The Best Sources Of Protein To Eat For Longevity (Build Muscle & Fight Disease) | Dr. William Li

Today, we're going to talk about the best sources of protein to eat for longevity. Proteins are the building blocks of life. They're critical if you want to live long and if you want to prosper, thrive. Because as we age, we lose protein and muscle mass. Now, losing muscle mass is actually a center for becoming frail and less mobile, which cuts into your lifespan. So you need to actually keep your protein in and build it up with exercise. And that's the same as being a bodybuilder. Now, think about maintaining strength during aging as bodybuilding over the course of a lifetime. So up to the age of 40, you should be eating about 50 to 60 grams of protein per day for the average size person. And between the ages of 40 and 50, that's above the age of 40, you start losing muscle mass. An example you might see is think about the older person that you might've seen in your life, somebody with really, really thin arms or really, really thin legs. Their body might actually be looking okay, but you can tell they're actually losing muscle mass. This is called sarcopenia and it increases the risk of falls, which where you can break a hip or worse. And falling is actually the precipitating event for older adults who are living independently or after a fall, especially if they break their hips, they can't manage anymore by themselves. They've lost their independence and they need assisted living or a caregiver to be able to get around safely. So you don't want to become frail. You don't want to actually fall. If you're going to live long, you want to be able to live as independently as possible and developing that strength, keeping up that muscle mass is absolutely critical. So adding protein to your diet after the age of 40, somewhere between 75 to 90 grams of protein a day is kind of where you want to aim at. Now, every person is different, which is why it's called personalized nutrition. So there's no one hard number that you want to actually stick to. And if you're physically active, you might even need more protein. And as I was saying before, you need protein and the use of your muscles, exercise, in order to be able to actually benefit from that added protein intake. So if you want to do this right, I suggest consulting a trained nutritionist and explaining that you're trying to optimize your protein goals. And this will be useful because they'll help you calculate the right amount of protein that's tailored to you, tailored to your body size, to your physical activity, to your other health conditions you might have and other factors. And that's why I'm not giving you a black and white single number that you need to hit, because everybody's different when it comes to the amount of protein that they need. So what are some of the best sources of protein to help you towards longevity? Well, meat is a good source of protein. You know, beef, pork, chicken, duck, fish, shellfish, all good sources of protein. For example, a three-ounce serving of beef has about 20 grams of protein. A three-ounce serving of chicken breast has about 25 to 26 grams of protein, even a little bit more than beef. Ground pork has about 22 grams of protein per three-ounce serving, about the same amount as ground turkey. But we know that in the end that eating large amounts of red meat is not healthy in the long run. So we're talking about beef here. And longevity is all about the long game. So I encourage you to think about other sources of protein besides red meat. As I mentioned, seafood is another source of protein. For example, salmon is a good source of protein, as well as a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, which are good for longevity. A three-ounce serving of salmon has about 22 grams of protein, about the same amount as turkey. And cod, which is a mild white flesh fish, has about 19 grams per three-ounce serving. And it's actually got a good healthy amount of omega-3s as well. Now, clinical studies of both salmon and cod show that these types of seafood are good for your metabolism. Through their omega-3s, they can help you burn harmful body fat, which reduces visceral fat, the kind of fat in the tube of your body, and actually lowers inflammation as well. So that's meat and that's seafood. But what about plant-based sources of protein? Because we know that people who eat more plant-based foods have better longevity. So we're talking about legumes like white beans, black beans, pinto beans, lentils, chickpeas, soybeans. These are all plant-based sources of protein as well as good mineral content. The other benefit of these types of plant-based proteins, these legumes, is that they actually make you feel full. That's what we call satiety. And so if you feel full, you're also less likely to overeat in your next meal. Now, overeating actually overloads your metabolism, which actually can set you up for metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes, which cuts down on your longevity. So beans, legumes, actually a great way to actually get that source of protein. Now, I enjoy beans in a soup, bean soup or stew. Great way to actually have beans. And when you make one pot of beans, you're likely to actually have enough as leftovers. So you're actually saving time cooking as well. Now, another source of plant-based protein are tree nuts, you know, pecans, walnuts, macadamias, pistachios, cashews, even pine nuts. And seeds are also a good source. Pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, all good sources of protein. Now, for tree nuts or seeds, I suggest you just take a handful with you as a snack during the day. Something you bring to the office, something you can actually have a bowl to snack throughout the day if you actually want to get some protein in. Those are good snacks, and eating them is actually a great way to actually get some extra protein. And they're a good source of dietary