Previous posts on the topic:
- Prepare for the “Resistant Starch” Assimilation; Resistance is Futile
- Resistant Starch: 4-Letter Word? Nope. Goal: Create Mashed Potatoes A Diabetic Can Eat Every Day
The interest over those posts has been rather enthusiastic, in spite of my concern over: “Oh, what new miracle is Richard-The-Traffic-Whore on about now?” And it’s a legitimate criticism in my book, especially if not completely familiar with the history around here.
As I wrapped up that post yesterday:
My next post will be about the tons and tons of research into Resistant Starch in the last 30 years that’s not financed by someone with a financial interest. I’ve collected a veritable shitload, thanks to the help of commenter, retired Air Force, Arctic Circle living, lay digger upper of research papers: “tatertot.” Following that will be a post cataloging my own results over the last couple of months, as well as that of many others including my T2D mom.
Both tatertot & I firmly agree that resistant starch is an enormous blind spot in Paleo. Go look at what they find in human shit fossils (coprolites). Hint: not a full rack of ribs and a side of salad dressed in olive oil and balsamic.
Oh, “tatertot,” is also just Tim. In addition to the other things I cited, he’s a hunter, trapper, fisherman, weekend farmer and full-time electrical systems supervisor in a local hospital up there a short hop from the North Pole. He does not work for a starch company. Tim and I’ve been collaborating for months on this, but he’s the one who dug up the research and connected dots. I got people interested and collected a shitload of human guinea pigs so that everyone can see soon enough if we’ve just been taking the piss.
Before I begin, here’s a pretty good primer on the importance of gut bacteria in Mother Jones: Are Happy Gut Bacteria Key to Weight Loss? That briefly mentions resistant starch near the end—still a blind spot, in my view, but a great primer. Then there’s this, from Primalmeded: Resistant starch: the missing ingredient? This strikes as a bit cherry picking in reverse, to me, on grounds that the research cited is mostly, or all, from a producer of “Hi-Maze,” an engineered corn starch product. A far more balanced piece is by Norm Robillard, PhD microbiologist and former researcher, of Digestive Health Institute: Resistant Starch – Friend or Foe? (Interesting how all three citations are questions, eh?) Anyway, Norm’s chief concern appears to me to be the potential for RS to aggravate Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO), but in his learned defense, I suspect that’s not an indictment of RS per se, but more of having vast numbers of people who’ve “sawed of the branch they were standing on” by a lifetime of consuming the SAD—which I’m confident he would agree contributes to SIBO. In my next post on the various anecdotes of self-experimentation I’ve collected, I’ll speculate as to why I think it might not be too much of a concern for many.
So here we go. The science, and only the science. Here are the parameters Tim and I have been collaborating under:
Unanswered Questions
- What is the optimal dose?
- What is the optimal source?
- Will it make a difference in the grand scheme of things if implemented on a world-wide basis?
- Is it contra-indicated for anybody?
Absolutes
- RS supports a healthy gut microbe population
- RS exhibits undeniable effect on glucose control and satiety
- RS in amounts of 20-50g /day are well tolerated
- RS can come from many sources including real food
The Claims Waiting to Be Generally Proven (hence the need for self-experimentation)
- RS prevents colon cancer, diabetes, IBS, Crohn’s, and Ulcerative Colitis
- RS improves absorption of vitamins and minerals
- RS lowers levels of inflammation in gut
- RS prevents damage done by eating red meat
These are all claims made, some proven in animals. Some have been shown effective in humans, but no long-term studies.
Then there’s always the underlying theme: Is it really needed on a paleo diet?
The Research. Skim, Review, or Dig In. As per your own standards.
First, here’s why it’s easy to get fooled of jaded by the thing. National Starch came up with a business plan to bombard the world with resistant starch in the form of Hi-Maize corn starch. Here’s a press release from 2004: National Starch Expands Manufacturing to Boost Production of Hi-Maize(TM) Resistant Starch.
BRIDGEWATER, N.J., June 16 /PRNewswire/ — National Starch announced that it completed an expansion on June 1 which increased the production capacity for Hi-maize(TM) resistant starch by 33 percent. This is the second expansion this year and provides National with ample capacity to meet increasing customer demand.
Hi-maize is the only natural, granular resistant starch available in the U.S. Within the last year Hi-maize has been formulated into many low-carb foods because of its ease of use, its natural identity and its strong clinical support. …
In fact, National Starch would love to have you shove Hi-Maize straight up your ass! So, yes, indeed, there is a profit motive here, and engineered unnatural (expensive) product “app for that;” and they would never, ever tell you there’s a cheap alternative in the form of Bob’s Red Mill Potato Starch
NOW the Real Research, and Only the Research
Fortunately, there are lots of papers, studies, abstracts, etc… talking about the the legitimacy of using natural RS for digestive health. Perhaps it’s from these studies that National Starch got its ideas. Here’s only a partial list of the research, none paid for or affiliated with National Starch.
