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Hompes MethodPractitioner Training Level I

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LESSON TWO

Part Two

Protein & Amino Acids

Life’s Building Blocks…

• Scientists generally believe amino acids, which are the raw materials that make up protein, are the building blocks of all life.

Life’s Building Blocks

“On the assumption that life originated spontaneously on Earth, the Miller-Urey experiments and similar experiments demonstrated that most amino acids,

often called "the building blocks of life” can be synthesized in conditions intended to be similar to

those of the early Earth.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis



“The now-famous "Miller–Urey experiment" used a highly reduced mixture of gases—methane, ammonia and hydrogen—to form basic organic monomers, such

as amino acids.”




• Remember the first of the our two basic reasons for eating, which is to literally provide the raw materials needed to build the cells of your body – to build and maintain life itself.

Protein and Digestion

• Proteins in food are broken down by your digestive system into chains of amino acids, which are then absorbed into your body to be changed, orientated and remodeled into structures your body can use for tissue building and energy production.

Protein Structure

Protein Digestion

• Stomach acid from parietal cells helps to break protein down.

• The enzyme pepsinogen is produced in chief cells and converted to pepsin by stomach acid.

• Pepsin is a major proteolytic enzyme.

• The pancreas produces other proteolytic enzymes to continue protein digestion in the small intestine.

• Some proteins are absorbed as peptide chains, and some are broken right down into single amino acids.

Protein Digestion

• It is hard for people to properly digest protein if they have low stomach acid levels or poor pancreatic function.

Protein & Amino Acid Functions

• Building blocks for tissues and organs

• Energy production

• Enzymes are proteins

• Antibodies are proteins

• Detoxification requires amino acids

• Neurotransmitters are amino acids

• Certain hormones are an amino acid structures

• Genetic code

22 Amino Acids

• Essential AAs can’t be manufactured and must come from food.

• Nonessential AAs can be synthesized, as long as the right “ingredients” and cofactors are available.

• * If not, some amino acids can become “conditionally” essential.

Conditionally Essential AAs

• Labeling an amino acid “non-essential” assumes the body has other nutrients needed to make it. Glycine for instance is produced by the transformation of the amino acid serine and this transformation requires vitamin B6. Thus a simple B6 deficiency would block this conversion, qualifying glycine as an essential amino acid!

Non “Protein Functions”

• Tryptophan is a precursor of neurotransmitter serotonin.

• Tyrosine (and phenylalanine) are precursors of the dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine.

• Glycine is a precursor of porphyrins such as heme.

• Arginine is a precursor of nitric oxide.

• Ornithine and S-adenosylmethionine are precursors of polyamines.

• Aspartate, glycine, and glutamine are precursors of nucleotides.

Protein & Amino Acid Deficiencies

• When there aren’t enough amino acids to fulfill all your required metabolic reactions, the body will literally break itself down. The breakdown of your own muscle and gut tissue releases amino acids, which the body can then use for various purposes.

• It’s essentially “auto-cannibalism.”

Amino Acid Deficiency Deficiency Symptoms

– Low energy levels (even chronic fatigue)

– Depression

– Anxiety

– Memory and concentration problems

– Low thyroid function (which affects everything!)

– Allergic symptoms

– Digestive symptoms

– Inability to detoxify properly

– Loss of muscle mass

– Increased body fat

Why Do Deficiencies Develop?

1. Quantitative dietary deficiency.

– Simply not eating enough protein.

2. Qualitative dietary deficiency.

– Consuming poor quality protein

1. Inability to digest protein.

– Inflamed gut, bad bugs, low stomach acid and pancreatic enzyme levels.


4. Ultilisation deficiency:

– Once in your body, amino acids have to exit the blood, and enter cells to perform many of their roles. Insulin resistance, which is synonymous with carbohydrate and sugar imbalances, can prevent amino acids from reaching their destinations.


5. Utilisation excess:

– Amino acids may be used up too more rapidly than they are replaced because of a combination of stress, toxins, medical drugs, and so forth.

Optimizing Protein Intake

• Let’s begin with a list of high-protein foods:

– Meat (beef, buffalo, lamb, pork, wild boar)

– Poultry (chicken, duck, turkey, etc.)

