Examination of Chinese habitual dietary protein requirements of Chinese young female adults by indicator amino acid method.

OBJECTIVE To determine protein requirement of Chinese young female adults on habitual Chinese diet through indicator amino acid oxidation (IAAO) technique. DESIGN Twenty women with a mean (SD) age of 21.6 (0.9) years were healthy based on questionnaire, physical examinations and screening tests. There were three consecutive periods of 7 days each with six different intakes of protein (0.70, 0.78, 0.86, 0.94, 1.02 and 1.10 g/kg·d) within Chinese habitual diets (proportions of good-quality protein were 40 to 45%). Subjects were randomly allocated equally into two groups (1.10, 0.86, 0.78 g/kg·d for group 1 and 1.02, 0.94, 0.70 g/kg·d for group 2 from period 1 to period 3 in turn). Adaptation days were from day 1 to day 6 and the isotope study day was day 7 in each period. Amino acid kinetics was measured in non-menstrual periods, based on the IAAO technique. Two indicators (rate of release of 13CO2 and rate of leucine oxidation) were used to estimate protein requirement by breakpoint analysis with a two-phase linear regression crossover model. RESULTS Mean and population safe protein requirements of Chinese habitual diets in non-menstrual periods from the rate of release of 13CO2 were 0.91 and 1.09 g/kg·d, respectively. And from the rate of leucine oxidation were 0.92 and 1.10 g/kg·d, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The protein requirement of young women on Chinese habitual diets in non-menstrual period was lower than the current protein reference intake for Chinese females. Further studies are necessary to explore female protein requirements during the whole menstrual cycle.