fiber. Dietary fiber feeds your gut microbiome, and that's a good, healthy gut bacteria. And when your gut microbiome is fed, guess what? Lowers inflammation. And that sets you up to actually have more longevity as well. Now, a team of researchers from Harvard and Tehran University actually looked at how powerful plant-based proteins are. They looked at 32 clinical studies that involved a total of 715,000 people over periods of time ranging from three years to 30 years, that's three decades, and found that those people who ate more protein from plants, even 3% more protein in plants, resulted in a lower risk of premature death by about 5%. All right? So you lower the risk of premature death by 5% by just having more proteins. And another study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a very credible journal, looked at 416,000 people over 16 years and compared to what they were eating over that time for their health and found that just shifting 3% of protein from animals to plants, shifting just 3% of the protein intake from animals, like beef, to plants, like beans, led to a 10% decrease in death from any cause. 10% decrease in death from any cause. And this is true for both men as well as women. Now, the reasons for better longevity by taking in plant protein compared to animal protein is thought to be due to the fact that animal protein has higher levels of methionine and branched-chain amino acids. This is found in meat and not in plants, especially in red meat, and this is considered to be one of the triggers for chronic diseases. Now, more research needs to be done on this, but again, having more shifted protein from meats, red meats, to plant-based foods actually lowers overall mortality. Plant-based foods also have beneficial bioactives like polyphenols that can activate your health defenses, like your circulation and your genesis, help activate your stem cells, which help to regenerate and heal from the inside out, activate gut health. These are prebiotics. These polyphenols in plants help to protect your DNA, which can slow cellular aging, help repair DNA and prevent DNA from being damaged from oxidative stress, and they can actually activate your immune system, so you've better immune protectiveness as well as lower inflammation. So, plant-based proteins have actually a lot of other accompanying reasons why they may be beneficial for longevity as well. So, you get other benefits in addition to the proteins. You want more good and less bad? Choose plant-based proteins. So, here are my top choices, five top choices of plant-based protein sources. Food number one are beans. I mentioned this already. White beans, black beans, fava beans, chickpeas, lentils, great source of protein, help you maintain muscle mass, also a good source of dietary fiber, good for your gut microbiome, as I said before, and also beans help to reduce blood lipids, decrease blood glucose levels, all right? So, all metabolically healthy as well. Now, how much protein are some beans, legumes? Let's talk about this. One cup of chickpeas has 14 grams of protein and 12 grams of dietary fiber. The dietary fiber is really, really important as well, so you're getting two for protein and dietary fiber. You can try, again, making a bean stew, bean soup, chickpeas. You can actually do all kinds of things with them. Just look up a recipe, chickpeas recipe, and hit video on Google, and you'll actually get shown from people who are really passionate about what they do how to make something really tasty using chickpeas, for example. And clinical studies have shown that eating beans can help to lower your blood pressure as well, which lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke. So, again, we're talking about longevity, we're talking about protein, and now we're talking about foods that contain protein but also have other benefits and clinically shown connections to longevity as well. Food number two, tofu and soy foods. These are foods made from soybeans, tofu is made from soybeans. And let's talk about tofu, for example. Now, you can go to the grocery store and very easily in the refrigeration section, you can actually find soft tofu versus firm tofu, but that's not all there is. There are lots of different types of tofu. If you go to an Asian grocery store, all right, there are these big mega stores with Asian groceries, you'll find not only the soft tofu and firm tofu, but you'll also find tofu skin, you'll find different types of fermented tofu, you'll find fermented soybeans, there's a kind of soybean that's fermented called natto, it's a Japanese delicacy, it's a pretty potent fermented soybean, but it's got the highest level of genestine, which is a phytoestrogen that's good for cutting up the blood supply to cancer. It's very beneficial for our health defense system. So fermented foods, as you know, is a probiotic food like natto. Now you get all the other benefits of the protein from the soy foods as well. Now, edamame, which you get what you find in the frozen section, you can steam them up, it's the same kind of edamame you would get, you know, if you go to a Japanese restaurant, you know, at the sushi bar, you actually order some steamed edamame, add a little bit of sea salt to it. That's also a delicious way of getting plant-based proteins into you as well. Now, an analysis by researchers at Sichuan University in China looked again at 21 different clinical studies that all showed that eating large amounts of soybean proteins was associated with benefits to lower the risk of cancer. In fact, a 15% reduction in stomach cancer and other gastrointestinal cancers by eating soy, soybeans. This genestine is anti-angiogenic, that means it cuts up the blood supply to tumors, beneficial. And by the way, another soy product is soy milk. Soy milk is the choice that I would actually have put to cut the strength of your coffee. If you really wanted some milk in your coffee, use soy milk instead of dairy