– Fish (haddock, halibut, sole, etc.)

– Seafood (mussels, oysters, scallops, crab, shrimp, etc.)

– Eggs

– Dairy products (if tolerated)

Meat

• We recommend eating red meat 3-4 times per week.

• Most people are “inflamed”, and the amino acid profile of muscle meat is pro-inflammatory.

– Beef, buffalo, lamb, elk, venison, broth, gelatin (more on broth and gelatin later).

Liver

• Liver is an excellent source of B-vitamins, fat soluble vitamins and minerals (it is far more nutritious than muscle meat). I like clients to eat liver once per week or make pate with it. It is very rich in iron and as such, it’s important to limit intake to once per week (iron is highly toxic when present in excess):

– Organic chicken and turkey, 1-2 times per week.

Poultry

• Conventionally raised chickens are fed diets high in poor quality oils. Chickens are unable to convert unsaturated fats to saturated fat, consequently these foods are high in PUFA’s (covered later in the program).

– Organic chicken and turkey, 1-2 times per week.

Eggs

• Eggs are great sources of high quality protein, fat, cholesterol and certain vitamins. The consumption of eggs does not raise blood cholesterol levels! Eggs from chickens fed corn and soy should be minimally consumed.

– I recommend consuming eggs fairly liberally unless a client has a specific sensitivity.

Low Fat Fish - Okay

• Ideal fish are white, low fat fish, including haddock, halibut, cod, sole, plaice, snapper (wild caught and as fresh as possible).

Oily Fish - Careful

• Polyunsaturated oils – covered later in the programme - can suppress metabolism. As such, I tend to ask my clients to minimise their intake of oily fish.

– Oily fish – salmon, herring, mackerel, sardines –consume once per week [avoid if struggling with chronic fatigue]

Toxic Fish - Minimise

• I feel it’s best for people to avoid predatory fish such as tuna, swordfish and shark as they contain relatively high levels of mercury. The higher up the food chain you go, the more mercury tends to be in the fish.

• Avoid farmed fish at all costs – farmed salmon is the most toxic food on the planet according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Seafood

• Seafood is rich in several minerals we have trouble getting from other foods, including selenium and zinc.

– Prawns (shrimp), oysters, mussels, scallops, lobster, crab and others are all good choiceseaten 2-3 times per week.

Dairy Products

• As long as people tolerate cow’s milk, it’s generally ok to consume milk, cheese and yogurt. Folk who do not tolerate cow’s milk products may be able to tolerate goat or sheep milk.

Cheese

• Organic ricotta cheese is a pure cheese, generally containing only vinegar salt and whole milk. Parmaggiano reggiano is usually a good choice. Hard cheeses should contain only animal rennet and salt. All vegetable rennet, cultures and enzymes are questionable (they may contain gluten – ask your clients to check the label, especially if they are sensitive to gluten).

Gelatin and Collagen

• Gelatin and collagen comprise the connective tissues of an animal. They make up about 50% of the protein in an animal. Over 35% of the amino acids in gelatin are glycine, alanine, proline and hydroxyproline. These amino acids provide many cell protective actions.


• Human cultures around the world traditionally eat the entire animal including the collagen. Today, most of the animal is discarded and only the muscle meat is kept for food. Most muscle meats contain high amounts of tryptophan and cysteine, which have some anti- metabolic and toxic affects (especially on your thyroid).


• Gelatin does not contain tryptophan, and only has tiny amounts of cysteine compared with muscle meats such as steak and chicken breast.

“Restricting only tryptophan, or only cysteine, produces a greater extension of the life span than achieved in

most of the studies of caloric restriction.”

- Clive McKay

Benefits of Gelatin

• Gelatin aids in wound healing, suppression of tumor growth and reduction in systemic inflammation. According to N.R. Gotthoffer in Gelatin in Nutrition and Medicine, “gelatin can aid in the digestion of

milk and milk products”.

Benefits of Gelatin

• Gelatin has a sparing affect on proteins which means the body is less likely to catabolize muscle tissue protein during times of fasting and weight loss. Voitfound that gelatin aids in gastric secretion, thus promoting better digestion. Gelatin reduces inflammation of the mucous membranes in the gut (it is gut-healing).