~ Resistant starch: the effect on postprandial glycemia, hormonal response, and satiety (human study—abstract). “In conclusion, the replacement of digestible starch with RS resulted in significant reductions in postprandial glycemia and insulinemia, and in the subjective sensations of satiety.”
~ Digestion and physiological properties of resistant starch in the human large bowel (human study—abstract). “We have concluded that RS2 and RS3 are broken down in the human gut, probably in the colon although in 26% of cases this breakdown was impaired. RS exerts mild laxative properties, predominantly through stimulation of biomass excretion but also through some sparing of NSP breakdown.”
~ Fermentation of dietary starch in humans (human study—abstract). “CONCLUSION: A high-resistant starch diet and its resultant increase in fermentation products may be partly responsible for protecting the black population against colorectal cancers and other large bowel diseases.”
~ Intakes of Carbohydrates and Resistant Starch Food Sources Among Regular Exercisers in Blacksburg, VA and San Jose, Costa Rica (human study—full text). “Consumption of RS prior to prolonged exercise could cause stable glycemic and insulinemic responses that may help delay the onset of fatigue during exercise.”
~ Starch and Fiber Fractions in Selected Food and Feed Ingredients Affect Their Small Intestinal Digestibility and Fermentability and Their Large Bowel Fermentability In Vitro in a Canine Model (dog study—full text). “Potato flour resulted in the highest (P < 0.05) total SCFA production compared with all other flours…also found that potato flour was numerically highest in total SCFA production when comparing six different flours incubated in inoculum containing ileal microorganisms.”
~ Sources and intake of resistant starch in the Chinese diet (human study—full text; tons of charts). “The resistant starch contents of 121 foods were determined using a method that mimicked gastrointestinal conditions. Tubers and legumes had high resistant starch contents. Rough food processing retained large amounts of resistant starch. In general, the content of RS decreased when foods were cooked. Deep fried and roasted foods had higher levels of resistant starch than braised foods. The average resistant starch intake in the Chinese population was estimated to be 14.9 g per day based on a dietary survey. The main resistant starch sources in the Chinese diet were cereal and tuber products. Based on dietary habits, however, the resistant starch intake varies considerably among individuals.”
~ The Second-Meal Effect: A Review (human review study—full text). “Consumption of low glycemic-index (LGI) foods has been shown to attenuate blood glucose response during the postprandial period immediately following a meal. In addition, positive metabolic effects can persist well beyond this period. One of these extended effects, known as the “second-meal effect,” is the positive effect of the bioavailability of glucose on the glucose tolerance of the subsequent meal. This secondmeal effect, initially observed in normal-weight, healthy adult subjects using glucose and guar, has also been documented in patients with type 2 diabetes. …However, a growing body of animal data suggests that the effect may also be mediated by SCFA produced from colonic fermentation whereby SCFA attenuate postprandial blood glucose levels of the subsequent meal by inactivating hormone-sensitive lipase in
adipose tissue via the intestinal incretin GLP-1 or via the G-protein receptor GPR43.”
~ An In Vitro Method, Based on Chewing, To Predict Resistant Starch Content in Foods Allows Parallel Determination of Potentially Available Starch and Dietary Fiber (full text). “It is concluded that the procedure described here provides a convenient way to estimate RS content of realistic foods, allowing parallel determination of the potentially available starch fraction and dietary fiber.”
~ Effect of the glycemic index and content of indigestible carbohydrates of cereal-based breakfast meals on glucose tolerance at lunch in healthy subjects (human study—full text). “Conclusions: Glucose tolerance can improve in a single day. Slow absorption and digestion of starch from the breakfast meal, but not the content of indigestible carbohydrates in the breakfast meal, improved glucose tolerance at the second meal (lunch).” Potato starch used in this intervention, and found to be superior.
~ Resistant Starches Types 2 and 4 Have Differential Effects on the Composition of the Fecal Microbiota in Human Subjects (human study—full). “Our results demonstrate that RS2 and RS4 show functional differences in their effect on human fecal microbiota composition, indicating that the chemical structure of RS determines its accessibility by groups of colonic bacteria. The findings imply that specific bacterial populations could be selectively targeted by well designed functional carbohydrates, but the inter-subject variations in the response to RS indicates that such strategies might benefit from more personalized approaches.”
