Table one contains numbers which puts the rest of it at extreme doubt…
The various proteins have very similar levels of amino acids.
Paper is by Juha Hulmi,
Bachelor of Teaching or something.
University of Jyväskylä: MSc 2004: Exercise Physiology
University of Jyväskylä: PhD 2009: Exercise Physiology
University of Helsinki: Docentship 2013: Exercise Physiology
Is there a problem with humans being able to digest whey that you are solving?
Not to be rude, but no, there is not. Whey is digested just fine, pretty dang quickly, as it is. Just about the same rapid time course as a meal of free elemental amino acids. (See figures 3 and 4 here.)
Critical questions -
What is the time course difference (if any) to peak plasma amino acid level (studies usually use leucine as the marker) between a whey concentrate and a whey hydrosylate (or more so your hydrosylate-like process)?
If such a difference exists then what is the difference (if any) in net protein retention (i.e. muscle growth) over the day following exercise between the different products?
Isilder why does that table put anything in doubt for you? It is simply true. The amino acid profile of casein and whey are not too dissimilar, one a bit higher in one branched chain amino acid, the other in others. Yes by Juha Hulmi PhD Academy of Finland Reseach Fellow, Christopher M Lockwood PhD, and Jeffrey Stout PhD of UCF. The Journal: Nutrition & Metabolism. It’s a basic review.
They do differ quite a bit on bioavailability.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/protein-bio-availability-explained.htm
Thats not rude but its false. Can the body digest whey? Obviously it can but that doesn’t mean we cant improve on it or make it easier for the body to digest. The figures you link to only graph out the digestion rate (certainty tons of other studies backing up that protein timing doesn’t even matter). It does not show anything about protein utilization, bioavailability, ect.
Welcome to the board stephenmo1. This place could use another person who understands the scientific method. And also one that knows not to scare off the sheep with too much science. 
Well, all this here scientific jargon is kinda puzzling, so maybe the advocates of “whey protein made with plasma” could answer one simple question from the lay public:
What’s the evidence* this product significantly improves health or athletic performance?
*as in clinical trial evidence, not “I ate Plasma Whey for a month and was able to beat up bullies at the beach”.
Whey Isolate - at least for me - absolutely speeds recovery.
No idea what this product is, barely understand a word in this thread and the website doesn’t help.
The Baylor study stephenm01 cited would appear to be on point. Of course, I’m not a biochemist and I have no idea if the study’s findings are valid.
What is the need or advantage of making “it easier to digest”? Prechewed pureed steak is “easier to digest” as well; is there any end result advantage of consuming steak in a prechewed pureed form? Is doing that “improving” upon steak in any way? Besides taste and experience, might it actually be decreasing its nutritional value? Is there any reason to believe that absorbing the amino acids from higher up in the gut faster is better? Or is there just as good cause to speculate that such could decrease its beneficial nutritional impact?
Yes whey and casein differ structurally. They are digested differently and absorbed differently and thus have varying impacts for those reasons likely more than because of the differences in their component parts.
Let us accept the claims of the bodybuilder.com link as factual. Nothing there comparing elemental amino acids to whey in bioavailabilty. Whey concentrate bioavailability at the top of the list contained within the range for whey isolate.
So let’s specifically address your claim that my statement is false. You are straight up wrong.
Blood level peak from elemental amino acids peaks no faster than from whey. From consumption to hitting muscles whey gets there as fast as free amino acids do. If faster is better (questionable) then whey has very little room to be improved upon.
There is nothing false in what I stated. Whey is digested very well and very quickly and there is no evidence that digesting it even more quickly would have any positive impact. Or that it would not have a negative one.
Your link to the journal review did not function but I could find it here. Good article that of note explains that when it comes down to it there does not seem to be any good evidence that faster digestion is per se better.
(Bolding mine.)
So your cite’s answer to Jackmanni’s request is that the actual evidence is that slower absorption results in better impact on net muscle gain than does fast. But admittedly, the evidence is sparse.
Looking at your site - your product is a whey-casein blend. The cited Baylor study documented better net gain having casein in a blend with casein than not. (BTW the article does NOT specify that your product was used yet you put up a graph labelling their findings with blend as your product. Was it?) Let’s accept that. Muscle Milk has that. Muscle Milk can be had for under 80 cents a 16 gram of protein serving. I can find on your site that your product is $80 for 5 pounds but not how many grams of protein are in that 5 pound bag. Do you favorably compete per 16 gram serving on price with Muscle Milk? And how to some real complete dairy foods?
Did I miss a link to said study?