Benefits of Gelatin

• Glycine in broth and gelatin is used in the synthesis of hemoglobin, bile salts, glutathione, nucleotides DNA and RNA. Broth, when using marrow bones, contains high amounts of immunogobulins that support the immune system (many of which are in your gut).

Read The Gelatin Documents

• Read the documents titled “Benefits of Gelatin” and “How to Use Gelatin”. Also consider reading the resources I have placed in your references and resources section.

Gelatin Sources

• Bone broth

• Gelatin powder in cooking (orange can)

• Powdered collagen (green can) dissolved in liquids

• I use Great Lakes Gelatin products – becoming more widely available.

Protein Powder Supplements

• I work with a lot of athletes, especially soccer players. I always get them to minimise their usual “junk” protein powders and introduce them to powdered gelatin. The difference they feel is extraordinary [it’s the fact that gelatin/collagen is richer in non-inflammatory amino acids].


• There’s no harm in using protein powder now and again to fulfill specific purposes when whole food protein isn’t available, but the quality should be high.


• Whey protein is very common – it’s a waste product of the dairy industry. Soy protein is extremely common, but in my view it’s toxic (it caused all manner of digestive problems when I tried using it 12 years ago).

– Just because we can manufacture “food” from something, it doesn’t mean it’s good for us.


• Egg protein – I do recommend high quality egg protein to some of my clients to help them rotate their protein sources.

• Rice protein is used in one of the detoxification products I recommend from time to time, but it’s not something I recommend too frequently.

• Pea protein along with rice protein, can be used to help increase protein intake in vegetarians.

• Hemp protein and cranberry protein products are also available.

Plant Protein

• We’re often asked why we don’t recommend you obtain protein from vegetable sources:

– Soy

– Nuts and seeds

– Beans

– Legumes (peanuts, lentils, chickpeas)

Plant Protein

• These foods contain substances that challenge metabolism. Legumes, soy-beans and nuts and seeds contain high levels of phytates and phytoestrogens.

– Phytates can interfere with mineral absorption.

– Phytoestrogens can influence hormonal imbalances and suppress thyroid function.

Plant Protein

• In whole food forms, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds also contain lectins, which can cause food sensitivity. They also come packaged with carbohydrate (beans and legumes) and PUFA (nuts and seeds).

Key Concept

Just because we can eat certain foods, it doesn’t mean they’re optimal!

• Many of the plant-based protein foods are what I call “poverty-foods.” They offer calorie value, but their nutrients are not easily assimilated during digestion.

Vegetarianism

• I’m not anti-vegetarian - on ethical grounds, in an ideal world I might actually be vegetarian myself. But I personally tried it and couldn’t function properly –my body needs heavier animal foods to work at its best!

Vegetarianism

• In my clinical experience, going back 11 years working in nutrition I can honestly say I’ve never been able helping a vegetarian/vegan client who wouldn’t try animal protein. But those who added small amounts of animal protein into their diet nearly always tended to experience speedy and significant improvements.

Vegetarianism

• Core challenges with vegetarianism:

– Inadequate protein intake

– Inadequate protein quality

• Unnatural protein-containing foods

– Imbalanced macronutrient ratios (P-F-C)

– Inadequate saturated fat

– Certain nutrient insufficiencies (B12 is a big one)

Protein Status Testing

• The Hompes Method Testing Toolkit has several tests to help with protein-status assessment. We discuss these at length in Hompes Method Level II.

– Protein digestion testing• Stool

• Urine

– Amino acid status• Urine (direct)

• Urine (indirect)

• Blood

Protein Summary

• Protein – made from amino acids - makes life.

• Protein builds tissues, glands and organs.

• Amino acids are needed for enzymes, energy production, antibodies, neurotransmitters, hormones, and more.

• Poor food choices can cause amino acid deficiency.

• Poor gut function can cause amino acid deficiency.

Protein Summary

• You can test your amino acid levels using a simple home blood test.

• Eat protein at each meal.

• Animal protein is superior to plant protein.

• Consume the additional information, and don’t forget the next presentation on “Protein Rules”.

Thank You!

• Thanks a million for watching and listening. In the next presentation, we’ll break down protein consumption to keep it nice and simple for you!