Heyo,

It's time for another instalment of the Vitamin––the weekly fitness newsletter that helps you be healthier, stronger, and leaner while navigating fitness bullshit.

..AADAM ANSWERS..

Is my protein powder dangerous?

Let’s break these down one by one.

Quick note: I removed the links to the products from the original question because I'm not giving supplement companies free advertising. But for context, the mum uses a whey protein product derived from goat whey containing 2-3 ingredients, and the person asking the question uses a regular whey protein product containing, well, all of those 'dangerous' ingredients. Let's talk about that.

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Sucralose

Sucralose is an artificial sweetener approximately 600 times sweeter than table sugar, allowing food companies to sweeten their products without adding extra calories. When it comes to safety, I’ll quote one review paper [1]:

The acceptable daily intake (ADI)—the maximum amount of a substance considered safe to consume daily over a lifetime—is set at 5 mg/kg of body weight per day by the FDA and 0-15 mg/kg by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA). ADIs are determined using animal studies, with a 100-fold safety buffer to ensure human safety—meaning the actual no-effect level in studies is typically much higher.

To put this into perspective, if we take a middle value of 10 mg/kg, someone weighing 68 kg (150 lbs) would need to consume 680 mg of sucralose per day to exceed the ADI. For comparison, a few scoops of protein powder typically contain just a few milligrams of sucralose—nowhere near that amount.

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Sunflower Oil

The concern around sunflower oil (and other seed oils) mainly comes from its high linoleic acid (LA) content. Since LA can convert to arachidonic acid (AA)—a fatty acid linked to inflammation and chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease and obesity—some people worry that eating too much LA could drive inflammation.

But here’s the thing: the body tightly regulates how much LA actually turns into AA. One systematic review found that increasing LA intake by over 500% or cutting it by 90% barely budged AA levels in the body. This contradicts the idea that eating more LA significantly raises inflammation. [2]

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Soy lecithin

Lecithin helps the protein powder mix better, so you’re not choking on clumps of wet sand. Depending on the type the manufacturer uses, you’ll see it listed as soy or sunflower lecithin. Despite the name, soy lecithin contains almost no soy protein, so all the soy-related hoopla–-like it messing with hormones or turning you into a "soyboy"––don’t apply. [3][4]

In 2017, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) reviewed soy lecithin as a food additive and found zero safety concerns, concluding that an Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) wasn’t even necessary because lecithin showed no adverse effects—even at high intakes. [5]

If you’re still on the fence, you can opt for a brand that uses sunflower lecithin, which is often marketed as non-GMO and hexane-free (though the chemical extraction process in soy lecithin is tightly regulated and leaves negligible residues). But functionally, they do the same job, and neither is a health risk.

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Modified food starch

This one sounds scary because (I’m guessing) it has the word ‘modified’ in it, but it’s just regular starch, usually from corn, potatoes, or wheat, that’s been tweaked slightly to improve texture and mixability, hence ‘modified’. As such, there’s no real concern here, especially since modified starches have been used for decades, and multiple safety reviews have found zero health risks. [6]

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Maltodextrin

Maltodextrin is a carbohydrate additive derived from starch (corn, potato, etc.) used as a filler and thickener to improve mixability in powdered foods.

The main concern with maltodextrin is its high glycemic index, meaning it digests rapidly and can spike blood sugar levels. But healthy individuals don’t need to worry about blood sugar spikes (a totally normal process in the body). Plus, the amount found in whey protein powders is too minuscule to cause a significant effect.

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Guar gum

Guar gum is a thickening and stabilising agent commonly added to protein powders to improve texture and mixability. Regulatory bodies, including the EFSA, have extensively evaluated its safety, concluding that guar gum is not toxic or carcinogenic and doesn’t require an Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) due to its low risk. [7]

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Overall, I don’t see any problems here. And I think your mum’s issue with your current protein powder isn’t really about health—it’s an emotional reaction to “processed” ingredients. But processed doesn’t always mean dangerous, and natural doesn’t always mean safe. The ingredients in your protein powder are there to improve mixability, taste, and stability––not to slowly kill you. Good luck trying to convince your mum of that, though.

Before wrapping up, I’d be remiss not to mention a recent report by The Clean Label Project (CLP) claiming that almost 50% of the most popular protein brands contained “elevated levels of heavy metals and BPA.” [8]

However, CLP didn’t release any actual data—just a press release—and their ‘study’ wasn’t peer-reviewed. So, I’m very skeptical. Like, I’m sorry, but if you’re going to publish a report that’s likely to freak people out, at least share the raw data to back it up. Until that happens, I’m not going to worry about unsubstantiated claims.

That said, legitimate research has examined whether the heavy metals found in protein powders—arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and lead—pose any real health risk. A 2020 study found that while some products (especially plant-based and mass-gainer powders) had higher levels of heavy metals, the overall exposure was well below harmful thresholds. Even in a worst-case scenario (three servings a day), the risk remained low, with blood lead levels staying under the CDC’s concern threshold. Compared to everyday food sources like seafood and grains, protein powders contribute only a fraction of typical heavy metal intake. [9]

Nonetheless, looking for the NSF Certified for Sport or Informed Sport labels is good practice when buying supplements.

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–Aa

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