Recently published research here, that did not show a difference between whey protein and casein in quantitative measures studied in connection with training of female athletes:
“The combination of a controlled undulating resistance training program with pre- and post-exercise protein supplementation is capable of inducing significant changes in performance and body composition. There does not appear to be a difference in the performance- enhancing effects between whey and casein proteins.”
Sounds considerably less than “amazing!” and “awesome” to me. :dubious:
You can get to the Baylor study with some difficulty by guessing which one it is in the site’s reference list. Here: Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2006, 20(3), 643–653
2006 National Strength & Conditioning Association
THE EFFECTS OF PROTEIN AND AMINO ACID
SUPPLEMENTATION ON PERFORMANCE AND TRAINING
ADAPTATIONS DURING TEN WEEKS OF RESISTANCE
TRAINING
CHAD M. KERKSICK,
1 CHRISTOPHER J. RASMUSSEN,
1 STACY L. LANCASTER,
1 BHARAT MAGU,
1
PENNEY SMITH,
1 CHARLES MELTON,
1 MICHAEL GREENWOOD,
1 ANTHONY L. ALMADA,
2
CONRAD P. EARNEST,
3 AND RICHARD B. KREIDER1
Use it to find it.
Just shows that a casein-whey blend did better than whey with extra BCAAs alone. In fact as noted above there are several studies that show casein actually does better for net muscle growth.
In terms of more proximal absorption (faster) being “better” … there actually is reason to believe it is worse. Easier to digest is something to be avoided. 1) We burn calories digesting protein; that is one of its advantages. Why decrease that?! 2) Remember that bariatric surgery has a highly significant impact on diabetes even before weight loss occurs? The understood mechanism is that it avoids dumping nutrition proximally with a host of adverse impacts thus avoided. You want nutrition to hit the ileal nutrient-sensing enteroendocrine cells, with less stimulation in the proximal small intestine. You don’t want digestion too “easy.”
Thanks.
I gather there has been no study showing a significant clinical/exercise benefit when consuming the “plasma”-processed whey as compared to the old-fashioned whey (sorry).
I’ve seen other examples of supplements wherein some type of processing is claimed to improve absorption/availability. Without good evidence to back up improved outcomes, we’re left to guess whether the claims represent anything more than marketing hype.
Link here, though the paper itself is paywalled.
I fail to see how that study has anything to do with the supposed superiority of the plasma-blasted protein supplement, as compared to other concentrates, isolates, or hydrolysates. They compared casein + whey to casein + branched chain amino acids (BCAAs, which are leucine, isoleucine, and valine). (Frankly, I don’t even believe that result. The whole paper reeks of data dredging: small sample size, low statistical power, and there are ridiculous numbers of multiple comparisons such that most of their “statistically significant” results are probably due to random chance.)
My bullshit detector is off the chart after looking at the other cited studies on the marketing page.
“Two studies, one conduced by Baylor University and the other by Brigham Hospital have shown that a protein blend can be significantly more effective at increasing strength then 100% Whey Protein alone.” The Baylor study was discussed above. I don’t have full access to the Brigham Hospital study. Going from the abstract, it finds that casein hydrolysate (not a “protein blend”) is more effective than whey protein. This seems at least vaguely relevant to the product at hand, but it does not at all show that plasma-treated casein is superior to ordinary casein hydrolysate, nor that a “protein blend” superior to whey protein alone.
“A study highlighted by the Department of Physics & Materials Science, City University of Hong Kong shows a nearly 86% increase in cellular adhesion.” This refers to a review article about how plasma treatment of materials including metals and plastics improves various biological properties including cell adhesion. This is completely irrelevant to plasma-treated whey/casein protein.
“A study by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in Beijing showed a 32% increase in Biofunctionalisation and Bio-Compatibility.” This refers to a review article looking at how various treatments affect cell growth on plastics, specifically a result that cells grow better on polystyrene plates if the plates are treated with plasma. Again, it is completely irrelevant to the product at hand.
At best this is all hype, if not out-right snake oil.
Tell me, what does the plasma treatment do to amino acid side chains? Any major chemical modifications caused by plasma treatment (besides just breaking peptide bonds) would reduce the nutritional value.
Not to address the nutritional issues but from a consumer use perspective substantially increased mixability with less clumping would be a very big deal for users of whey protein. One of the biggest PITA factors in using powered whey protein is that it clumps like crazy and there are even special mixing “shake” bottles with wire balls in them to try and make sure the protein and water mixes evenly.
If the new process makes for easier mixing without having to use blenders, shake bottles or constant stirring for a few minutes there’s definitely a market for it even if the nutrition uptake is the same.
So why not just drink milk?
