Key Takeaways
- The official RDA is 0.8 g of protein per kg of body weight daily at every adult age — for a 70 kg person, about 56 g.
- PROT-AGE and ESPEN both recommend 1.0–1.2 g/kg for healthy adults over 65, and 1.2–1.5 g/kg during illness.
- Protein works best paired with resistance exercise; people with severe kidney disease should get medical advice before raising intake.
Your Muscles Are Aging. Your Protein Recommendation Isn't.
Ask the official tables how much protein you need and the answer is the same at 70 as it was at 25: 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day — roughly 56 grams for a 70-kilogram adult. That number, set by the Institute of Medicine and used by Health Canada, is defined as the minimum that meets the needs of nearly all healthy people.
The trouble is what happens to muscle while the number stands still. From about age 30, adults lose 3–8% of muscle mass per decade, and the loss accelerates after 60. Left unchecked, it becomes sarcopenia — the weakness and frailty behind falls, fractures and lost independence.
Why older muscles need a bigger signal
The mechanism is called anabolic resistance: as we age, muscle responds less strongly to the protein we eat. Some amino acids get pulled aside by the gut and liver, blood flow to muscle declines, and the "build" signal from a meal gets quieter.
The fix isn't exotic — it's a stronger signal. Both the PROT-AGE Study Group and the European society ESPEN independently landed on the same prescription: 1.0 to 1.2 grams per kilogram daily for healthy older adults — for that same 70-kg person, 70 to 84 grams — rising to 1.2–1.5 g/kg during illness or recovery.
PROT-AGE also suggests spreading it out: roughly 25–30 grams of protein per meal, providing around 2.5 grams of the amino acid leucine, the trigger for muscle building. (Fair warning from ESPEN: the per-meal threshold idea is still debated. The daily total is the solid part.)
What 25–30 grams actually looks like
- Chicken breast, 3 oz: 26–27 g
- Salmon, 3 oz: 19–23 g
- Greek yogurt, ¾ cup: ~17 g
- Lentils, 1 cup cooked: 18 g
- Cottage cheese, ½ cup: 12 g — plus an egg (6 g) and you're in range
Protein alone isn't the program
Extra protein does the most when muscles are also being challenged — progressive resistance training two to three times a week is the PROT-AGE pairing. Protein without exercise shows much weaker effects.
And one group should not self-prescribe: people with severe kidney disease (eGFR under 30, not on dialysis) are advised to stay near 0.8 g/kg, and anyone with kidney concerns should talk to their doctor — a large share of adults over 70 have some kidney decline without knowing it. For healthy kidneys, PROT-AGE found little evidence that higher protein intakes cause harm. There is no official upper limit for protein; the experts' caution is about medical conditions, not the food itself.
The Twikup Take
The RDA is the minimum amount needed to avoid deficiency, not a target for keeping muscle at 75. For most healthy older adults, that target looks more like 1.0–1.2 grams per kilo, spread across the day, paired with resistance exercise a couple of times a week. The steak was never the problem; the signal just needs to be louder.
This article is general information, not medical advice. If you have kidney disease or another condition affecting protein intake, speak with your doctor or a registered dietitian before changing your diet.
Image: AI-generated illustration.