Tag Archives: Resistant starch

Simple Tricks for Meals: Getting Butyrate from Your Diet

4 Replies

2/4/2022

A long time ago I wrote a series on butyrate because I believed it to be very valuable for health. Supposedly decreased cancer, decreased diabetes, decreased obesity, decreased leaky gut, improved brain health, and so much more–and now improved COVID outcomes. My sister sent me an article about it the other day.

I no longer think about butyrate and resistant starch routinely, but I have developed simple habits that add buytrate-producing foods to my family’s diet each day. I wanted to share them with you and remind you to keep at food for health. I don’t know who you are reading this, but I would like you to be healthy and feel good inside and out (emotionally, spiritually, and physically). When a person feels good, they can share that true joy and it survives bumps and potholes in the road.

Simple Tricks to Add Butyrate-Producing Foods to a Diet

Eat a plain green banana.

Freeze some green bananas (I peel them.) and then use them in smoothies.

Use a green banana in banana bread. (I replace one brown banana with a green banana in the recipe. It gives it a very nice texture my kids like.)

Toss some beans onto a salad.

Toss some beans into taco meat.

Eat chili with multi-colored beans.

Eat hummus.

Bake lots of potatoes ahead of time, then eat them reheated or slice them and fry them with onions for fried potatoes.

Baked beans.

Make a big batch of rice, and then use the leftovers for fried rice.

Toss green peas into anything you can: a salad, vegetable soup, fried rice.

Serve green peas as a quick side dish.

Toss nuts onto salads, onto hummus, into fried rice.

Eat a handful of nuts.

Note: Plantains are a wonderful source of butyrate-producing plant matter! You need to be a bit more adventurous to learn to cook them, but they are a real treat we love. Raw oats and corn tortillas are also high, so if you like those and they cause no problems, go for it. My kids tend to eat oats and corn frequently, but I find they’re not pleasing to my body in various ways I try to respect. Whole grain breads are also a rich source, but I hesitate to encourage bread because there are so many additives to it–and it often replaces vegetables and fruits calorically in many people’s diets.

Closing

It’s January, and a VERY hard month for those who live in winter-producing climates. You have to be tenacious and proactive to keep healthy in winter. Move. Reduce sugar. Cut down on breads and grains and comfort foods. Give yourself grace. Give yourself a kick in the butt. But please don’t top trying. Find a path that works for you.

Eat real, whole food as most of your food intake. Please. Please. Please.

Don’t get bogged down in the dogma and the institutions and the fundamentalism and the indoctrination and the propaganda. These things can really confuse you and overwhelm you. Keep it simple. Real, whole food. Take note of your body. Eat real, whole food and see how you do. Adjust foods as necessary.

Don’t forget to add the simple and easy butyrate-producing foods to your diet, which studies suggest will help you out. Decreased cancer. Decreased diabetes. Decreased long-COVID. But keep it simple.

Eat real food to live.

Terri F.

Article my sister sent me:

Long COVID: Gut bacteria may be key

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/gut-bacteria-may-play-a-role-in-the-development-of-long-covid

Can I Get That Banana in Pill Form?

42 Replies

YOU THINK YOU EAT vegetables, fruits, and plant matter just to get your daily dose of vitamin C or folate? Perhaps so, but since you can get those from vitamins and supplements, why go to the pain of cooking when you could pop a pill? Goodness, even boxed donuts are fortified with iron and B vitamins! So vegetables, fruits, and plant matter that nobody really wants to eat seem senseless anyhow.

Right?

No way.

Interruption: Thank you SO much to Molly Green Magazine for giving me a spot to share the medical value of eating real, whole food. My article here you’re reading today ran to help provide an alternative viewpoint to a ketogenic diet article running in the same issue. I just love that the editor loves to keep things balanced! And for the record, I absolutely see a place for ketogenic diets, but I am very wary of protecting the microbiome too.

In addition to my article, this quarter of Molly Green Magazine features articles on “Aquaponics: A Fishy Business,” “Duck Egg Delights,” “Strawesome: An Alternative to Plastic,” “SEO: The Key to Growing a Business,” and “Help! My Homeschool Teen is Being a Pain”—and other fascinating topics for exceptionally curious minds! Check it out! 

Bacteria and Macaroni and Cheese

You can’t have the easy way out! Nice try. The real reason to eat plant matter is for the trillions of bacteria living within you. It sounds strange, but our intestines are perfectly designed to function in sync with billions of bacteria living and giving inside of us—as long as we feed them properly. Unfortunately, the processed foods that we rely on, such as most breakfast cereals, macaroni and cheese, most store-bought bread, crackers, and pizza (and certainly white sugar), do not make it to the lower part of the intestines where these bacteria live. We are starving out some exceptionally friendly, essential bacteria that we need for our health.

The Case of the Missing Fiber

Those essential bacteria need fiber. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” you loftily say. “I’ve heard of fiber. I eat lots of oatmeal and salads.”

No. That won’t cut it. It’s not enough. There’s one type of fiber that was naturally included in traditional, healthy cultures which is virtually absent in today’s civilized, processed diet. It’s called resistant starch. Yes, you’re reading correctly; the fiber that you need and probably are not getting is a form of starch. It’s not broken down by the body to be absorbed like other starch is (and thus you don’t get all those calories), so it makes its way to where the bacteria live in your colon.

When the bacteria there eat this resistant starch, they make beneficial, natural substances that bathe the colon cells and reduce colon cancer. However, the bacteria’s by-products also work to fight diabetes, boost the functioning of the brain (perhaps decreasing dementia), soothe the lining of the gastrointestinal tract, and support a healthy metabolism. In fact, this kind of “fiber” is so important food companies are researching ways to add it to your food!

But there’s no need to wait and get it from a box or modified plant. Of course not. Real food always wins! Get the benefits of resistant starch and its power without spending any extra money on your food bill and without your family giving you dirty looks. I mean, they eat rice, potatoes, and bananas, don’t they? Yes! You’re in business. Health is on the way. If you want to get fancy, green peas, lentils, beans, and plantains can be added to the mix.

The Value of Leftovers

Wait. This is too good. You know there has to be a catch. Well, there is a small one. Resistant starch is a bit fussy and might go away as a food ripens or when a food is cooked, at least when it’s cooked and hot the first time around. It’s related to some fascinating physical chemistry. Although Grandma didn’t know the physical chemistry, when she served leftovers or made a potato salad, bean salad, or rice salad, she was serving resistant starch.

For potatoes, resistant starch is available in raw potatoes, but most people don’t like those too well. (Did you know that despite what people say, eating raw potatoes is not toxic? Green potatoes are potentially toxic, and cooking does not inactivate the toxin.) Cooking potatoes changes the resistant starch to available starch, which is nearly all absorbed so your gut bacteria don’t get any food. However, cooling the cooked potato in the refrigerator re-forms resistant starch. Eat the potatoes cold (as in potato salad) or reheating them up at this point still preserves the resistant starch.

