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Why does “high protein” food cause death?

• adrian_b 4y ago
  Because the metabolism of the proteins requires not only oxidation reactions, which are shared with the oxidation of carbohydrates and fatty acids, but also many other chemical reactions, mainly involved in the transfer of the amino- group between various molecules, until eventually it accumulates in urea, which can be excreted. The total capacity per day of performing those reactions is not sufficient to allow the production of enough energy from proteins to sustain a human, unlike in the carnivore animals. When too much proteins are eaten, some intermediate molecules accumulate in excess, instead of being converted into excretion products. Before the 20th century, when this was not understood yet, there have been many cases of illness or even death among people who ate too much lean meat, mainly among European hunters or explorers of the Northern regions, until they learned to copy the methods of the natives, e.g. by eating pemmican, in which the lean meat is mixed with enough fat to provide sufficient energy without having to eat too much proteins. Like for any food component, for proteins it is bad both to eat too little and to eat too much, but there is a large enough interval of protein quantities per day that are all right.