can the body become desensitized

**LionsGate** · 06-08-2005, 03:22 AM

this may be a weird question, but I have always wondered this. i know the body gets used to whatever it is taking in such as coffee, cigarets, alcohol, vicodin, or narcotics. it takes more and more of these things to get the buzz, because you build a tolerance to it. but my question is does your body also build a tolerance to protein, vitamins, foods, or anything healthy for you? thanks

**DBarcelo** · 06-08-2005, 07:19 AM

Your body doesn't build a tolerance to protein, but the more muscle mass you build, the more protein your body needs to maintain that muscle mass. same with vitamins and food, but they don't just effect lean body mass. The bigger you are in general will determine the amount of vitamin minerals, etc your body needs.

A 150 lb man has much different nutritional needs than a 550 lb man. As a man grows from 150 lbs to 550 lbs, the nutritional needs increase in order to maintain the body weight, but there has not been a tolerance built.

**macrophage69alpha** · 06-08-2005, 03:10 PM

Originally Posted by TheUglyOne

this may be a weird question, but I have always wondered this. i know the body gets used to whatever it is taking in such as coffee, cigarets, alcohol, vicodin, or narcotics. it takes more and more of these things to get the buzz, because you build a tolerance to it. but my question is does your body also build a tolerance to protein, vitamins, foods, or anything healthy for you? thanks

yes. metabolic adaption applies to most things. Though it really just a more limited impact from the "new homeostasis". and its typically not as significant with the items you listed (compared to the first items)

**macrophage69alpha** · 06-08-2005, 03:17 PM

Originally Posted by DBarcelo

Your body doesn't build a tolerance to protein,

not exactly true... your body will adapt to some extent to the increased protein intake- by adapting the way that proteins are metabolised. Its not a tolerance per se, but your body tries to maintain a balance, homeostasis, increasing protein changes that balance and your body adapts to try to restore it- to some extent.

as a note- typically increased protein intake will have less effect initially (as your body adapts to actually digest and process the increased protien intake) followed by more effect and then less effect again as your body adapts to the now "normal" higher intake.

**macrophage69alpha** · 06-08-2005, 03:19 PM

though as noted above the significance of adaptation will vary significantly depending on the item/items. Not to mention individual metabolic variants, etc. etc.

**DBarcelo** · 06-09-2005, 06:00 AM

Basically as I said, the more muscle mass you build, the more protein your body needs. If you're not building muscle mass, but you keep increasing protein intake, your body has not use for it after a certain point and there becomes an excess. In that case, there is no tolerance built, but a lack of need. The key factor in my statement is that the lean body mass must be increasing in proportion with the protein intake. Once the body has all of the protein it needs, the body does not become incapable of absorbing protein, it will just temporarily stop absorbing it. The average person can only absorb about 50 grams of protein at one time, so after the body has absorbed all of the proein that it can at one time, it doesn't become incapable of absorbing protein, the body just shuts down protein absorbtion due to an overload in the digestive tract. You could consider that process a tolerance build up, but it only lasts for about an hour, so we wouldn't really consider that a build up of tolerance because the next time you ingest protein, your body will be able to absorb it just as effeciently as any other time.