When it comes to cooked rice, cooling it down also allows resistant starch to form; fresh, hot, cooked rice has little to no resistant starch. Lentils and beans (especially navy beans) contain some available resistant starch when cooked, but they will also form more as they cool down in the refrigerator, too. Grains, nuts, and seeds contain some resistant starch, but potatoes, green bananas and plantains, and legumes contain more. As for bananas and plantains, resistant starch is found in green fruits. As the fruit yellows, the starch becomes plain starch which feeds you more than your bacteria.

It’s Not about Roughage

For people who are on low-carbohydrate diets, such as for weight loss, diabetes, or to control other health conditions, it is vitally important to eat fiber, including resistant starch.

Unfortunately, when people think of “fiber,” they think of “roughage.” It is so much more than the “rough” matter in the vegetables and fruits we need! The roughage may be the least important part because the bacteria do not create beneficial substances from it! If our gut bacteria are not fed properly, the integrity of the gastrointestinal tract can be compromised, the colon cells will not receive the beneficial substances formed by the bacteria, and the rest of the body’s functions will be affected.

It’s a little confusing how bacteria living in our digestive tracts can affect the neurons and myelin sheaths in our brains—or how they can regulate our blood sugars and body size. But research is proving this to be true, and science is backpedaling as it realizes how far off base we have gotten in our modern eating habits.

A diet rich in whole, real plant matter feeds us not only our vitamins and minerals, but also feeds our gut bacteria important substances like resistant starch. Maybe health doesn’t come in a pill after all. Eat whole. Eat real.

 

The Unglorious Call to Action

9 Replies

IntestineThat is a personal problem.  Not a medical problem.

Here’s the poop.  No.  No.  I mean scoop.  My call to nutritional voodoo was, well, to say the least, not a glorious one.  Other nutritional blog hosts–oh such extraordinary, amazing recovery stories from horrible illnesses like multiple sclerosis and ulcerative colitis.  Motivating and inspiring us all to higher eating!  My issue–hmmm.  Right.  Not so inspiring.  Considered by the uninformed to be a personal problem, not a medical problem.  Ah, well.  Even if I arrived in Nutritional Nirvana via a clumsy fall on my derriere, I am here all the same.  My gut is working.  And the pursuit of that goal is pretty much what started this blog.

My History

I’m a 39 year-old female.  I have had chronic constipation all of my life.  Although not a common issue, I can remember twice in high school when I had horrible stomach cramps prompting me to head to the nurse’s office.  On the way, the visceral pain overcame me, and I passed out leaning against the lockers in the hall.  As a sixteen year-old girl I did not make the connection between constipation and these symptoms.  Neither did anyone else!  “You just need to eat more.”  Mmm-kay.  It never dawned on me that my gut was trying to move against a brick and it hurt!  I thought bricks were normal.  I mean, nobody talks about bowel movements at 16!  (I suppose I’m not supposed to talk about them ever.  But since I’m a medical doctor, no orifice or function makes me blush.)

Each decade, my GI function worsened, and I did finally realize in pharmacy school that my gut was abnormal.  The next ten years brought rounds of different fiber preparations (I can make darn tasty desserts with Metamucil wafers), docusate, milk of magnesia, magnesium supplements, suppositories, Miralax, yogurt, probiotics, prunes, shredded wheat (half a box a day), and finally, despite my attempts to only use them sparingly, daily stimulant laxative became required.  Mind you, even with those stimulant laxatives which were needed at doses which would kill a normal human being, my bowel movements still only occurred about every five to ten days and still were not easy to pass.  My gut was slowing down from slow to stop and becoming refractory to everything I knew to try.  I visited several doctors through the years and I always got the same answer:  more fiber and water.  Got a colonoscopy.  Pretty negative.  Got checked for low thyroid and celiac disease.  Negative.

I decided to think outside of the box and took to the wilderness of internet medicine.  Talk about crazy.  How do some of these people say these things without a license?  Guess I’m glad they can because it tipped me off in the right direction, and I embarked on the odd diet called GAPS (at least that founder has a medical license)–before I knew about Paleo which sounds way cooler than GAPS.  (Ha!  Ha!  I actually have landed on a diet which has no name but uses the templates of several diets.)  GAPS helped me identify food intolerances and taught me how to eat a nutrient dense diet.  It got my gut usually responding again to high dose magnesium (Natural Calm), but I don’t think high dose magnesium is good to take for the rest of my life.  So my endeavors persisted.  My goal is NO supplement for my constipation.  For myself, I try to use supplements as a bridge to achieve my health goals.  Once my health goal is achieved, I’d like to try to maintain it with food choices if I can.  However, I recognize there are conditions which will require lifelong dependence on medicines and/or supplements, not to mention declining content of certain nutrients in our food sources.

Achieving Success

This week I’ve lived large, taken a chance, and dropped the magnesium which sustained me through pregnancy.  My gut is working daily!  Back in November 2013, my gut was also working very well daily, and I was set to write this post back then.  I had started butyrate (butyric acid), and although it isn’t supposed to make it to the colon, it worked like a charm on my gut.  My GI tract moved daily and even my stupid food intolerances seemed diminished just in time for Thanksgiving.

But I hate supplements (please know that I do take some). I wanted to allow my body (I consider those bacteria in my gut to be part of my body.) to make its own butyrate, so  I tried to incorporate green bananas, green plantains, cold potatoes, occasional bites of raw potato and sweet potato, some legumes, and potato starch slurried up in water each night to get my own gut bacteria to make butyrate.  Things were going great.  Just great!  I was able to stop my butyrate and still have the same effects.  Wow.  Wow.  Wow.

Then, we were blessed with pregnancy.  Let me rephrase that.  We were blessed with a baby.  Pregnancy is no sleigh ride with jingle bells. (Increased constipation has always been in an issue in pregnancy.  This time was much better.  There was a time at about 14 weeks along where my gut completely stopped and nothing I did made it move.  I got worried, but after a couple of weeks, that lifted and magnesium helped again.)  However, I worked through all the food and supplement aversions and stomached magnesium, which I needed again every single day in excessive doses.  I bid “good-bye” to butyrate and resistant starch foods, which sounded disgusting during this time.  I delivered in July a beautiful, healthy girl.

About two weeks ago, I decided it was again time to get rid of that excessive magnesium and all that it was probably doing to my calcium balance.  Besides that, the magnesium didn’t always work daily.  I decided to take butyrate again and started incorporating resistant starch foods into my diet.  Would the experiment work for me again?  I was nervous since I had proclaimed success with butyrate in fall of 2013.  What if it failed?  I would have reported it, you know.  But I would have felt very stupid because I never want to lead anyone astray.  The experiment for me has successfully repeated itself.  Now all that needs to happen is to continue the resistant starch foods and see if I can taper myself off of the butyrate supplement.

