Consumers around the world spend billions of dollars a year on protein supplements and protein powder.
Professional athletes use them to build muscle or lose weight, and some just consider it a healthy diet.
But do we really need all this protein, and how safe are the protein powders?.
Questions about their safety appeared after the death of the 25-year-old Australian bodybuilder Megan Hefford, who sat on a high protein diet and consumed protein supplements for years. Hefford, the mother of two young children, suffered an undiagnosed genetic disease that disrupted the body's ability to cope with large amounts of protein.
Hoeford disease, known as a disorder of the urea metabolism cycle (NCMM), is rare. The disease affects only 1 in 8,500 people. But the use of protein supplements in the world and in Russia is a phenomenon that is fashionable and ubiquitous.
The multi-billion dollar market and big interests.
The US Council on Responsible Nutrition states that in 2016, about 11% of American adults took protein supplements, spending more than $ 5 billion on these products. By 2020, the volume of the protein powder market and protein supplements will grow to an incredible 8 billion, and this is only in the United States!.
It is impossible even to estimate approximately how many proteins of different brands and qualities cross the Russian border daily. Our athletes regularly order these supplements in foreign online stores.
Meanwhile, doctors and nutritionists warn that the effectiveness and safety of these products is not subjected to rigorous research and control, as is done with medications. Therefore, you can not be sure of any bank.
Dr. Wayne Campbell, Professor of Dietetics at Purdue University in Indiana, believes the main cause of concern is not the protein itself, which contains protein powder. The real problem is in dangerous external impurities.
What is added to the protein powder?.
In 2010, the Consumer Reports organization tested 15 protein cocktails and found in their composition unacceptable concentrations of heavy metals, including cadmium, lead, arsenic and mercury. Three of them absolutely did not comply with local sanitary standards and should not have appeared on American shelves. But successfully sold.
In the same year, ConsumerLab experts said that almost a third of the 24 protein powders did not meet the quality requirements. In two samples, a potentially hazardous amount of lead.
Others had more cholesterol and sodium than indicated on the label. It is interesting, what hides under labels of food additives in the native Russian market?.
Not all protein powders contain what manufacturers claim. In 2015, Brazilian researchers tested 20 protein powders. Eleven of them, including four American brands, contained less protein than they should from the label. Two years earlier, similar findings were found in the study of protein supplements for the US Army.
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