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What's That Rash?
What is lead doing in protein powder?
00:23:22
You might’ve seen headlines about high levels of lead being found in common protein supplements. With these products becoming more popular, the news has some eager gym-goers concerned about what they’re consuming. Norman and Tegan discuss how these results compare to our historical exposure – from Ancient Rome to Australia in the 1960s. References: Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead - Consumer Reports Bioaccumulation of lead (Pb) and its effects on human: A review Lead in Food and Foodwares - FDA Low Level Lead Exposure: History and Discovery Lead Toxicity: an Australian Perspective Some US protein powders contain high levels of lead. Can I tell if mine is safe? - the Conversation If you enjoyed this episode, check these out! How much protein do you REALLY need? Norman tried an ice bath so you don't have to Why do hangovers get worse as we age?
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What do Rasputin, Tupac and Pharaoh Ramses III have in common? No, it's not the weirdest boy band ever. They all met their end at the hand of an assassin. From seizing power to silencing dissidents, Assassins unpacks the moments in which someone decides that murder is the move. Search for Assassins with Aslan Pahari on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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A
Are you a protein powder consumer? Typically, Norman?
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B
No. But I'm in a household with teenage boys and they're consuming it in vast quantities. I have to say, despite dinner table conversations about protein and getting them to listen to what's that rash, which they don't do, we are heavy consumers of protein powder.
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A
Fair enough. I've just realized. I've just realized I left my Mediterranean Diet belt on my desk and I think I'm gonna need it, so I'm just gonna go and grab it.
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B
Humdium Mediterranean Diet Mediterranean Diet where's the bell? Where's the bell?
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A
Two hours later.
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B
I mean, I've just been sitting here for ages. We've managed to edit the time that you've been away for our listeners. They didn't have to go through what I've just gone through to wait till you come back with your bell.
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A
Not that far. I'm pretty fast.
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B
But this week on what's that Rash? The show where we answer the health questions everyone asking, we're talking about lead and protein powder.
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A
Indeed we are. So today's question comes from Connor, who says I'm not much of a gym person, preferring outdoor exercise. But after a layoff, I'm starting to exercise in brackets, run a lot more. And a friend has gifted me a massive tub of protein powder in inverted commas for recovery. I I eat well, says Connor. I'm not sure I need the powder, but I do love a milkshake so it won't go to waste. But a recent study caught my attention with regards to heavy metals found in surprisingly high levels in some protein powders. Are they high enough, Connor asks, to have a negative accumulative effect? Does this risk mitigate any positive health benefits from flavouring my milkshake with delicious vanilla protein powder? And he sent us a study by Consumer Reports. Lynn has also sent us this same Consumer Reports page, asking if there really are any risks to lead in protein powder. Of all of the things I thought to worry about, Norman, this wasn't one of them.
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B
Microplastics, Ultra processed foods. Well, these are all processed Foods. Well, that's true, as the case may be. I mean, it's not. Okay. I'll give you the chance. The Mediterranean diet. I didn't want that trip back to your desk to be, you know, wasted.
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A
I'm trying to foreshadow. I'm not being very elegant about it. Don't worry, it will make sense soon. One thing I think I should say, as a bit of a caveat to preface this discussion is we will not not talk in much detail today about the benefits of protein powder, because we literally have done a whole episode on what's that rash about protein and whether protein supplements work. So we will link in the show notes to our episode, how much protein do you really need? And my memory of that chat, Norman, is that not only was it informative, it was also very fun, as all.
- [03:18]
B
Of our chats are very fun, as teenage boys would say after they've eaten their protein powder.
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A
How would lead get into protein powder to start with?