Closing

So you see, mine is not the most glorious nutritional conversion story there is.  But it’s real.  It has convinced me that eating a nutrient dense diet, excluding inflammatory foods, and supporting the body’s bacterial flora is key to health and curing disease.  I am pretty much 100% convinced that this experiment would never have worked two and one-half years ago in the gut that I had then.  I’ve worked very hard and tried a lot of things to rehabilitate my broken colon.  In the next post, I am going to list what I feel has been most important for getting my gut peristalsis in working order.  I will report what worked for me.  Don’t assume that what works for me will work for you.  I want to make sure you seek the advice of your doctor; I don’t want you to overlook serious health conditions because you’ve given up on conventional medicine.  Don’t use my story as medical advice.  That it is not.  This is my story.

~~Terri
Photo credit:

Originally from en.wikipeida.  Author Dflock.  Now public domain.

Butyrate Series, Part 6

51 Replies

We’re working our way through butyrate and the foods that increase butyrate in the body.  We are on resistant starch today.  It’s a doozy.  [“Doozy” probably comes from the nickname (“Duesy”) for a kind of car called a Duesenberg.  It was a supreme, luxury car made in my home state of Indiana, in a tiny farming town called Auburn, north of Fort Wayne.  Each Labor Day weekend they host a huge car auction called the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival.]

Don’t be afraid to let your diet be unique.

Getting butyrate and short chain fatty acids in the gut seems pretty important, and there a few dietary Cute orange snackways to go about getting it.  No one way will work for every single person.  You must recognize absolutely how unique and special you are.  (Is this chick for real?)  Seriously, I do think you’re probably pretty special, but I am talking about nutrition here.  What makes one diet suitable for one person and detrimental to another?  (Why can’t I eat ice cream?  Whaaa-whaaa.)

  • Your genetics:  Yes.  Absolutely.  The genes we have will determine how well we can digest certain foods!  If your long ago ancestors are from an area who relied traditionally on more starches, you have more genes to make amylase (the starch break-down enzyme) and more amylase in your spit. (1)  Native Japanese people have genes to metabolize seaweed that people of European descent don’t.  (Ha!  For those who don’t like the flavor of seaweed, more power to ’em, eh?) (2)  But, ice cream.  Mmmm.  Does ice cream make you bloat?  Blame your genes’ inability to make lactase for you to break down the sugar in milk.  (3) And your mix of genes will be different than your sister’s or cousin’s.
  • Your gut bacteria.  With the trillions (edited post-writing) of bacteria in your body, you’re bound to be one-of-a-kind.  Some people will have more of one type of bacteria helping them eat than another kind.  I hope over the butyrate series you have come to see bacteria as an integral part of you, your diet, and your health.  Your bacteria will affect what you can comfortably eat or what happens when you eat it.  If the bugs you happen to have are strains that make lots of methane with cellulose, then cellulose may not be your friend.  Your bugs may do better with resistant starch. If you have significant overgrowths of putrefactive bacteria that make more toxic metabolites, maybe you’re at higher risk for disease from a high protein diet. (4) (5)  (Studies show, however, that diet can modify levels of bacteria.  So all is not lost!)
  • Your individual function:  We all have our own unique pathology.  FODMAPS, SIBO, slow transit, food intolerances, and glucose intolerance just to name a few.  If your small intestine is really bad at absorbing the sugars and sugar alcohols from foods (like in FODMAPS),  you’re going to have to watch and keep a food diary to figure out which vegetables and fruits you can tolerate.  If green bananas make you itch, you have to find another source for resistant starch.

Bottom line?  Short chain fatty acids and butyrate are pretty darn important for the gut and body.  Find a way to make your diet compatible with getting them.  You have several options.  For nearly any specialized diet, there is usually something you can tolerate to help boost needed nutrients.

Ok.  Rant over– resistant starch to boost short chain fatty acid and butyrate production.  This is going to be dry, dry, dry and long, long, long.  I thought about dividing it up, but I wanted all the resistant starch stuff on one page, not several.  And I figure those who actually read it are people really looking to learn about it– so they’ll like it on one page.  By the way, Merry Christmas-time.  I hope you are having a beautiful month.  May you be filled with joy and peace now and forever.

Is that a healthy diet?

What healthy diet removes beans, legumes, grains and potatoes?  When I began my food journey two years ago, I was SHOCKED to see grains and potatoes removed from many diets like Paleo, SCD, GAPS, Primal, and Whole30.  (Were you shocked when you started?) However, after much research, I decided there was no harm in removing them as I tried to treat my GI health problems.  I mean, my vegetable intake skyrocketed in compensation!  Now, though, my GI issues have plateaued, and I have been on the prowl again to see what else can be done.  I am tracking butyrate- producing foods.  In this series, I have covered dairy products, fermented foods, fiber, and now we are hitting resistant starch.

Resistant starch from foods makes it past the small intestine’s digestive process to enter the colon, where bacteria can ferment (“eat it”) it to make short chain fatty acids and butyrate as a result.  Great!  Resistant starch is a popular topic in health spheres now.  It has several possible health benefits.  Do you see anything which could help you?

  • Improved blood sugar control and insulin response to food.  Implications for diabetes, pre-diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.
  • Improved bowel health.  Implications for colon cancer, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s Disease, diverticulitis, and constipation.
  • Improved cholesterol.  Implications for heart disease, high cholesterol, and metabolic syndrome.
  • Prebiotic to help stimulate the growth of “good” bacterial colonies in the colon.
  • Control of hunger and reduction of calories eaten.  Implications in obesity.
  • Increased micronutrient absorption.  Implications in overall mineral absorption for all and also in osteoporosis.
  • Thermogenesis.  Implications in diabetes and obesity.
  • Synergistic interactions with other dietary components, e.g. dietary fibres, proteins, lipids.  Implications for improvement of bowel health. (6)

Backtrack a second.  Working through the ways to Apples with almond butterpotentially increase butyrate:

The four ways to increase butyrate (as I see it) that I am working through:

  • Eat butyrate-containing foods.  (An aside:  I found something that said there was a form of butyric acid in butter AND honey!  The form is tributyrin, a form of butyric acid which is actually used in research studies to help the butyric acid not have such a short half-life.  No quantities listed in the abstract.  Isn’t that amazing?  Whole foods really can provide for us!) (7) 
  • Eat butyrate-producing foods like fiber and resistant starch.  (This is where we’re at in the series.)
  • Take butyrate supplements.
  • Take probiotics which contain bacteria known to make butyrate.