~ Starch (90-page Scientific Presentation; note from North Pole Tim: “The most informative paper on starch and RS in general. A ‘must read’ for everyone talking about RS.”)
~ Fermentation of Native Wheat, Potato, and Pea Starches, and their Preparations by Bifidobacterium – Changes in Resistant Starch Content (human study—full text). “Bifidobacterium strains selected for this study: B. pseudolongum KSI9, B. animalis KS20a1, and B. breve KN14 used the native starches from three origins and their preparations as a source of carbon and energy for their growth. Generally, the resistant starch fractions from native starches were better substrates and their utilisation was higher compared to the modified starch preparations. A significant decrease in the level of resistant starch was observed in native potato and pea starches and their preparations after 24-h fermentation with the Bifidobacterium strains examined in the experiment. However, the gelatinisation process of native starches and their preparations had negligible influence on the resistant starch metabolism by the selected bifidobacteria.”
~ Assessing prebiotic effects of resistant starch on modulating gut microbiota with an in vivo animal model and an in vitro semi-continuous fermentation mode (animal study—197 pg. doctoral dissertation). “In summary, our studies with both in vivo animal model and in vitro fermentation model supported previous recognition of resistant starch acting as a prebiotic to modulate gut microbiota, especially on Clostridium clusters IV and XIVa. Ruminococcus bromii was specifically induced in rat model fed RS as well as in vitro fermentation model using lean microbiota. Moreover, different RS may have different fermentation outcomes. Our findings provided solid evidence to answer the fundamental question of how RS exerted effects on ix shifting bacterial pattern. In addition, we also showed that the physiological significance of RS might be affected by physical-chemical properties of starch and pre-existing microbiota as well. […]
“Beyond RS, there are many other questions remaining to be answered, such as how many bacteria species or strains are required and sufficient to attain beneficial effects? Will it be possible to targeting specific bacteria species to introduce or deplete it in humans? Whether bacterial pattern can be sustained after dietary intervention stops? Are there other metabolites of gut microbiota playing a crucial but undiscovered role to improve human health? Other more practical concerns are what food products and appropriate dose is needed to be included in the diet without comprising individual food preference and habits but obtain equivalent beneficial effects?”
Tatertot Tim comments: “Clearly, to me, the answer to all of these question lies in the use of resistant starch to achieve the level of manipulation needed. I think for the average Joe, just getting some RS in your diet, whether from food–which is hard, or supplementing with potato starch–cheap and easy–is the best you can do to give your guts the best chance they have at creating what they need to thrive.
“Also, this study shows me that RS is clearly not ‘just fiber’ as so many people love to say. If it were ‘just fiber’ would so many studies be performed, so many thesis papers written, and so much time and money be devoted to study it?”
~~~
I actually have substantially many more. I had about 6 more entries done, such as are above, drafted & formatted below. They’re part of a Part 2 draft, now, but I just had to cut this shorter for now, always wishing to strike the balance about things.
So this ought be where RS related discussion in comments moves, from back there at 438 90%-awesome-comments-so-far…flamewar free. Yea! A 438-comment thread at Free the Animal without any flamage.
…How boring, eh!?
Keep this in mind. The idea for my fundamental motivation behind all of this is simple: if 10% of us ought to eat right, then it might be good to understand what the other 90% of us ought to eat. Get it?
I’ll be back very soon, even if you see something else pop at at the top in the interim.
tatetot 
Good job, Richard — This is why you make the big bucks! Hopefully none of those linked studies can be traced back to National Starch, Ingredion, or Penford Starch. It’s amazing how many papers and studies those guys put out in the last few years–I’m almost afraid they will ruin it. National Starch is famous for it’s inventions of Mazola, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and a few other really crappy products.
To illustrate, here is a really nicely put together paper on the RS intake of Americans: http://www.valemaisalimentos.com.br/material/2.pdf It’s a great research paper, tons of citations, and probably 100% accurate. But then I see in the very last paragraph “Funding for this research was provided by National Starch & Chemical Company”
The main researchers were: M. M. Murphy and J. S. Douglass are nutrition science managers, ENVIRON International Corporation, Arlington, VA. A. Birkett is a business scientist, Nutrition
Research Department, National Starch Food Innovation, Bridgewater, NJ
Does their involvement invalidate the whole paper? I can see their angle is to show that we don’t get enough RS in our diet. Lucky for everyone, they make a product, Hi-Maize, that we can put into every loaf of bread and box of cereal! Problem solved.