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B
Well, just to summarise the research, the American research found significant quantities of lead in protein powders. And if you had protein powder every day, you would exceed at least the Californian suggested daily limit for lead intake. Perhaps not other states. In the United States, by the way, we don't have a limit in Australia, but we'll come back to that later. They go light on how it might have got in there. But there are various sources. So lead in the environment stays in the environment. It doesn't disappear, it just stays there. So you've got lead in soil and in parts of the world where you've got lead smelters. We've had lead smelters in Australia, Port Pirie, for example. Lead in paint. In older houses, lead was a common component of paint before paints were modernized, made it shinier.
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A
Is that what I always wondered, why they put it in it? I'm like, why would you put this thing in the paint? But it made the paint shinier and it made our petrol give your car. So that's why it was in petrol as well for a while.
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B
And lead was used on roofing a lot because it was very malleable and could seal between tiles and gutters and so on. There's still lead in car batteries. If you don't have an electric car, you've got a regular car, lead, acid batteries. So even though they've eliminated a lot of lead from our environment, there's still a fair bit around and they're just assuming that it's coming from various sources. And of course, in vegetarian protein Powders, the dominant protein is pea protein. You get a lot of pea protein in non vegetarian as well, along with whey. But when you might just have a few peas in your plate with your steak, that's not going to give you much lead. But when you've got a massive concentration of peas to make the powder, then that lead can get concentrated from the environment. So that's the theory as to how it gets in. There are various sources. You can get machines that might be machining the vegetables that might have some lead in them. We don't know.
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A
So just to put people's minds at rest, what was the upshot of this Consumer Reports study? Looked at a whole lot of different types of protein, different batches and over different time periods to sort of make sure they were getting a fairly representative sample of the powders. How concerned should people be about lead, given that we're about to tell them just how very bad it is for your body to have lead in it?
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B
Well, you wouldn't choose to consume lead by choice in reasonable amounts. And therefore, if you are taking protein powder for health reasons and there's lead in there and you are not controlling necessarily your protein intake, in other words, you're taking plenty of these protein powders. You could actually be taking in a significant quantity. And if it's teenage kids taking it when they've still got growing bodies, children are those who are affected most by lead in the environment.
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A
So, Norman, I feel like lead is one of those things that people are like, mm, lead, not good. Don't want that in my body. But can we just maybe recap on what the effects of it are? Because you can either have acute lead poisoning or you can have a long term chronic exposure which carries its own.
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B
Health risks when you consume it. Our body stores it, particularly in our bones, and it can leach out of your bones for years to come. So for most people, lead problems are a chronic problem over a matter of years because it could take a long time for you to get rid of lead from your body. Body lead interferes with all sorts of metabolic processes. It increases oxidative stress, which is biological rusting. It can interfere with how sodium and calcium get. So sodium and calcium are important ions in the body which help how nerves communicate with each other, help blood pressure, how our heart and arteries work, all sorts of things in our body. And lead can get in the way of all that. It just starts to interfere in replacing some of these ions in our body with lead. So it's everywhere, and particularly in the brain and particularly in children affecting neurological.
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A
Development, kids are vulnerable in a couple of different ways. Partly it's behavioural, because they're more likely to put things in their mouths that might contain lead, like chips of paint or dirt that might contain lead. But then also their bodies are smaller. They're still. Their brains are still developing. And the barrier between. Basically, their brains are a bit more poor to lead, if I'm not mistaken.
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B
That's what they think. Yes. That they absorb more and more, gets transmitted around the body, and then, of.
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A
Course, they're then living with those lead effects throughout their whole lives.
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B
But of course, there's a long history to our exposure to lead.
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A
Yeah. So it's something that's been used by humans for a really long time. And humans have also known for a pretty long time that it's bad for us, at least in acute amounts.
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B
Yeah. Nicander, a Greek physician and poet in the second century bc, wrote one of the earliest descriptions of lead poison.
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A
He called it gleaming, deadly white lead. Then there's another one. Nero's physician, Dioscorides, said lead makes the mind give way. So like you were saying before, there is this sense of it disrupting our neurons, affecting our cognition.
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B
They used to have wine glasses made of lead.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Okay.