OK.  Back to resistant starch.  I know, some of you try not to eat starches.  So what is the difference between starch and resistant starch?  (Chemistry-wise, not much!  Actions in the body, HUGE!) 

What is starch?  Starch is plant carbohydrate.  A plant uses starch as a storage form for energy.  Starch is high in things like potatoes, corn, rice, other grains, and beans.  When we eat starch, it is usually completely broken down and absorbed in the small intestine by our amylase and other enzymes.  You know the rest– glucose, insulin, and calories.

Let’s talk a minute about the structure of starch because structure is going to help explain what makes starch resistant.  Starch is made up of two molecules, amylose and amylopectin.  Both molecules are simply made up of many glucose molecules hooked together—just hooked in different ways.  Amylose has many glucoses strung together in a tight, compact linear fashion.  Amylopectin has glucoses strung together in branching chains, forming a large structure.  Depending on the food/plant starch in question, these two players come together in different ratios and shapes.  They connect with each other through hydrogen bonding and form crystalline granules (an important point here in a bit) of varying sizes.  The crystalline granules are an effective way for the plant to store starch.  We have an enzyme called amylase, which works in the small intestine, and it is most often able to break apart the bonds of starch to make simple sugars which are easily absorbed.  (8, 9)

What is resistant starch?  Same stuff as starch!!!!  It’s just that for one reason or another (which we will talk about), it defies digestion by the small intestine and its amylase enzyme.  It moves into the colon and feeds bacteria, thus producing short chain fatty acids and butyrate.  Yeah!

How would the same stuff as plain, old starch do that?  We will look at that in minute.  First let’s mention the kinds of foods that have resistant starch.

What foods have resistant starch?

Obviously, starchy foods will have resistant starch, but how much resistant starch a food has– well, it willYellow pepper for Y keep your head moving like one of those darn, tiny bouncy balls your kids like to throw around.  Understanding resistant starch content is nearly insane.  So I’m going to list some examples of resistant starch values, but you have to keep reading to understand how truly variable and FICKLE resistant starch is.  For example, IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO SAY THAT A BANANA HAS LOTS OF RESISTANT STARCH—because sometimes it doesn’t!  I started to put together a nice table of resistant starch values.  I had research articles all over the schoolroom desk; I knew it was going to be a citation mess.  Every source had different values for resistant starch content and often even for the same food.  I decided making a chart was clearly was not a good time investment.  (Where do you want to invest your time?)  So here are some sources with lists of resistant starch contents for you to look over.  For your information, some sources suggest at least 20 grams of resistant starch daily; others suggest more.

Free the Animal.  Resistant Starch in Foods.  (Man.  What diligence.  Kudos.  This is what my table would have looked like.  He did a great job, and I’m grateful for his work!  This is a link to a PDF file which is featured on the blog.) (12)

An in vitro method, based on chewing, to predict resistant starch content in foods allows parallel determination of potentially available starch and dietary fiber  (10)

The Resistant Starch Report.  An Australian update on health benefits, measurement and dietary intakes.  (11)

Bananas (11)
8.5 grams/100 grams          Raw green, medium-size
2.4-5.4 grams/100 grams    Ripe, medium-size
Potatoes (10)
12.2 grams/100 grams        Boiled and stored at  5 degrees C –41 degrees F–fridge temperature
3.7 grams/100 grams          Boiled and not cooled
50 grams per pound           (Saw it on the internet gossip, but I need a legitimate source)  (About 97% of the starch in raw potato is resistant.)
1.3 grams/100 grams         Baked
Sweet potatoes (11)
1.1-2.1 grams                       Cooked
Raw  About 98% of the raw starch is resistant.  (Need source)
Plantains (12)
3.5 grams/100grams          Cooked
Raw much, much higher    (Need source)
Beans, white, boiled (10)
16.5 g/100 grams
Lentils, red, boiled (10)
13.83 g/100 grams
Chickpeas (11) 
6.6 g/100 grams
Nuts
Oats (12)
0.2 g/100grams                  Cooked
7.8 grams/100 grams        Raw
Pasta
1.4 grams/100 grams        Cooked whole wheat pasta (valemaisalimentos.com)
2.9 grams/100 grams        Boiled 9 minutes  (C)
Rice (11) (13)
3.1 grams/100grams         White, cooked
1.6 grams per 1/2 cup      Brown, cooked

The amount of resistant starch a food has will vary.  It will vary by the TYPE of resistant starch, the food source of the resistant starch, the food preparation, and many other factors I will try to point out.

There are four types of resistant starch RS:  Resistant starch type 1 (RS 1), resistant starch type 2 (RS 2), resistant starch type 3 (RS 3), and resistant starch type 4 (RS 4).

  • RS 1 is in seeds, legumes, and whole grains.  The starch is resistant because of the physical seed coat around the starch.  (Grinding and milling will decrease the amount of resistant starch.  Based on this, a wheat kernel has more resisant starch than ground flour.  Even chewing your food well decreases RS!)
  • RS 2 is in uncooked foods like potato, green banana, green plantains, sweet potato, cassava, yam, some legumes and high amylase corn.  The natural, raw shape of the starch granules in these particular plants does not allow our digestive enzymes to get in and break down the starch. (5)
  • RS 3 is in cooked and cooled starches, such as legumes, bread, cornflakes, potatoes, pasta salad or sushi rice. The starch when cooked becomes highly absorbable starch, but when it cools it forms a crystalline structure that won’t let enzymes in so it becomes resistant starch.  This is called retrogradation.  I will talk more about this below.
  • RS 4 is chemically modified starch and is not naturally found in nature.  It is often found in processed foods, but we don’t know if it acts the same as natural RS or not.  (So why are they putting it in our foods?  And why do people not care?  Ignorance is bliss.  But not really.) (6)

Both the plant species and the plant variety affects resistant starch content:  Bananas overall have more resistant starch than most rice.  Beans usually have more resistant starch than potatoes.  Within a species, long grain rice has more RS than short grain rice.  (14)  Jasmine rice has less RS than long grain rice varieties.  High amylose maize (corn) has been bred to have higher resistant starch than other corn.

Preparation method changes content of RS:  Long grain rice prepared in a pressure cooker has less RS than when prepared in a traditional rice cooker.  Baked potato has less resistant starch than potato salad.  Heated and cooled, heated and cooled, heated and cooled potato has more resistant starch than just potato that has been heated and cooled one time only.

Cooking at all changes RS:  Raw potato has immense amounts of RS.  Mashed potatoes have immensely less.

Foods can have more than one kind of resistant starch:  Potatoes have RS 2 when raw and RS 3 when cooked and cooled.

Ripeness decreases RS:  A green banana has great amounts of RS.  Ripe bananas have lots less.

Chewing decreases RS:  What are you going to do about this one?  LOL.  I think this is a great example of how you can find good in just about everything!  If you don’t chew well, you can get more resistant starch!

