How much protein should we be eating? That all depends on our age, a new study has concluded.
When we reach middle age, a low-protein diet isn’t a good idea, and could cause fatty liver disease, while a diet that is made up of between 25 percent and 35 percent protein is better for young and middle-aged people.
A moderate-protein diet is the ‘Goldilocks’ diet that keeps us metabolically healthy and which, in turn, reduces our risk of diabetes and heart disease, say researchers from Waseda University.
They tested different dietary approaches on a group of young and middle-aged mice for two months.
Although old mice weren’t included in the study, the researchers believe that elderly people should be eating more protein. “Protein requirements change through the course of life, being higher in the young, reducing through middle age and rising again in the elderly,” said Yoshitaka Kondo, one of the researchers.
