Question: what happens if you eat too much or too little protein

Alex Munro answered on 10 Jun 2011:

If you eat too much protein, the excess is just excreted by the body, thrown away as waste basically, as we don’t ‘store’ protein (like we can store fat). If you have a kidney disease, too much protein will make it worse as the kidneys will have to work harder. If you eat too little protein then the body will look to itself to meet its needs for amino acids (the building blocks of protein). The body HAS to have amino acids to make all sorts of things, like muscles and hormones etc., if there are not enough provided in the diet, the body will start to break down its own muscle (which is a protein) to get amino acids. This is why people who are starved look almost like skeletons, because their muscle have been broken down