Remember how I mentioned amylose and amylopectin above?  In part, their association together will help determine how much RS there is:

  • Amylose and amylopectin come together in different ratios (maybe 20:80 or 40 :60 or 25:75) and will be different between species of plants and different varieties of the same plant, as I already mentioned.  The more amylose there is, the more resistant.  (5)  In fact, there’s this processed stuff called High Amylose Maize Starch that was bred to have high amylose.  It has great amounts of resistant starch.  1 tablespoon has 4.5 grams of resistant starch.  (13) Amylose takes higher heats to gelatinize so it is more resistant.  (When it gelatinizes, the body can digest it easier.)
  • Chain length of the amylose and amylopectin molecules will affect resistant starch content.
  • Size of the crystalline granules will affect resistant starch content. (15)

Non-starch components may affect the amount of resistant starch.  Amylase (our digestive enzyme) can bind with fats, and then change the breakdown of the starch.  If the amylase is all bound up, it’s not available to digest all of the starch.  Some plants come included with their own amylase inhibitors so we digest them less, allowing more RS to the colon.  Phosphorus can bind to the starch and make it more resistant.

Biological factors (such as transit time and menstrual cycles) can affect the digestion of starch. (6)

Yes.  Resistant starch values for any given food Water kefir with grape juicevaries dramatically. 

So when you look at different tables for resistant starch, you will see all kinds of different numbers.  The resistant starch values will be all over the place.  I know you don’t like it.  It’s just the way it is.  Nobody in life can give you an answer.  We just have to do the best we can.  God didn’t say, “Here.  Eat resistant starch.”  He gave you fresh vegetables, fruits, tubers, and yes, even grains.  And thankfully, He gave me a fridge to cool my tubers.

Why in the world does cooling change the amount of resistant starch?

When typical starch is heated, it becomes quite absorbable.  When it is cooled, it can form resistant starch and then not be absorbable.  This is termed retrograded starch or resistant starch type 3 or RS 3.  How does this happen?

Putting the starch in water and heating it allows the crystalline structure of the starch granules (made up of amylose and amylopectin) to swell.  Water can get into the starch granules, but it can’t break them apart because of hydrogen bonding between amylose and amylopectin.  The starch gelatinizes and swells.  With the swelling comes increased ease of getting amylase into the starch to break down the bonds holding it together.  So hot, cooked starch is easier to digest.

As the hot starch cools, its structure starts tightening back up and recrystallizing, becoming more like it was before water and heat was affected it.  Amylase can no longer get in to break the starch down into absorbable sugars.

The higher the amylose content, the more heat that is needed to gelatinize the starch.  Things with more amylose, such as high amylose corn starch, have more resistant starch.  In one study, high amylose corn starch showed an increase in butyrate formation, whereas low amylose corn starch did not. (15) (16) (5)

People often wonder why it matters if it’s cooled since when it is eaten it heats back up in our bodies.  I read that the answer to that is that it takes more heat than the temperature of your body to overcome the retrogradation.

Who might shy away from resistant starch?

SIBO people?  People with small intestinal bowel overgrowth (SIBO) may have problems with resistant starch.  (SIBO is a disorder which contributes to bloating, constipation, diarrhea, and stomach pain.  It occurs when bacteria inappropriately colonize the small intestine.)  I have seen the argument made that gastroesophageal reflux (GERD), SIBO, and some other GI disorders may be made worse by resistant starch.  Increasing the food supply for the bacteria that are inappropriately growing in the small intestine doesn’t seem like it would be helpful.  I can definitely understand this thought process.  However, on the other hand, production of SCFA has been found to increase the motility of the gut and make the environment more acidic.  These two mechanisms sound helpful!  Everything is an equilibrium.  Nobody right now knows the answer.  This is where you drag out a pen and a calendar, and you diligently journal what you eat and your symptoms and stop waiting to be told what to do.

FODMAP people?  One would think that FODMAP issues might actually do okay with resistant starch if there is no SIBO to go along and complicate the condition.  The gases usually made by the bacteria from FODMAP ingredients are not formed from resistant starch:  “However, RS [resistant starch] is believed to result in only a modest production of these gases [carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen] compared with other non-digestible oligosaccharides, fructo-oligosaccharides and lactulose.” (6)  Potato, sweet potato, and rice are often well tolerated in those with FODMAP issues–although I read that sweet potato has mannitol which may cause some people problems.  (Sorry, no source.)

Diabetics:  They say that diabetics’ blood sugars will be fine on resistant starch and may even improve!  This seems like it would be quite variable and a diabetic should watch very closely.  (19)

Flatulence:  Excess gas.  Anecdotal evidence points out that there is excess gas as a person starts increasing their resistant starch.  The anecdotes say that it usually resolves in the first week at a stable dose.

Last tidbits with no good place to fit in above butFruit kabobs I want you to hear about:

Will resistant starch make me fat?  Resistant starch reportedly helps with the feeling of being full–so you’re not so hungry!  However, if it is metabolized by your bacteria, it does have calories (short chain fatty acids are made and absorbed).  Typical starch that is absorbed up in the small intestine supplies 4.2 calories per gram.  Apparently, resistant starch produces 2 calories per gram.  (6)  Want an anecdote?  I started potato starch as a resistant starch.  I stir one tablespoon in water twice a day.  I can honestly say that I’m not very hungry.  Of course, there could be a million and one other reasons for that.

Did you know we have a drug that makes starch resistant?  Acarbose is a diabetic drug.  It inhibits amylase and so increases the amount of resistant starch and also increases oligosaccharides.  It has been found to increase SCFA in the colon (but with side effects of bloating, diarrhea, stomach pain, etc).  (17)

Resistant starch versus non-starch polysaccharides (see last post for explanation) in butyrate production:  RS seems to do a better job than other carbohydrates at producing butyrate. Resistant starch acts as a prebiotic, raising the numbers of lactobacilli and bifidobacteria. (5)

Resistant starch diet helps increase the neurons that promote motility:  “After 14 days of RSD [resistant starch diet], the neurochemical phenotype of myenteric neurons of rats showed a significant increase of 35% in the proportion of ChAT-IR neurons complared with animals fed with the SD [standard diet]…As expected, RSD was associated with a significant increase in colonic concentration of butyrate compared with SD [standard diet].”   (18)  What is this saying?  On a resistant starch diet, the proportion of acetylcholine neurons increased!  Acetylcholine neurons play a large role in GI peristalsis and bowel movements.  Also, my friend butyrate, was found at increased concentrations.

