Expert Insight: Benefits, Safety, and Considerations of Protein Powders

Protein supplements offer a range of health benefits, from supporting muscle strength to promoting satiety. However, navigating the protein powder market can be challenging for consumers. In an interview with Pharmacy Times®, Phil Vigeant, CEO of PlantFusion provides insights on ensuring the safety and purity of plant-based protein powders, with a focus on identifying reliable brands and third-party certifications. Vigeant emphasizes common allergens and contaminants to watch out for when selecting a protein supplement and offers guidance to help consumers make informed choices when incorporating protein powders into their health and wellness routines.

Pharmacy Times

What are a few health benefits associated with nutritional supplements, like protein powders?

Phil Vigeant

Eating a higher protein diet has a ton of health benefits. I think that for one it's just an essential macronutrient, much like other ones, like carbohydrates and fats, but it's probably one of the healthiest of the macronutrients and the easiest one for people to find in the diet. The benefits are really wide ranging — I would say in general; it's everything from helping with satiety. I would say one of the biggest issues, though, is really helping to keep your muscles strong. I think a lot of people used to think of protein supplements and keeping your muscles strong and having healthy muscles as something just for appearance. The science now has indicated that it's not just that. It's critical for other things, and it has a cascading effect on health in general. For instance, one of the biggest issues with elderly people is sarcopenia, which is the degradation of muscles over time, which makes them lose their strength and helps cause them to fall and all these other things. I think we have to look at it as one of the most important parts to nourishing your muscular system. When you nourish your muscular system, there's a beneficial effect on helping mitigate things like osteoporosis and bone thinning and things like that. I think the biggest one in general, is for muscle health, but it's also it's very critical macronutrient that helps your body function properly.

Pharmacy Times

How can individuals ensure they are consuming a safe and effective supplement?

Phil Vigeant

First, it's really important for a consumer to really understand what they're trying to accomplish or look for. I will acknowledge it's a very confusing consumer category, right, because of all the multitude of ways in which we get health information — friends, family, doctors, pharmacists, nurses, people online. There's a host of bad information out there online about all kinds of health issues. I'm sure most of your pharmacists can attest to that. They probably answer a lot of questions because of what people find online that sometimes is not necessarily accurate or could be misleading. I think one thing to be aware of is that most supplements that they can find in a pharmacy setting are usually by brands in general, that are larger and absolutely under the scrutiny and very much on the lens of the FDA and the FTC. So, that's one way to look at it. I always feel like in general, when I walk into any pharmacy, the brands that are there are generally larger and generally they're much more visible. If they're doing something wrong, they fall quickly under the guise of those regulatory agencies.

Another way to look at it is certifications. A lot of companies now are using third party certifications on the labels, which help if they're legitimate, third party versus just logos that the brand has created. They help give consumer confidence. If we sell an organic product, and others in the industry do this too, we'll put the actual USDA logo on there, because there's a regulation around organic product. The same is true for non-GMO. Where there's a third party called the non-GMO Project, and in order to get to use that logo, we have to submit a battery of information and go through quite an inquisition about the specific product before we can put that on the label. I think a simple way I say is look for some of those certifications. However, I will acknowledge that many consumers, who don't do this every day and aren't in the industry, still might be confused by some of that. It's hard for them to know what's a true third-party certification, like an organic certification, that's managed by the USDA, versus what is some logo that somebody just threw up there on a label that doesn't really mean anything. It's the words GMP and then a circle, so it is hard to do that, but I think if they stick with a lot of the brands that you'll often find in in pharmacies, that's a good start. I think looking for certifications and things like that is another good start.

I'm stating the obvious, but pharmacists are recognized as one of the most — if not the most, then definitely one of the most trusted professionals out there. A lot of consumers use both pharmacists and nurses as their primary source of information around nutrition. I always say, ask one of those 2 professionals, and particularly pharmacists, because they're really much more well educated around nutrition and side effects and things like that than really any other professional out there in the medical profession.

Pharmacy Times

What are some of the biggest challenges in ensuring the safety and purity of plant-based protein powders?

Phil Vigeant

I think in general, having been in the industry and sold not just plant based but also animal-based proteins, and worked with a lot of different proteins — most protein powders are generally very safe. So, I'll make a broad statement like that. Whey protein, milk proteins, again, assuming nobody has an allergy to them, and so forth. The biggest challenge we find, or that we try to focus on, and other industry professionals do too in the plant-based space, we generally stay away, for instance, of rice protein, because rice protein generally has a very high amount of heavy metals in them. It's not that it's going to be harmful to everybody, but anybody that might have a concern about how many heavy metals they're taking because maybe other aspects of their diet or genetic weaknesses, that would be a concern. Another area, but it's more because of soy protein — some people stay away from soy protein because there's a belief that it can have a phytoestrogenic effect, which could be bad for women in particular. We believe that that's a bit overplayed, but it's still an issue, and it also is a very common allergen, so that's why we also stay away from that. Soy is a very common allergen and can affect a number of people from an allergic standpoint. Then obviously, when you deal with the dairy proteins, like whey protein, milk proteins, caseinates, they also could be a challenge for anybody who is dairy free or wants to be dairy free. In general, if you don't have those allergens, I would say most protein powders, again, assuming it comes from a reputable company that does their homework and participates in the right regulatory framework, I think you'll find that most protein powders are generally considered very, very safe relative to many other products on the market.

For instance, hard to OD on protein, right? So, you'll basically be stuffed. You can't eat anymore before that happens. I'm not saying people should just take. You need other macronutrients, but I would say it's a very safe product. If you look at even CDC and complaints, you'll see the data is pretty low with people complaining about what I'll call pure protein products. The bigger issue is making sure that people aren't taking a protein powder of any sort and then putting in, what I'll call unregulated ingredients in there. Back in the day, a lot of people took protein powder, and they put things like ephedra in them and other stimulants in them. But that's not a problem with protein powder, that's what the manufacturer is adding into their product.