I almost dropped the whole RS thing when I realized that almost all of the studies I was looking at were put out by a starch mogul. Digging deeper, and looking back further made me see there was much more to this than meets the eye. Maybe Hi-Maize will save the world from itself, but at least we have alternatives: real, paleo foods and plain old potato starch.
After 6 weeks of my personal experiment with PS, I’m sticking with it. The two glaring features that I notice are vastly improved digestion (it was pretty good to begin with) & incredible long-term satiety. Skipping lunch is now the rule, not the exception. Thanks Richard & Tim… Keep this thing going. There is definitely something to this stuff!
On week three of 3 TBS of Potato Starch per evening. Any explanation on the exceptional, uninterrupted deep sleep? No complaints mind you. Have never slept so well. Never.
TR
I speculate that ought to be the norm, adding confidence to the suspicion that RS is deficient in American diets and Paleo is even worse than SAD in that respect, because there is RS is grain products.
regarding this entry above: Fermentation of dietary starch in humans (human study—abstract). “CONCLUSION: A high-resistant starch diet and its resultant increase in fermentation products may be partly responsible for protecting the black population against colorectal cancers and other large bowel diseases.”
I have the full text somewhere, but the gist is that blacks living in rural conditions in S.Africa rarely get diabetes or colon disease. When they move into an urban setting, they get it at the same rate as others living there. The key seems to be the RS found in their ‘stale maize porridge’. These folks cook up some cheap corn meal once a day and eat it cold all day long.
Several papers have dissected this dish and noted the health benefits of stale maize porridge.
http://researchspace.csir.co.za/dspace/bitstream/10204/1508/3/van%20der%20merwe_2001.pdf
“Using the close correlation between in vitro starch digestibility and GI, a predicted GI of 44 (ranging from 39 to 50, glucose reference) was calculated for maize porridge. The low predicted GI suggests that maize porridge may be useful in the prevention and dietary treatment of diabetes. ”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-4549.2008.00323.x/abstract
“South African maize meal porridge (pap) was analyzed for its nutritional properties after reheating by microwave following room-temperature storage for 12 and 24 h. In comparison with freshly prepared samples, reheated samples showed a higher resistant starch content with values of 44.2 ± 8.1 g/100 g and 39.8 ± 9.4 g/100 g when reheated after 12 and 24 h, respectively, compared with 31.4 ± 7.9 g/100 g for a fresh pap. A lower (P < 0.05) total protein content was recorded after the room storage-and-reheating cycle with values of 11.76 ± 2.4 g/100 g for fresh pap and 8.96 ± 1.57 and 7.56 ± 1.78 for pap reheated at 12 and 24 h, respectively. In vitro protein digestibility (IVPD) was also improved (P < 0.05). These results, especially the improvement of resistant starch content and the IVPD during room storage-and-reheating cycle of South African maize meal porridge, may open new perspectives to maize consumers both from the socioeconomical and nutritional point of view."
Basically the recipe is just corn meal cooked in boiling water and left to cool at room temp.
re: This entry from above: ~ Intakes of Carbohydrates and Resistant Starch Food Sources Among Regular Exercisers in Blacksburg, VA and San Jose, Costa Rica (human study—full text). “Consumption of RS prior to prolonged exercise could cause stable glycemic and insulinemic responses that may help delay the onset of fatigue during exercise.”
If anyone reads this, keep this stuff in mind – http://www.generationucan.com/super.html
Once again, my point is proven. Someone wants to sell you a very expensive supplement that has all of the properties of dirt cheap potato starch.
@tatertot, what a scam! A sixer of that crap costs more per unit than a lb. of PS.
Ok, in for the 4 pk of Bob’s Red Mill.
Hey folks,
I just started adding PS in my diet. I was eating potatoes and rice (sometimes cold) but adding PS in a quick shake is so much more efficient :) So yesterday evening, after my single daily meal, I got some coconut milk (from Aroy-D … really good stuff), some vanilla and raw cacao powder, xylitol for sweetening and 2 Tbsp of PS. I also took some this morning (usually I have no breakfast at all) … I start to feel quite gassy … I warned my wife that my belly would probably rumble quite a lot … and it did, indeed!
Surprisingly, she had been reading about the very same topic independently and joined me in the experiment … it was quite a concerto in our bed …
I will let you know how it evolves. My goal is not so much weight loss and such (I am lean and don’t need to drop more weight) but sleep improvements.
The xylitol can definitely contribute to the gas! Try honey r ape syrup.
Richard, don’t know if you addressed this or not. Does cooking the potato starch render it useless?
I’m thinking reductions, and general use as a thickening agent?