Which form of resistant starch produces more butyrate?  This really seems to land you all over the place, trying to characterize all the different starch types and food types and how they each have a different effect.  Crazy.  Anyhow, RS 2 from raw potato starch is reported to increase the concentration of butyrate in humans and rats while RS 3 is reported to increase the concentration of acetate in pigs, but not in humans.  (5)

Great related reading:

I’m not saying I agree with all that is said.  I just like to see ALL that I can out there so I can think about how it applies to my body.  Does benefit outweigh risk in trying something?  Am I willing to accept that what somebody suggests could set me back significantly?  Does what they’re saying make sense in the context of what I know about physiology and biochemistry (which is NEVER enough!).

Free the Animal has about a million resistant starch posts, including posts on specific conditions (like SIBO, FODMAPS, high blood sugars, etc.)  This is really the place to go to read about resistant starch, although they have quite an enthusiastic stance.  I’m pretty excited, too, but I try to temper my excitement.  Nothing is a cure-all.  I haven’t had success coming off of butyrate with an increase in resistant starch using green bananas and Bob’s Red Mill Potato Starch (yet).

Animal Pharm:  HOW TO CURE SIBO, Small Intestinal Bowel Overgrowth:  Step #2 Eat Resistant-Starch-Rich Tubers, Grains, Legumes and Pulses (Guest Post: Tim/TATER)

Digestive Health Institute:  Resistant Starch–Friend or Foe

Done:

Please take good care.  Don’t be overwhelmed.  Track your symptoms.  Be patient with changes.  Don’t get frustrated.  Read.  Weigh benefits and risks.  Don’t flit from diet to diet to diet.  Pick a system, stick with it awhile, and then implement tweaks slowly and methodically.  Where you are at NOW does not reflect where you have to stay FOREVER!!!!!

As always, I need typos pointed out and faulty links.  I do the best I can, but this is a simply a hobby of putting together my findings for others to read.

Terri

Part 7

Sources:

  1. Diet and the evolution of human amylase gene copy number variation.  Perry, Dominy, Claw, et al.  Nature Genetics 39, 1256 – 1260 (2007) Published online: 9 September 2007.  (Link)

  2. Transfer of carbohydrate-active enzymes from marine bacteria to Japanese gut microbiota.  Hehemann, Correc, Barbeyron, et al.  Nature 464, 908-912 (8 April 2010). (Link)

  3. Archaeology:  The milk revolution.  Curry, Andrew.  Nature.  July 2013. (Link)

  4. Dominant and diet-responsive groups of bacteria within the human colonic microbiota.  Walker, Ince, Duncan, et al.  The ISME Journal (2011) 5, 220–230.  (Link)

  5. Starches, resistant starches, the gut microflora and human health.  Bird, Brown, and Topping.  Current Issues in Intestinal Microbiology.  2000.  1(1):  25-37.  (Link)

  6. Health properties of resistant starch.  Nugent, AP.  Nutrition Bulletin.  March 2005.  30 (1): 27-54.  (Link)

  7. (Abstract.)  Anticarcinogenic actions of tributyrin, a butyric acid prodrug.  Heidor, Ortega, de Conti, et al.  Curr Drug Targets.  December 2012.  13(14):1720-9. (Link to abstract.)
  8. http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/hysta.html
  9. The synthesis of the starch molecule.  Smith, Denyer, et al.  Plant Carbohydrate Biochemistry.  1999.  Chapter 7.
  10. An in vitro method, based on chewing, to predict resistant starch content in foods allow parallel determination of potentially available starch and dietary fiber.  Akerberg, Liljeberg, et al.  The Journal of Nutrition.  1998.  128 (3): 651-660.  (Link)
  11. The Resistant Starch Report.  An Australian Update on health benefits, measurement, and daily intakes.  Landon, Colyer, and Salman.  Food Australia Supplement. 2012.    (Link)
  12. Link to a PDF file on Free the Animal blog listing resistant starch content:  http://freetheanimal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Resistant-Starch-in-Foods.pdf
  13. Natural Hi-Maize Starch website:  “Double Resistant Starch Intake.”  http://www.resistantstarch.com/NR/rdonlyres/DE2ADBB0-FF7D-40A7-B409-03493FEFFDFA/4601/Foodswithresistantstarch_LR.pdf

  14. Effect of variety and cooking method on resistant starch content of white rice and subsequent postprandial glucose response and appetite in humans.  Yu-Ting Chiu, Maria L Stewart. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr 2013;22 (3):372-379.  (Link)

  15. Understanding Starch Functionality.  Scott Hegenbart. Food Product Design.  January 1996. (Link)

  16. Butyrylated starch increases colonic butyrate concentration but has limited effects on immunity in healthy physically active individuals.  West, Shristophersen, et al. Exerc Immun Review.  2013.  19: 102-119.  (Link)

  17. Abstract for Effects of acarbose on fecal nutrients, colonic pH, and short-chain fatty acids and rectal proliferative indices.  Holt et al.  Metabolism.  1996.  Sep;45(9):1179-87.  (Link)

  18. Short-chain fatty acids regulate the enteric neurons adn control gastrointestinal motility in rats.  Gastroenterology.  May 2010.  138(5):1772-82. (Link)

  19. Consumption of both resistant starch and b-glucan improves postprandial plasma glucose and insulin in women.  Behall, Scholfield, et al.  Diabetes Care.  May 2006.  29(5): 976-981.  (Link)

Related articles

For GI Readers

20 Replies

My post and blog, they are not intended to treat or diagnose you.  It is meant to stimulate your desire to read and learn.  With your knowledge and research articles in hand, go visit your favorite healthcare practitioner.  Ask them what’s right for you.  The things I try may be detrimental to your health or have serious consequences that I may not even know about.

Dear Reader,

For about 20 months I have scoured the internet, looking to solve my lifelong, severe, medication-dependent constipation issue.  Constipation persisted for years as my only symptom, albeit worsening each decade of my life, until in my thirties other symptoms started creeping in like bloating, headaches, and fatigue.  In my stint as a practicing medical doctor, I saw at least two colectomies specifically for chronic constipation.  This scared me a lot because I do not want to have colon surgery.  However, nothing in my arsenal or in the arsenal of the doctors I chose could help me.

So about 20 months ago I started working with my diet (gluten-free, dairy-free).  About 17 months ago I started what sounded like a crazy, voodoo diet called GAPS, in an attempt to prove to myself that no diet “so extreme” could possibly be effective.  I wanted to check diet intervention off of my list as an alternative treatment choice.  “I am a trained medical doctor; I know that won’t work.  Diet won’t work.”  Actually, I had some minor success using GAPS, figuring out food intolerances, and piling on the magnesium to effect (which I had tried very unsuccessfully to do in the past).  I decided to stay on board with this strange, new way of eating (with a couple of boots by my husband when I cried around about it being too hard).

