High-protein diets may help people lose weight and build muscle, but a new study in mice suggests they have a down side: They lead to more plaque in the arteries. Further, the new research shows that high-protein diets spur unstable plaque -- the kind most prone to rupturing and causing blocked arteries. More plaque buildup in the arteries, particularly if it's unstable, increases the risk of heart attack.The new study appears in the journal Nature Metabolism.
"There are clear weight-loss benefits to high-protein diets, which has boosted their popularity in recent years," said senior author. "But animal studies and some large epidemiological studies in people have linked high dietary protein to cardiovascular problems. We decided to take a look at whether there is truly a causal link between high dietary protein and poorer cardiovascular health."
The researchers studied mice fed a high-fat diet to deliberately induce atherosclerosis, or plaque buildup in the arteries. According to the senior author, mice must eat a high-fat diet to develop arterial plaque. Therefore, some of the mice received a high-fat diet that was also high in protein. And others were fed a high-fat, low-protein diet for comparison.
"A couple of scoops of protein powder in a milkshake or a smoothie adds something like 40 grams of protein -- almost equivalent to the daily recommended intake," the senior author said. "To see if protein has an effect on cardiovascular health, we tripled the amount of protein that the mice receive in the high-fat, high-protein diet -- keeping the fat constant. Protein went from 15% to 46% of calories for these mice."
The mice on the high-fat, high-protein diet developed worse atherosclerosis -- about 30% more plaque in the arteries -- than mice on the high-fat, normal-protein diet, despite the fact that the mice eating more protein did not gain weight, unlike the mice on the high-fat, normal-protein diet.
"This study is not the first to show a telltale increase in plaque with high-protein diets, but it offers a deeper understanding of the impact of high protein with the detailed analysis of the plaques," the senior author said. "In other words, our study shows how and why dietary protein leads to the development of unstable plaques."
Plaque contains a mix of fat, cholesterol, calcium deposits and dead cells. Past work by the team and other groups has shown that immune cells called macrophages work to clean up plaque in arteries. But the environment inside plaque can overwhelm these cells, and when such cells die, they make the problem worse, contributing to plaque buildup and increasing plaque complexity.
"In mice on the high-protein diet, their plaques were a macrophage graveyard," the senior author said. "Many dead cells in the core of the plaque make it extremely unstable and prone to rupture. As blood flows past the plaque, that force -- especially in the context of high blood pressure -- puts a lot of stress on it. This situation is a recipe for a heart attack."
To understand how high dietary protein might increase plaque complexity, the authors studied the path protein takes after it has been digested -- broken down into its original building blocks, called amino acids.
The team found that excess amino acids from a high-protein diet activate a protein in macrophages called mTOR, which tells the cell to grow rather than go about its housecleaning tasks. The signals from mTOR shut down the cells' ability to clean up the toxic waste of the plaque, and this sets off a chain of events that results in macrophage death. The researchers found that certain amino acids, especially leucine and arginine, were more potent in activating mTOR -- and derailing macrophages from their cleanup duties, leading to cell death -- than other amino acids.
"Leucine is particularly high in red meat, compared with, say, fish or plant sources of protein," the senior author said. "A future study might look at high-protein diets with different amino acid contents to see if that could have an effect on plaque complexity. Cell death is the key feature of plaque instability. If you could stop these cells from dying, you might not make the plaque smaller, but you would reduce its instability.
"This work not only defines the critical processes underlying the cardiovascular risks of dietary protein but also lays the groundwork for targeting these pathways in treating heart disease," the author said.
https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/high-protein-diets-boost-artery-clogging-plaque-mouse-study-shows/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-019-0162-4
Increase in heart attack risk from protein rich diet
- 3,769 views
- Added
Edited
Latest News
Metabolic rewiring promotes…
By newseditor
Posted 18 Apr
A drug to prevent flu-induc…
By newseditor
Posted 18 Apr
New origin of deep brain waves
By newseditor
Posted 17 Apr
Starving cells hijack prote…
By newseditor
Posted 17 Apr
Miniature battery-free epid…
By newseditor
Posted 17 Apr
Other Top Stories
New molecular probes for opioid receptors
Read more
Human brain motor regions for the hand also connect to the entire body
Read more
How dopamine drives brain activity
Read more
Low cost and highly sensitive X-ray detector using perovskite thin…
Read more
Mysterious Majorana fermion sighted on gold!
Read more
Protocols
MemPrep, a new technology f…
By newseditor
Posted 08 Apr
A tangible method to assess…
By newseditor
Posted 08 Apr
Stem cell-derived vessels-o…
By newseditor
Posted 06 Apr
Single-cell biclustering fo…
By newseditor
Posted 01 Apr
Modular dual-color BiAD sen…
By newseditor
Posted 31 Mar
Publications
How does the microbiota con…
By newseditor
Posted 18 Apr
The integrated stress respo…
By newseditor
Posted 18 Apr
The immunobiology of herpes…
By newseditor
Posted 17 Apr
Circulating microbiome DNA…
By newseditor
Posted 17 Apr
Spindle oscillations in com…
By newseditor
Posted 17 Apr
Presentations
Hydrogels in Drug Delivery
By newseditor
Posted 12 Apr
Lipids
By newseditor
Posted 31 Dec
Cell biology of carbohydrat…
By newseditor
Posted 29 Nov
RNA interference (RNAi)
By newseditor
Posted 23 Oct
RNA structure and functions
By newseditor
Posted 19 Oct
Posters
A chemical biology/modular…
By newseditor
Posted 22 Aug
Single-molecule covalent ma…
By newseditor
Posted 04 Jul
ASCO-2020-HEALTH SERVICES R…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar
ASCO-2020-HEAD AND NECK CANCER
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar
ASCO-2020-GENITOURINARY CAN…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar