errors and devastated not the, but supplement industry is not looking good. This is probably not AI. But it gets worse. Slide number three. Whey protein isolate at 25 to 50 g concentrated doses overloads kidneys with nitrogen waste. Organs work 340% harder filtering. Scarring accumulates. 1.8 billion dollars a year is yearly spent funding safe protein, quote unquote, research through bodybuilding media. Johnson's data, Scott, was buried after supplement lobby, not the supplement lobby, just supplement lobby, threatened research funding cuts. Fact. Time to fact-check this, guys. There is no established dose of whey protein in healthy people where we can say above this amount your kidneys become overloaded and start being damaged. This has never been found. And people eat hundreds and hundreds of grams of whey protein per day, and sometimes hundreds per meal. Almost anytime you see protein and kidneys equals bad headlines, there is a high probability that you are being lied to. As for the 340% harder filtering, that's totally made up, but remember that number. Remember 340% for just a little bit later. And that $1.8 billion yearly funding, remember that number, too. Um I got to be honest, bodybuilding media, whatever that means, spending that much on funding research, by the way, is hilarious. I wish RP Strength, our very own company, gives out like a hundred grand in research funds per year to researchers, and that's considered a lot by industry standards. There's nobody paying $1.8 billion a year to fund supplement research. That's insane. That's bigger than the whole supplement industry. Also, Johnson's data was not buried after supplement lobby, >> >> who's writing this? Dr. Nowzaradan uh you have to take uh one supplement lobby. I'm kidding. Dr. Nowzaradan man. The threatened the funding cuts. Why? Right? There was no data to begin with. This is just Slide number four. The mechanism. Kidneys filter 50 g protein daily safely when eaten as food, absorbed over 4 hours. Scott, I just realized the implication here is uh anything over 50 g of protein daily is unsafe. Mhm. Which is just under what a normal sized woman needs to not go hyperproteinemic. So apparently everyone who consumes enough protein is being unsafe, but I digress. Protein shake equals 40 g hits bloodstream in 30 minutes. Kidney nephrons overload filtering. This tsunami tissue inflames, scarring begins. Yes, the tsunami. Daily shakes equal chronic kidney injury by 40. Scott, remember earlier they said that a kidney injury happened 12 years earlier for people doing shakes? >> Yeah. >> Does that mean everyone has chronic kidney injury by 52? Because that's 12 years after 40. >> Yeah, I guess so. >> I guess everyone at age 52 has chronic kidney injury. >> >> Here's the reality. Your kidneys can handle an as yet unknown amount of protein per minute. In fact, the limiting factor is how rapidly your intestines absorb the protein. There is no evidence that merely drinking a protein shake every day causes chronic kidney injury in otherwise healthy people. Though not getting enough protein daily sure will not make you any better in your health. Slide number five, quote, "Whole food protein, chicken, eggs, fish, digest slowly, so kidneys handle it easily. 30 g protein per meal maximum. Protein shake bypasses this limit, destroying filtration units permanently." Me. Industry needs you drinking shakes. Real food doesn't require $89 per month subscriptions. >> >> Reality check. The 30 g maximum per meal protein amount has been refuted multiple times in the past. It's just literal make-believe, you guys. For maximum utilization of muscle growth, four evenly spaced meals of a quarter of your daily protein is as a low per meal as you need to go. And that's to get the most jacked. Any amount of per meal protein will not harm you. You can do 60, you can do 80, you can do 100. They've done 100 in studies. No one was harmed. Damn the protein industry and its shake pushing. Scott, remember you and I lived in an alternate timeline where we were a gay couple and we had kids that we sent to school, but they were always harassed by the protein shake pushers on their way to school. >> Yeah. >> Hey kid, you want to get on protein shakes? My daddy and my other daddy told me that that's bad. Good job, kids. By the way, protein shakes are usually cheaper than whole food protein. We have a whole video about protein and what's the cheapest you can click on, Scott. You can click on the protein video somewhere here. Yes, maybe? >> Yeah. Alex will put it in the show notes. >> Yeah. So, actually real food, protein shakes are real food, by the way, often costs more than your protein subscription where that is. I know you can get subscribed on Amazon. I know, I know, I know. All right. Slide number six, quote, "Johnson's Denver clinic tested shake elimination on 340 early kidney damage patients. Shocking result, kidney function improved 67% in 14 weeks. Stones disappeared. Creatinine levels normalized. One man, age 44, drank two shakes daily for 11 years while building muscle. Kidney function dropped to 58%. He's I'm I'm I should be reading this verbatim. Switched whole foods, not he switched to whole foods, switched whole foods, colon, function restored to 84% in 6 months or 6 month, as Dr. Now