Obese adults who consume a high-protein diet experience greater reductions in body weight, body fat percentage, and visceral fat area than those who consume a standard-protein diet, due to...
Mechanism
Synthesis from 1 study
Eating more protein makes you feel full so you eat less, burns more calories while digesting, and helps your liver remove fat from the blood. This combination causes your body to lose fat instead of muscle.
Most probable mechanism
Eating more protein makes you feel full longer, burns more calories during digestion, and helps clear fat from the blood, leading to less fat storage and more fat loss.
Dietary protein stimulates enteroendocrine L and I cells in the small intestine to release GLP-1 and CCK, which activate vagal afferents and hypothalamic satiety centers while suppressing ghrelin secretion from gastric P/D1 cells.
Reduced ghrelin and elevated GLP-1 and CCK signaling decrease appetite and voluntary caloric intake.
Amino acids from dietary protein undergo deamination, urea synthesis, and protein synthesis in the liver and muscle, requiring substantial ATP and generating heat that increases resting energy expenditure.
High-protein intake reduces hepatic de novo lipogenesis and triglyceride esterification, lowering very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) secretion into the bloodstream.
Reduced VLDL secretion decreases circulating triglycerides and LDL-C, enhancing lipid clearance and reducing ectopic fat deposition in visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue.
Leucine from dietary protein activates mTOR complex 1 in skeletal muscle, increasing muscle protein synthesis and suppressing proteolysis, which preserves lean mass during energy restriction.
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (1)
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Contradicting (0)
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