milk. And why would you do that? It's because dairy milk contains dairy fat, and those dairy fats form little soap bubbles that trap the good polyphenols in coffee, like chlorogenic acid. So when you drink coffee with cream or coffee with milk, dairy milk, what's actually happening is that those little soap bubbles trap the good polyphenols and don't tumble down into your stomach. Most of it won't get absorbed, some of it will, but most of it tumbles right through to your lower gut and you've missed the opportunity to benefit from most of the polyphenols. Soy milk and nut-based milks, plant-based milks don't have that. So soy milk, oat milk, nut milk, almond milk, no problem. Food number three, good source of plant-based proteins, quinoa. Quinoa, great source of protein. It also has the benefit of having all essential amino acids needed for health. Now, protein in your body is built from amino acids, and you can't make all the amino acids that you need in your body. There's nine of them you need that are essential, meaning you need to get it from your diet. And quinoa is the solution. It's got the protein, it's got all nine amino acids. One cup of quinoa has eight grams of protein, and the quinoa is also a source of dietary fiber, good for gut health, lowering inflammation, all supports longevity. Food number four, lentils. Lentils are a staple food in Middle Eastern cuisine and in Mediterranean cuisines, healthy Mediterranean cuisines where longevity actually is really optimized. And lentils are great. Actually, they come in different colors. If you haven't seen different colored lentils, they come in brown, they come in green, they come in yellow, they come in red. Black lentils, really, really dramatic. This is a really inexpensive way to get protein. You can buy lentils dried in the middle aisle of the grocery store. Lentil is packed with protein. You can make a lentil stew. In fact, one tablespoon of lentils has one gram of protein, and one cup then gives you 18 grams of protein. Lentils are high in dietary fiber, again, good for gut health. And by the way, not only is good gut health lowering inflammation, good gut health is good for brain health as well. Look, you want to live long, you want to also have a good noggin, you want to have clarity, good cognition, good memory, good executive skills, you want to be able to enjoy your life. And so this is another reason why you want to actually not only get good protein, you want to actually eat foods that protect your gut health as well. And lentils also have been shown to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease. Look, that's the number one killer in developed countries. So if you want to live long, you want to avoid having fatal cardiovascular events. Lentils are a good choice to get those proteins and to actually lower the risk of cardiovascular disease. Now, lentils also have polyphenols like procyanidins and flavanols. And the reason these are important is that they've got antioxidant property. So as we age, you know, we get oxidative stress that actually contributes to wrinkly skin, other forms of aging. So antioxidant protection protects our DNA. And some of these polyphenols in lentils also have neuroprotective properties, brain health, gut health, brain health, good protein, good muscle. Lentils are one of my favorites. Food number five, seafood. Now, seafood is something that if you live by the ocean, you probably grew up eating seafood. All right. That's if you come from a place on the shore. So if you live in a place in the country where you actually can't get fresh fish, no problem. Just go to the grocery store, go to the freezer section, and you can buy frozen fish and frozen fish actually in many ways is just as good as fresh fish. You know why? Because most of the frozen fish you get in a grocery store is caught on a boat and it's flash frozen. All right. Whereas even fresh fish is kept on ice, of course, and then it's transported all the way to the fishmonger or the grocery store, whereas that the flash frozen fish is packed up and then shipped right over to the grocery store, already frozen from the boat, more or less. How good is seafood for longevity and for protein? Well, we talked about salmon and cod as being good sources of protein. But shellfish are also good sources of protein. Mussels, clams, all great. Oysters, good sources of protein. Squid and shrimp, also good sources of protein. So this has been studied, by the way, in terms of its health benefits, a 16-year study that involved almost a half a million men and women. This is a study called the NIH, which stands for the National Institutes of Health, AARP, that is the American Association of Retired Persons, Diet and Health Study. That's called the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. Followed people for 16 years, and they found that men who ate the most fish, seafood, had a 10% reduction in mortality due to cardiovascular disease, probably because of the omega-3s that are found in there, but also protein counts as well, lowered the risk of heart attack and stroke. Okay, reduction in mortality from heart attack and stroke. That's by 10%. Had a 6% reduction in cancer mortality. That's probably due to the omega-3s as well. Omega-3s also cut off the blood supply, feeding cancers. 