would say. Okay. Let's get straight. Earlier, the claim was that organs work 340% harder filtering scarring accumulates. And now it's Johnson's Denver clinic tested shake elimination on 340 early kidney damage patients. Jesus, this is the laziest slop ever. Guys, this is not even AI slop. AI's better than this. This is good old-fashioned human slop like we used to eat all through the '80s, '90s, and 2000s. For the rest of this none of it ever happened. But wait, there's just a bit more. Slide number seven, quote, "This is why bodybuilders need dialysis at 50." Scott, remember all those bodybuilder friends we have that have dialysis at 50? >> Yeah, so many. >> Every single one of them. "While natural lifters have perfect kidneys at 70." "Supplement industry >> >> I can't I can't. It's a standalone entity. Supplement industry profits 18 billion on powder destroying organs while claiming convenient protein." First of all, real talk, the vast vast vast majority of even drug using pro bodybuilders don't need dialysis by 50. S- And by the way, if they do, it's because of chronic high blood pressure, not protein intake. Second of all, do natural lifters not use whey protein? Guys, what is even going on here? And what if you're a natural lifter and a bodybuilder? Apparently, that's impossible. Oh, and remember that 1.8 billion is yearly spent funding safe protein research through bodybuilding media? Now, for some odd reason, supplement industry spends exactly 10 times that number on selling protein powder, I guess. The slopmanity of it. Slide number eight, we're almost there, guys. >> >> Leaked quote, "Leaked 2020 memo. Johnson kidney data threatens shake category. >> >> Scott, a memo from someone to no one. Johnson Johnson kidney data threatens shake category. Maintain convenience and absorption speed messaging through fitness influencers. Uh Scott, by the way, did our big bodybuilding supplement media check come in for us to shut up this month? >> Oh, what the hell? >> Oh, well well we're making this video go public. Those idiots need to pay us. They knew shakes cause kidney failure. Marketed to athletes. And you guys, this is so cool. This is like a dope seedy corporate spy high tension suspense novel. Big business, ill-gotten gains, innocent lives lost or at least dialyzed. And the biggest commonality? Both are pure fiction. Slide number nine. Quote, you've just seen why relying on protein shakes may not be as harmless as most people assume. Scott, you ever look over a massive crowd of people and be like, look at them down there, like ants, assuming harmlessness in whey protein consumption. But this conversation isn't really about one supplement. Oh It's about understanding how every decision affects the systems that keep you healthy as you age. Most people chase individual fixes. The body works as a one connected system, you guys. Guys, did you know that Okay, commentary. Did you know that the body isn't just one thing? It's actually an interconnected system? Wait, there Wait, I I I didn't know that. That's so confusing. All right, seriously. Individual fixes are real. Nutritious food, individual fix. Calorie control, individual fix. Daily steps, individual fix. Lifting weights, individual fix. And they affect the whole system. So, I guess you can't individually fix things and they just summate together. This whole slide is giving me kidney stones. Slide 10, I think it's the last one. Quote, "Most people try to fix their health one habit at a time. Diet, sleep, supplements, workouts." But, longevity is a system. When you understand how the body actually ages, you stop guessing and start slowing it down. I organized everything into a simple system called The Longevity Code, and it shows you what actually matters and what doesn't. No noise, no confusion, just the essentials. No way, you guys. Here I thought this nice young anonymous social media account curator was selflessly helping us out for the greater good, but now he's pimping his upsell BS. And look, no disrespect to pimping your own products, nothing wrong with that, we do it plenty on the channel, but when you're making things up carte blanche slide to slide, how likely is the upsell also not made up? I guess there's a slide 11. Follow us at May the science be with you. You may never see us again. Okay, I can only hope. It'll be too soon. All right, let's wrap this up. What does this say about social media health claims? It really just says one thing in my opinion. A ton of social health claims are total lies. And many are at best misrepresentations of true things and everything in between. Evidence-based social media is amazing and there's tons of it, but random accounts can say, "Mhm, random things." The next time your mom sends you a study she read, quote unquote, on TikTok or Instagram, screenshot that mug, put it into Grok or chat or Claude, some of the AIs, and just be like, "Bro, what here is legit and what isn't? And if you want to learn the deep science of fitness for yourself, give our RP University YouTube channel a subscription. We're teaching the full curriculum of training, diet, and recovery for free on there all the time with full lectures. Or or you guys can buy my new book. It's called The Longevity Coach. >> >> Uh stay sane. See you guys next time. >>