What is Whey Protein?

Whey pro­tein is a term used to describe a group of pro­teins that can be sep­a­rated from whey. When cow’s milk is used to man­u­fac­ture cheese, it also leads to the pro­duc­tion of whey, which may or may not be dis­carded. It is a mix­ture of lac­toglob­u­lin, alpha-lactalbumin and serum albumin.

Sim­i­lar to pro­tein found in egg white, whey pro­tein can also be irre­versibly changed by heat. When made part of the pas­teur­iza­tion process, it becomes less bio-active. If not, whey pro­tein nat­u­rally becomes bio-active which basi­cally means it con­tains a high con­cen­tra­tion of cys­teine and con­se­quently glu­tathione, an antiox­i­dant that pro­vides detox­i­fi­ca­tion of our cells and is essen­tial to main­te­nance of our health.

Bio-active whey pro­tein is the active source of pro­tein that resists the heat degen­er­a­tion and retains its basic nutri­tional value.

What Makes It Good for the Body

Because whey pro­tein con­tains an large amount of essen­tial and non-essential amino acids, it has a high nutri­tional value. How­ever, the most amaz­ing aspect of whey pro­tein is its effect on the human mind. It has been shown is stud­ies that whey pro­tein sat­is­fies our appetite for longer peri­ods of time when com­pared to other types of pro­teins. Hmmmm, interesting.….so that means if we eat the same amount of calo­ries two days in a row, one con­sist­ing of whey pro­tein and the other con­sist­ing of dif­fer­ent pro­tein then we won’t be hun­gry the day we eat the whey pro­tein. Yes, that is interesting.….isn’t it?

Why Preg­nant Moth­ers Love Whey Protein

A num­ber of OB-GYN doc­tors have advised their gravid patients to increase their intake of whey pro­tein because it will pro­vide the basic amount of amino acids needed by the grow­ing infants. An increased intake of whey pro­tein will nat­u­rally improve and speed up the devel­op­ment of the baby. Also, increased intake of whey pro­tein will indi­rectly improve the immune sys­tem of the baby. In its grow­ing stages, it is highly vul­ner­a­ble to dif­fer­ent types of ill­nesses. With the help of whey pro­tein, the infant will grow faster and bet­ter and be more equipped to defend itself against any health complication.

Whey Pro­tein for Body­build­ing Enthusiasts

For body­builders, mus­cle growth is every­thing and that’s why they love whey pro­tein so much. Stud­ies have sat­is­fac­to­rily proven that whey pro­tein can lead to accel­er­a­tion of mus­cle devel­op­ment. This is wel­comed news espe­cially for body­builders who are only a few weeks away from the date of com­pe­ti­tion but is still in high need of mus­cle growth.

How it Helps Ath­letes Busy Recov­er­ing from Old Injuries

In this case, whey pro­tein saves the day once more because it can be used to sup­ple­ment diets of indi­vid­u­als who are suf­fer­ing from com­pro­mised immune sys­tems. In gen­eral , it helps ath­letes and non-athletes alike heal faster.

A Weapon against Degen­er­a­tive Diseases

Although you can’t truly say that any dis­ease is less painful than the other if both have life-altering con­se­quences, it is an inar­guable fact that degen­er­a­tive dis­eases are dev­as­tat­ing health prob­lems. These ill­nesses tend to sub­ject peo­ple to a pro­tracted form of suf­fer­ing and with symp­toms with increas­ing lev­els of sever­ity. They com­monly affect three sys­tems in par­tic­u­lar: the ner­vous sys­tem, the mus­cu­lar sys­tem and the skele­tal system.

Although rarely cur­able, degen­er­a­tive dis­eases can be treated through chemother­apy, sur­gi­cal oper­a­tions and the proper diet. Whey pro­tein is often a part of this diet because of its reha­bil­i­ta­tive ben­e­fits espe­cially when it comes to mus­cle growth. Can­cer, dia­betes and AIDS have symp­toms that causes mus­cle strength and growth to dete­ri­o­rate. This means all mus­cle, not just those cool look­ing biceps, but the mus­cles it takes to swal­low, and for food to move along the diges­tive tract, an unde­sir­able effect that can be com­bated with increased intake of whey protein.

In gen­eral, if you are work­ing out with­out whey pro­tein in your nutri­tion plan, you are miss­ing out!

By: Dr. Parker

About the Author Dr. Parker is a sur­gi­cal res­i­dent with a spe­cial inter­est in nutri­tion, fit­ness and the improve­ment of over­all health. He has helped many peo­ple, patients and non-patients, acheive their fit­ness goals using lit­tle to no equip­ment and the most time effiecient work­out rou­tines pos­si­ble. If you would like more infor­ma­tion on his fit­ness pro­gram, go to: http://www.plantoberipped.com