20% reduction in mortality from lung disease. Now, I don't have a mechanism for that, but maybe due to reduction in inflammation, maybe improvement in immune defense, and it had a 37% reduction in death from liver disease in those men who actually ate more seafood, more fish. Now, for women, fish eaters, seafood eaters also had a 10% reduction in cardiovascular mortality, same as men. They also had a 38% reduction in mortality from Alzheimer's disease, all right? That's brain health, all right? So, fish, good source of protein, great source of omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3s not only cut off the blood supply to cancer, lower inflammation, help your lipids, but they also protect your stem cells. These are the stem cells in your body that actually help to heal us from the inside out. They regenerate our body. You don't feel them. They're actually doing their job invisibly, helping to repair organs, blood vessels, very important for longevity, all right? And seafood can actually contribute to that. And some seafood, some fish have now been discovered to have peptides. These are proteins in the flesh, proteins within the proteins that actually can help wound healing as well. So, they actually help our body heal, our flesh heal, all right? Hey there, I want to share another resource with you. It's my free guide on your body's five health defense systems. These five systems, antigenesis, regeneration, your gut microbiome, DNA protection, and immunity are your shields against disease, and they're responsible for maintaining your health every single day of your life. By knowing about how these systems work to defend your body, you can tap into their healing powers to live a longer, better, and much healthier life. I explain each of these defense systems to you in my free guide, and as a bonus, I've included some of the best foods you can eat to activate each defense system. Get my guide for free right now in the caption below. Now, back to the video. So, the key to fish is really how you're going to prepare them, seafood. Avoid frying your fish, all right? Look, I like crispy food as much as anyone else. If you've ever had fish and chips, delicious, but frying actually has been shown to increase mortality or decrease longevity, all right? And the reason is frying foods, especially the crust, you know, the batter, creates something called acrylamides. These are kind of a plastic, a chemical in the batter that sparks inflammation, and the byproducts of frying can create carcinogens. These are cancer-causing chemicals. So, listen, if you eat, you know, some fried seafood once in a while, that's going to be fine, you know? Knock yourself out, really enjoy it. But if you do it all the time, and there are places where people eat fried fish all the time, not good for you, all right? So, save it for a rare treat, or better yet, don't eat fried food at all. All right, now, when I think about protein, I think about these types of foods that we've talked about. Seafood, we talk about lentils, we talk about quinoa, we talked about soy products like tofu and other types of soy foods, we talked about beans. These are just five examples of some of my favorite sources of proteins, but there's many, many, many more. Point is, you can get proteins by eating meat, all right? But a better choice is actually to get plant-based proteins. And even if you are an omnivore, I'm an omnivore, like, you know, I eat everything, but I eat mostly plant-based foods, and I eat only a modest amount from meats and seafood. And if you can, switch your protein intake towards plant-based foods, and within the animal protein or fish protein, move from red meat to seafood, because seafood has got all these other benefits as well. But plant-based foods, by far, not only have great sources of protein, but they've got dietary fiber. You're not going to find this in seafood, and you're not going to find it in meat. That dietary fiber does something really important when it comes to longevity, and that is that it actually is good for gut health, which lowers inflammation, it's good for brain health, helps your body streamline lipid metabolism, which lowers your cholesterol, which lowers your risk for cardiovascular disease. As I mentioned, the clinical studies that show all of these things make a difference when it comes to real longevity. So the key, all right, I'm somebody who actually enjoys, I enjoy my food, I look forward to eating, and so the thing to do is actually to find plants with good sources of protein and fiber and these polyphenols that taste great. And if you go to the produce section of your grocery store, you're sure to find something seasonal and fresh, all right? If you go to a farmer's market, you're going to find that as well. Beans, you know, in the summertime, there's all these different kinds of beans. You can do all kinds of, cook all kinds of food with beans. And by the way, there are ways that you can look for recipes. So if you see a plant source protein that you don't know what to do with, all right? I don't know what to do with quinoa. I'm not really sure what to do with lentils. Again, go to Google, hit a food name like lentils, hit recipe, and then hit video and look at all the search results. Pick one of somebody who's really passionate about cooking that can teach you how to make something delicious using that ingredient like lentils that you might not have known. And again, I like beans and lentils because not only do they help me feel full, so I'm less likely to overeat the next day, which is very important for longevity overall, but it saves me time because if I'm making a batch of beans, all right, or lentils, for example, I'll have enough for the next day. That saves me cooking time the next day. And also it's very inexpensive. So not expensive way to actually get protein. Remember, if you're over the age of 40, you want to start paying attention to the fact that you're losing muscle mass every single day. You can't help it. So you want to do is you want to actually keep up with your protein, add more to your protein and stay physically active. That's important to eat proteins, especially plant-based proteins and stay physically active. Exercise, you know, exercise is great, but if you don't, you don't need to join a gym. You just need to stay active as active as you possibly can. All right. I hope you learned something from watching this episode. Thanks for watching. And I'll see you again. Dr. Lee out. Hi there. If you enjoyed watching this video, I know you'll love the next one. Stay here and check it out and I'll see you there.