Are People Eating Too Many Empty Calories in an Effort to Get Enough Protein?

Is the body’s unmet need for protein causing us to overeat and gain weight? In a paper published on September 4 in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, the scientists who first put forth the concept, called the “protein leverage hypothesis,” present more evidence that our built-in protein appetite, unsatisfied by our modern-day diet of highly processed foods, is an important driver of obesity.