Wow thank you guys for all the responses (good or bad)! After 34 posts I think we can all agree clearly our marketing message is not as clear as we had hoped and causing quite a bit of confusion. The team and I are going to work Sunday to try and rewrite it to be a bit clearer. If you guys don’t mind, would love to get your feedback tomorrow night if we are able to finish by then.
Honestly stephen we may not be your best focus group. Fairly few of us are your target demographic.
If I may be so bold - this is what appears to be your circumstance:
You are trying to get a foothold into the crowded protein supplement space. On the down side the space is pretty crowded. On the upside (from your perspective), for a variety of reasons it is a growing space and most of the growth is not among serious athletes but among more regular folk consuming as part of a perceived healthy lifestyle.
You are selling to people who have already decided to consume a protein supplement. In this thread you have to deal with those who are skeptical that such supplements are needed in comparison to real foods; but that is not your market. There is a market that is already convinced that such products are useful; you just have to convince them that yours is better or at least a better value proposition.
So what is your marketing angle going to be? How do you differentiate your product? That bluntly honestly is a different question than whether or not your product actually delivers better results. People buy Gatorade for gosh sake thinking they are doing something healthy and the crap is salted flavored sugar water! How do they do that?
Well you are a casein-whey blend rather than a pure whey product and indeed there is some research out there, probably the better research since it looks at net muscle growth rather than synthesis alone, that such blends give better results. Sure the evidence is scant but it exists. If you can effectively sell that message you limit the universe of products you are competing with from all the whey only ones. (But don’t label a graph as being with your product if your product was not used.)
Then you have your special processing. Which may (if it does what you say it does) make it mix easier. That apparently matters lots to some users. It really might be your best angle if you are going for the more casual lifestyle user.
And you claim it makes it more like a hydrosylate which some believe absorbs faster, and a significant chunk of potential consumers believe that that a rapid rise will do more to trigger an insulin response and drive muscle growth. That belief is what drives some consumers to spend such a premium to get the whey hydrosylate products. Yes the actual evidence is not supportive that “easier digestion” is a good thing or that it gets in significantly faster and yes when asked I will point out that such claims are not supported by the science, but again, I am not your target demographic. Maybe the people who are already buying whey hydrosylate are? Those are not the growth market in the protein supplement space but they are the potential users willing to spend a premium for something they perceive is more effective.
So you need to simultaneously sell the concept that being somewhat like a hydrosylate, with the implied (albeit not documented) bigger faster amino acid peak and thus insulin (anabolic) trigger than regular whey concentrate or isolate is important, while simultaneously selling that the more slowly digested gradual rise lower peak over multiple hours of casein is also key to whatever benefits consumers believe they are getting with a protein supplement.
It’s a tough sell. I’ll leave it at that.
If you are going for the value proposition then you need to put up how many grams of protein each serving has and how many servings are in each of those 5 pound bags.
And you need to do this in words that your target audience understands.
I’m very much in the target demographic. Like a maj of people who would take this I am very switched on to what I put in my body. That works two ways (1) is it totally legit (food standard/safetly approval - whatever that might be in the US) and (2) does it do approx. what it says on the packaging.
Need some big Gov agency labelling and a populated feedback forum on the website or at least threads from people using the product, not only talking about it.
Think you need to offer the prodict at cost price for some while, and in smaller bags as well - no way are enough people going to spend this kind of money on what is atm marketing for you to reach a critical mass of consumer feedback.
Fwiw, I use myprotein.com - suggest you look at the emphasis on customer feedback.
It’s a good question. I find even full fat doesn’t satiate the desire for protein after extended exercise. Using conventional food I could eat way to much in terms of calories and whey deals with that issue - muscle craving protein - really well. And totally immediately. Fwiw, ater a really good session I do mix the whey with full fat milk.
I can’t comment on the medical stuff but it throwing it down my neck immediately after finishing means it’s hitting the muscle right when it needs it, not like an hour later having showered, got home, switched on the George Forman grill, etc.
It totally hits the spot within minutes wich really has to aid the recovery process.
The target audience is likely to be impressed by lots of enthusiastic testimonials (even though few if any of them will be verifiable).
References to “scientifically proved!” will go over well, particularly if the target audience doesn’t notice the sketchiness of the research, or that evidence is lacking that your particular product has a proven beneficial effect.
Mix in dark references to not being able to trust competitors’ products and that the FDA is in the pocket of corporations that market drugs, add a Quack Miranda Warning and spam online forums, and you’ve got a formula that’s worked for a lot of supplement dealers.
But as DSeid notes, it’s a crowded sellers’ market. Maybe a celebrity endorser or two would help. I hear Brian Williams has extra time on his hands these days…
Still waiting. The snowball is melting.