Barbell Medicine
The Protein Scaries: What the Research Says About Your Kidneys, Cancer, Bones, and Body Fat
New
24 Jul 2026 · 32 min
Protein intake
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About this episode
Every couple of years a new headline warns that the protein you eat is quietly hurting you. This year the target is your kidneys. Before that it was cancer, then your bones, then the claim that your body can only use twenty or thirty grams of protein at a meal. In this episode, Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum goes through the actual studies behind each scare: the kidney trials, the 2014 IGF-1 and cancer paper that started the panic, the acid-ash bone hypothesis, and the per-meal "cap." Each fear starts fr