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A
So this is. All right. This is where it gets kind of. It's not fun, it's terrible. People died, it's bad. But the fact that we know so much about how bad lead is now makes the way that we used to use it seem almost ridiculous. Because did you know that lead actually.
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B
Has a flavour sweetened wine?
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A
It has. It sweetens. So if your vegetables tasted bitter, if you cooked them in a lead pot or a pot with lead in it, it would make them taste a bit sweeter. It was used in the wine vessels, like you said, but it was also used basically as a preservative. So if you were Greek, you added pine tree resin. But if you were Roman, you might have used something called sapper, which was basically like grape juice concentrate. But the vessel that they would cook to reduce the grape juice in would often be made of lead. And so the lead would leach into the liquid. It was cooked for a long time, it's quite acidic and it would make it taste really sweet. Would you like to hazard a guess as to how much lead we're talking about, like, in terms of concentration? For reference. For reference, the protein powder, the highest amount that we found in the protein powder was 7.7 micrograms per serving. How much do you reckon is in sapper?
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B
I Can't imagine.
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A
One gram per litre. One gram of lead per litre. So we're talking one thousandth of your litre of sapper is lead.
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B
Yeah. And Herb Needleman, who is the American researcher who we had on the health report in the early days of the health report, who is the person his research really got lead removed from petrol and he looked at the history here and he read that the high prevalence of gout in Roman society was actually due to lead poisoning. Yes.
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A
It's called saturnine gout, which, honestly, I think I might need to start heavy metal band just so I can call it that.
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B
Indeed.
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A
And this is why I brought my Mediterranean diet bell in, because honestly, arguably having high levels of lead in your food is the original Roman diet, at least, if not Mediterranean. Did you also know to stick with alcohol and lead poisoning, that it can. Saturnine gout can often be a problem for people who've made moonshine, because if they're using. Yeah. So if they're using an old car radiator or something like that to brew their illicit booze, the solder sometimes used in manufacturing those things has lead in it and it leaches in to the moonshine.
- [11:04]
B
And probably what I didn't make clear earlier is that a lot of piping in the olden days and still to some extent in olden houses where it's just not been found or removed, were made of lead. Just again, because of its.
- [11:16]
A
Well, do you remember what lead's atomic name is on the periodic table? Yes. P.B. plumbum, where our word plumbing comes from. And the word plumber, because pipes used to be made.
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B
You're on lead, you're on fire today. You're on historical fire.
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A
History, etymology. There's nothing about this gory, gory ancient diseases and nothing about this conversation I don't love.
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B
As a Brisbane girl, I'm gonna let you tell the Brisbane story here because we made history in Australia.
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A
Are you talking about Gibson and Turner?
- [11:43]
B
I am at Brisbane Children's Hospital.
- [11:45]
A
Right. So this actually shock me because it's so much earlier than I thought. So like I said before, we've known for literally thousands of years that high doses of lead can cause lead toxicity. What we didn't really know until relatively recently was that chronic exposure to lead can also be really bad for you. I think I thought that the key dates around here were around the 1960s. I was thinking about when lead was being removed from products, but what I didn't realize is that the first kind of proper published work around it was in the 1800s by two Australian physicians, Gibson and Turner, the first to publish the connection between clinical presentation and the lead content of house paint. And it wasn't until some decades later.
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B
And this was in children with severe neurological disease.
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A
Yes, exactly. And it was sort of dismissed, I think, a bit by the international community as being just a bit of a. I mean, as much as I tease you about being an old Norman, you weren't around in the 1800s. I was about to ask you, but like, how your reading of this, how was it received?
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B
Well, it obviously wasn't received radically with a radical change to the world around them, because the first people to, you know, historically, the first people to talk about environmental risk when there's so much investment in the mining industry would not have been particularly well received. And it took another 70 years for a legislated reduction of lead and domestic paints to take place, Even though in 1892 they made their first description. So it just shows you the lead time in terms of vest. It's very funny.