I have putzed along on GAPS, steady enough, but no real gains, trying this a bit and that a bit–all within the confines of GAPS.  I recently followed a lead regarding short chain fatty acids, particularly butyrate, helping restore the enteric nervous system.  In severe, lifelong constipation, researchers have found actual neurologic changes so I really thought this might be the tip I needed.

Resistant starch increases butyrate production in the colon.  But I am on GAPS, and many of the starches aren’t legal.  Plus, during my initial findings on butyrate, I was trying out very low carb to see if that would be my ticket.  So what to do?

How about just go get some butyrate?  I mulled it over.  It’s supposed to be absorbed before it reaches the colon and therefore not have its desired effect, at least in the common preparations.  But I went for it; I had nothing to lose except barrels of magnesium.  I bought some magnesium-calcium butyrate from Amazon, and I started taking two capsules three times daily.  It said to take it with food, but I thought I’d mix it up a bit.  I took it sometimes with meals and sometimes right before bed on an empty stomach.

For twenty days I have been on magnesium-calcium butyrate (250 mg total per day of magnesium versus the plus two grams of magnesium I’ve been taking).  For 19 days my GI tract peristalsis hasn’t missed a beat.  Best ever, even while on medicines.  I am trying to contain my excitement because perhaps it will stop working.  But I don’t know.  I mean, I’m completely off of my magnesium!  I am on nothing but a GAPS diet tailored for my hard-earned knowledge of my food intolerances, fish oil/vit D about three times a week, and VSL #3 probiotic at night.  None of that is new besides the butyrate.  I have not changed my diet, if anything I’ve pushed nuts too much trying to get butyrate to prove itself.  And it has.

I don’t like supplements.  My next goal is to see if I can add resistant starch to my diet and get the same effect.  I am very hopeful.  However, I think my pure GAPS saga may be winding to a close.  I believe my diet will now be GAPS but I will need to add in things like green bananas, cold potatoes, potato starch, and sweet potato.  I am not entirely sure yet.  I’m going to ride out a complete month on butyrate to complete a full monthly cycle.  However, when my problem was always at its worst before, it was smooth sailing!  I am very optimistic about this one.

I am currently composing a series encompassing all that I have learned going down this rabbit hole.  It will cover short chain fatty acids, butyrate, sources of butyrate, resistant starch, things known to increase and decrease butyrate/SCFAs.  My sisters are editing it for me now.

There is no perfect diet for anyone, but I think finding a good diet platform (such as Paleo, autoimmune Paleo, SCD, Whole30, Terry Wahls’, Perfect Health Diet, GAPS, etc) will allow you to slowly and surely figure your body out.  And then with some nips and tucks, you can achieve your endpoint.  I think.  But it takes the patience of Job.  Seriously.  The patience of Job.  And a good supporter; my husband has been super in helping me stay the course.  It has been hard because I am a “sweetaholic.”  I can’t tell you the diet and the supplements you need.  But I will be more than happy to be your cheerleader and encourager if you drop a comment or an e-mail.

In closing, a good diet, I think, must not only incorporate foods that are full of their own natural nutrients, but a good diet must also TAKE OUT COMPLETELY foods that are either commonly known to be inflammatory or known to cause symptoms–whatever they may be, acne, depressed-like mood, sore throat, eczema, bloating, etc–in a particular individual.  At this point, a broken body will need a little extra nutrition/supplementation in certain departments.  Perhaps a little magnesium, perhaps a little resistant starch, perhaps a little coconut oil, perhaps a little glutamine, perhaps a little fish oil, perhaps a few B vitamins, perhaps low-carb, and so on.

I wish you only success.

Sincerely,

cropped-hsd-line-drawing_edited-1.jpgTerri

 

Butyrate and Constipation

37 Replies

I have been excited about butyrate because rat studies showed that it increased the motility of the colon (please let’s not dwell much too long on the fact I’m reduced to rat status and writing about constipation).  I am going to summarize and explain an abstract to a study, from which the following quote is taken:

“Little is known about the environmental and nutritional regulation of the enteric nervous system (ENS), which controls gastrointestinal motility. Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) such as butyrate regulate colonic mucosa homeostasis and can modulate neuronal excitability. We investigated their effects on the ENS and colonic motility.” 

~  from Gastroenterology,  2010, “Short-chain fatty acids regulate the enteric neurons and control gastrointestinal motility in rats.”  Emphasis was mine.

Aside:  Please note that I am probably a fool and excited about nothing, but it is a path worth exploring for my slow transit constipation.  Also note, I do my best to simplify studies and concepts, some of which are difficult for my basic molecular biology background.  My husband, being an exceptionally logical and fact oriented doctor, hates it when I do this.  Big time scowls.  He is right, sometimes the explanations become kind of inaccurate.  So I will do the best I can.  If you have any questions or note any errors, I would like to know.  Gaps in my understanding will be bridged this way.  And one last note, don’t use my blog stuff to cause any harm to yourself.  Please.  See your doctor.

What did these researchers do? 

  1. Fed rats a resistant starch diet.  (I will write a resistant starch post soon.  Soon is always relative.)
  2. Inserted short chain fatty acids (i.e. butyrate) into rats’ cecums (a part of their colons).  (I only have an abstract so we are left to our imaginations for this lovely process.)
  3. Applied butyrate to some “free-standing” cultures of enteric nervous system cells in a “test tube.”
  4. In the “test tube” cells, they examined how the cell “looked”–its “phenotype.”  What kind of receptors did the nervous system cells have on their outer membranes?  What kind of proteins are expressed?  Knowing this kind of information helps us to know what the cell is capable of responding to and what substances the cell makes.  Special antibodies that will seek out these known proteins and receptors on the cells are used.   Researchers also used polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a way to amplify and increase certain material.  Specifically, these researchers looked for antibodies to Hu, choline acetyltransferase (ChAT), and nitric oxide synthase (NOS).  If you refer back to “Changes in Severe, Chronic Constipation,”  you will see a couple of these discussed:  Less neurons immunoreactive for ChAT and more neurons immunoreactive for NOS.  They also proceeded to analyze signaling pathways using various tests.
  5. Observed the motility of the colon both in the rat and outside the rat.

What were the results?

  1. Resistant starch diet (which increases butyrate) and butyrate (but NOT acetate and propionate, other short chain fatty acids made from resistant starch by the colon’s bacteria) both:
      A.  Increased the ChAT neurons, these are the ones partly responsible for increasing peristalsis.  Neurons with ChAT should make more acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter that encourages the bowel to move forward and empty.
      B.  Did not alter the NOS neurons’ proportion and number.  NOS would bring about nitric oxide, which slows down the bowel’s movements.  It makes the bowel relax rather than move.
  2. Bowel neurons have a transporter called monocarboxylate transporter 2 (MCT2), which helps bring butyrate into the colon cell after the bacteria graciously make it.  Well, the researchers were able to “stop” these transporters so butyrate wouldn’t move into the cell so much.  By stopping the MCT2 transporters, the increase in ChAT neurons–and therefore neurons that would increase colon motility–was halted.
  3.  Butyrate increased histone H3 acetylation in enteric neurons.  When DNA is acetylated, it allows the DNA to be transcribed.  So butyrate alters the actual genetic expression of cells.
  4. Resistant starch diet increased colonic transit.
  5. Ex vivo it was noted that butyrate increased the circular muscles contraction when exposed to acetylcholine.