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A
One thing you hinted at before, but we didn't actually put numbers around, was the so called safe levels of lead, which, as I understand it, there is no recognised safe level of lead, but there is a kind of baseline exposure because it is in the environment that we're all exposed to to varying extents.
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B
Yeah. So the Americans set minimum levels, California being amongst the low, but we don't set any minimum level here. And I assume that's because we've accepted in Australia that there's no safe level, therefore no levels adequate here. Any lead exposure is bad.
- [13:54]
A
We're just trying to sort of benchmark us in some sort of way. I mentioned before, 7.7 micrograms per serving in the highest amount that they found in this protein powder. I think we can all agree that's a lot less than 1 gram per litre of sapper in Roman times. But how does that compare to other exposures that we know about?
- [14:13]
B
The US would say, on average, 2.2 micrograms a day for children and 8.8 micrograms a day for women of childbearing age. You wouldn't want to exceed either of those. So you can see that at seven out of a scoop, albeit that's the maximum level, it's getting pretty close to the daily intake for adults, much less children. So it's not nothing. And the issue here is, in the past, lead poisoning was blamed for the fall of the Roman Empire.
- [14:42]
A
Oh, that along with everything else. I do like the idea that it was lead poisoning, but every single Podcast I listened to about the Roman Empire and that was the fall of the Roman Empire.
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B
That's right. The Mongols didn't have lead. Well, I'm sure they did. But the point here is it's close to what would be the maximum intake. And that's just from one scoop of the highest lead concentration in protein powders in the United States. You may say, well, we're not talking here necessarily about acute lead poisoning with all the manifestations we've been talking about, but particularly in children, we're talking about subtle effects which lower iq, lower school performance and in adults could increase the risk along with everything else in our environment, of kidney damage, of high blood pressure and maybe even increased risk of dementia. So this in the environment just increases the likelihood of other things going wrong rather than full on lead toxicity itself. And that's the problem here.
- [15:42]
A
I would also add there that it's not evenly distributed across the population, the risk of exposure. So this isn't talking about protein powder. This is talking about passive environmental exposure to lead. Because if you're living in an area that's had a lot of trucking, for example, with leaded petrol in years gone by, or a place with high levels of lead paint because maybe it's cost prohibitive to get rid of it, you're more likely to perhaps be in a lower socioeconomic level. And so the people who are at most risk of these harms of lead poisoning are often people who are already vulnerable for lots of reasons.
- [16:16]
B
Now, in Australia, we don't really know what the levels are in protein powders. The protein powders studied in the United States can be imported into Australia. You can buy them online. So we just don't know who's consuming what. There is lead in the Australian food supply. Not a lot of it, but there is some. And on the precautionary principle, which we talk about a lot on what's that rash? You would rather avoid it. And here's the thing, do you really need the protein powder?
- [16:46]
A
And this is where we come back to our previous episode on what's that Rash? Of like, do you need to supplement with protein? And you can go and listen to that. I think where we kind of got to there was that there may be some groups of people who do benefit from that, especially people who maybe have a limited diet for whatever reason. Perhaps they're older or perhaps they have other dietary restrictions that mean supplements. Supplementing is useful for them. But spoiler alert, normal healthy person, you're probably much better off getting the protein that you need from a balanced diet that matches up with the Australian dietary guidelines.
- [17:19]
B
Yeah. And you can boost your protein using that. But there's no question as you get older you do need more protein. And if you're frail and you don't have an appetite, then supplementary powders may be what you need. But perhaps choose an Australian made one rather than something that's made in the.
- [17:33]
A
Micro U.S. well, Australian made one we have no data on and the ones from the U.S. we have data on and it's worrying is better, Norman, I.
- [17:40]
B
Think just shut your eyes and swallow.
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A
Close your eyes and swallow. That's one piece of advice from Dr. Norman Swan. I will remind you, Norman, of what you told me last time, which you said. Well, I hate being reminded of what.