Their Conclusion

“Butyrate or histone deacetylase inhibitors might be used, along with nutritional approaches, to treat various gastrointestinal motility disorders associated with inhibition of colonic transit.”  And that’s as far as I’ve seen it up to this post.  I’ll keep looking.

My Conclusion

I’m not trying to live forever.  I don’t have cancer yet.  I’m eons away from a stroke.  But my gut has a mind of its own.  In addition to more information on butyrate (and resistant starch), I need to explore the outcomes of slow transit constipation in 80 year-old women.  Do they have a study on that?  Right now, things are tolerable with all the changes I’ve made the last 18 months or so of my life, but what happens later?  Or when the magnesium stops working again?  Anyhow, here are my closing thoughts:

  1. Butyrate is made in the gut and absorbed by the gut.  The gut has been my constant, lifelong problem.
  2. Butyrate may affect the immune system and decrease inflammation.  We have studies supporting food intolerances causing severe, chronic constipation and these studies document subtle inflammatory changes in the mucosa.
  3. Butyrate may affect the nervous system through modulation of gene expression.  We know the enteric nervous system is messed up in slow transit constipation.
  4. Butyrate may stimulate the contractile activity of the colon and accelerate GI transit.  We know slow transit constipation has a reduction in high amplitude propagating contractions and a disruption of the coordinated peristaltic activity.
  5. Butyrate is increased by eating resistant starch, a type of “fiber.”  (This is a bit confusing, but I will clarify later.  Resistant starch would be high in diets rich in lentils, beans, tubers, etc.  Please see Butyrate Series, Part 6 for a better, more thorough explanation)  Fiber has long been recommended for constipation.  Perhaps it’s not the fiber.  It could be the fiber.  Or it could be a rich bacterial population capable of making more butyrate for an individual.
  6. Butyrate has been shown to possibly decrease colon cancer.  Colon cancer is higher in patients with chronic constipation (Chronic Constipation Linked To Increased Risk of Colorectal Cancer–summary article from Science Daily).

And finally, I’ll leave you with this quote:

“If the promising results by Soret et al [the paper whose abstract I summarized and explained above] can be confirmed and expanded by controlled therapeutic trials, then butyrate-generating foods might become an effective and simple option to prevent or treat functional gut disorders via modulation of enteric neuroplasticity.” (2–a very good little commentary to read!)

Terri

Butyrate Series Page

Sources:

1.  Soret R, Chevalier J, De Coppet P, Poupeau G, Derkinderen P, Segain JP, Neunlist M.  Short-chain fatty acids regulate the enteric neurons and control gastrointestinal motility in rats.  Gastroenterology. 2010 May;138(5):1772-82.  Sadly, abstract only:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20152836

2.  de Giorio R, Blandizzi C.  Targeting Enteric Neuroplasticity:  Diet and Bugs as New Key Factors.  Gastroenterology.  2010 May; 138(5):1663-1666.

Also, if you will please see “Why Does My Gut Defy Gravity:  Changes in Severe, Chronic Constipation” and “But What Causes All of Those Changes Found in Chronic, Severe Constipation?” and “Cow’s Milk and Refractory Constipation”   then you can find further information plus sources for that information and information mentioned above.

Thanks,

Terri

Related articles

I also have run a whole series on butyrate.  I need to come back and link eventually; the WordPress blogging platform used to have a feature to do that but not now.  If you look under GI Tracts Defies Gravity page, there are links there to the series pieces.

A Kid’s Conversation on Butyrate (Fiber–To Way Oversimplify)

5 Replies

A trashcan at a food court in Salt Lake City, Utah

A trashcan at a food court in Salt Lake City, Utah (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Whatcha’ doin’?”
“I’m reading about butyrate.”
“What’s butyrate?”
“Oh my goodness.  It’s amazing.  Do you remember those little bacteria I told you about that live in your colon?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, lots of fruits and vegetables and certain foods have this stuff called fiber.  And a there’s a special kind of fiber your body can’t use.  [Resistant starch for those of you who want a more intellectual conversation.]  But those bacteria take this special fiber, and they use it for food!  Then, they make this stuff called butyrate, which they can’t even use!  And guess what!  Our body likes butyrate!  Our colons eat up that butyrate and use it for food and energy, and it helps the cells fight infections and cancer.”
“So, they eat the trash we can’t.  Then, we eat their trash, and it helps us?”
“Yes.  That’s right.  Even the body recycles.  So that’s why we have to eat fruits and vegetables [and for those who know, also beans, lentils, and I have to keep working on my butyrate post…].”

♦♦♦♦♦

I am reading and working on a butyrate post, a short chain fatty acid that the bacteria in your colon make–much to your benefit–the bacteria making butyrate that is–not my article.  I have told myself I can’t post anything else until I finish it.  But it’s Monday.  And that’s the day you all read blog articles, based on statistical analysis.  So I hate to let an opportunity slide.

My kids just woke up.  I try to read and blog in the morning before they wake up, which luckily for me as homeschooled kids, is quite a bit later than most other kids.  They file into our schoolroom where I read and write, one by one, in the morning to see what I’m doing.  Today, I was very happy that I was reading about butyrate.

I try to almost never use the word “healthy” when I talk to my kids about food choices.  If I have to use the word healthy, it means I don’t understand why it is “healthy.”  I HAVE to be able to tell them what it is that makes a particular substance beneficial or NOT beneficial.  And I have to be able to see the food from all angles:  psychological angles, physical angles, physiologic angles,  net-gain versus net-loss angles.  If I have to say “healthy for you” or “that’s not healthy for you”–I don’t understand the food well enough.  They’ll never stick with it all their life, which is what I’m trying to do here for them.  If you haven’t explained to your kids that you are SO lucky to have bacteria in your colon, you have missed a HUGE chunk of their nutritional education.  That’s a great thing to tell them, and then you can use conversations like this, which happened this morning in our home.

It’s time to take back our kids’ nutrition.  Take it back from the boxes and packages.  Take it back from the commercials.  Take it back from the schools.  Take it back from the well-meaning dance teachers, coaches, and Sunday school teachers.  (Ouch.  That sounded really harsh.)  Take it back from convenience.  Kids’ bodies and brains function way better on whole foods without dyes and preservatives.  You can do it.

Terri