- [17:51]
B
I might have said in the past. Go on, what did I say? What did I say?
- [17:54]
A
Okay, you said you have to be careful about what ultra processed foods you eat. Of course, protein powders are an ultra processed food, but these protein powders are mostly okay. Be protein aware. How much do you need for your age, your needs and what your objectives are? Do you still stand by those statements, Dr. Swan?
- [18:12]
B
That sounds remarkably sensible where I got all that from. Work out whether you really do need protein powders, given that there's a chance that there is lead in them, particularly if you've imported them from overseas. You just don't know what's there. But we don't know in the Australian context either. If you are taking them, don't go mad with them and ideally take your protein from food.
- [18:33]
A
Are you going to give any stronger recommendations to the teenage boys that live in your house?
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B
It's going to be an interesting dinner conversation tonight and I'll feed back, I'll let you know.
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A
I definitely want to hear what their response is. What would you know?
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B
Yeah, show me the scientific paper.
- [18:49]
A
Yeah, you're like, listen to what's that rash? You would get it if you listen. Well, Connor Lynn, thank you both so much for asking us a question. You can ask us your questions by emailing thatrashbc.net au which is also where you can send any feedback you have for us.
- [19:04]
B
What's in our meal bag?
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A
So Ophelia has messaged in in response to our episode on fragrances, saying hi there. Your episode on Sense reminded me of a trial I've seen looking into lavender in the treatment of ptsd. I'd be so curious to hear about where the research is at on this as it's hard to understand how this could work with such a complex illness.
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B
Well, it is a complex illness. This trial that's being done is being conducted by Professor Michael Burke, who is a world authority, by the way, on bipolar disorder. So he's one of our leading research psychiatrists. And the argument here is, and you've got to watch, this is a drug company sponsored trial. So this is concentrated lavender oil in a capsule and anxiety is part of post traumatic stress disorder. And the idea here is that one element of ptsd, if I understand the trial correctly, one element of PTSD which is crippling, is anxiety. And the question is, is this concentrated lavender oil effective in breaking up the anxiety of ptsd? Not necessarily a cure for PTSD itself, but helping one of the disabling symptoms with few side effects? We don't know the answer to that question yet, but that's what sits behind it. PTSD is complex and maybe we'll deal with it in the future. What's that rash?
- [20:24]
A
Well, Ophelia has added a PS to her message. Norman saying, I have a theory on why cats are attracted to Norman despite his dislike for them. Would you like to know what it is?
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B
Yeah, what is it?
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A
Ophelia says, I'm guessing his body language is viewed as very polite if he's avoiding staring at them, which says to me, cats are so capricious. You look at them, they don't want to be friends with you. You don't look at them, they want to be friends with you.
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B
So I'm making them work to gain my favor.
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A
Treat them mean, keep them keen. Paul has also written in referencing your cat dislike Norman. Paul says, in the recent episode about perfumes and fragrances, Norman indicated that his armp was not particularly centered. Knowing his opinion on cats, Paul writes, I thought you might like to know that cats love male human armpits.
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B
You're kidding.
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A
Paul continues, both my last two cats have gone into apoplexies of ecstasy when snuffling into my armpit after exercise. And having brought this behaviour up in conversation with friends, I know it's not uncommon. Cats love to snuffle sweaty armpits and seem to prefer male armpits. I don't know if this information will improve Norman's opinion of cats, but I would love to know why cats are so attracted to my armpit.
- [21:42]
B
Oh, gross. Yes. No, no. When I suggested that I don't use strong sense, I do use something, so I haven't noticed cats heading from my armpits. But if they do, then I'll know that I need to do something about my armpits. That's right.
- [21:56]
A
It's time to have a shower. If a cat's snuffling around pit, it's shower time. Well, you can send your letters of any stripe, cat, stripe or otherwise to thatrashbc.net au and we'll see you next.
- [22:07]
B
Week, protein powder or not.
- [22:08]
A
See you then.