I am currently in the “skimming” group of reading the source material. I am wondering how similar the rural S.A. corn porridge is to grits, something that I grew up with but mostly avoid since starting paleo. I recall from an earlier post that they might need to cool off to be RS. I think the Bob’s looks easiest, and I am drawn to the idea of sleeping better. My own sleep is okay, but doesn’t last more than six hours usually. Thanks for trailblazing this stuff.
Jens:
I’ll address fartage in the next post. Briefly, what I’ve found is that it’s highly variable and depends a lot on what other foods one has eaten, frequency, dose, etc. It could very be that some doses are overload for one time. Also, I’ve found that going 2-3 days now & then and also plain fasting now & then greatly tends to stabilize things. These are things people have to hack out for themselves.
Matthew, from the April 14 post: “The RS found in raw potatoes swells and bursts as temperatures approach 160 degrees F, turning the RS into rapidly digestible starch.” Presumably the same would happen to the powdered stuff.
Matthew, yes, cooking bursts the starch granules and they become rapidly digesting. If you cool them, you get a small portion back as retrograde RS, but not much. The potato starch is the starch component from raw potatoes and is nearly 80% RS by weight.
Potato Starch can’t be heated above 150 degrees or so. Once it begins thickening (gelling) all the RS value is gone. It needs to be mixed with cold/cool/warm water to be effective as RS. If you see a gel form–it’s too late. However, if you need a good thickening agent–potato starch works exceptionally well!
I was raised on corn grits, too, but always eaten hot. Cooked and cooled, and reheated and cooled, is the way to increase the RS content. This makes me think corn tortillas should be pretty high in RS. Foods cooked at high heat or fried seem to retain their RS. So corn tortillas heated over a flame should be a great source–or even quickly fried in a bit of fat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a study of the RS in corn tortillas–I’ll do some searching.
@Jens – We just bought an ice cream maker and have been making ice cream with almost the same recipe as your smoothie! Xylitol is also a good prebiotic. I always try to get the kind made from Birch. Xylitol on it’s own makes a lot of people gassy as it’s a sugar alcohol and a FODMAP (polyol). Erythritol is also a pretty good sugar alcohol sweeter, but is not a good prebiotic.
Seek and ye shall find! What a difference a few search terms make…just found this, but didn’t have time to read carefully. Looks like a combination of beans and corn tortillas is a pretty decent source of RS:
http://biblioteca.cinvestav.mx/indicadores/texto_completo/cinvestav/2005/117842_1.pdf
and another: http://biblioteca.cinvestav.mx/indicadores/texto_completo/cinvestav/2002/61373_2.pdf
And this compares blue to white tortillas–white has more RS. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jsfa.3008/abstract
An Ice Cream Machine in the Sub-Artic.
Had to do it! It’s been 90 all week–record heat. Lovin’ it! http://www.newsminer.com/news/local_news/heat-wave-on-the-horizon-fairbanks-could-see-degrees-next/article_decf89a8-d3c6-11e2-8818-0019bb30f31a.html
I don’t seem to have any issues with the potato starch, mixes easily into smoothies. On one of these threads someone recommended including some inulin with it as well, that version pretty much gave everyone in my household a stomach ache.
Richard..how long do you fast to stabilize things? thx
RN said:
“I’ll address fartage in the next post.”
According to Google, this sentence is brand-new to humanity. :-)
@Carl
https://www.google.com/search?site=&source=hp&q=%22this+sentence+is+brand-new+to+humanity.%22&oq=%22this+sentence+is+brand-new+to+humanity%22
ilise: as per my usual intermittent fasting. I try to go at least 24 hours with zero calories once per week. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
Other than that, I went camping over Memorial Day weekend and Friday-Monday had no PS. I found that the time off really regulated things and I seemed better adapted once I added it back in.
Carl:
You’re assuming that I wasn’t going to be addressing the waxing of cross-country skis.
I’ve ordered some Bob’s Red mill potato starch to try this out but it’s pretty expensive in the UK, so I’m also thinking about raw potatoes.
From what I’ve found, eating raw potatoes is bad if they are sprouting or green and that the alkaloids tend to be concentrated in the skin, so that implies that a non-green, non-sprouting peeled potato would be fine.
Is that reasonably accurate before I start munching on the raw spuds?
Is there anything to be gained by lacto-ermenting potatoes?
Thanks in advance.
I am ending my experiment with potato starch.
I didn’t experience the vivid dreams or reduced appetite that some are reporting.
I didn’t experience the gas or bloating either.
Only thing I noticed was the change in urine color.
Glad it is helping some, just not a big enough change for me to continue.
Lee – re: raw potatoes – I discovered just how much starch there is in raw potatoes and how “starchy” it is when I tried the method for shredding potatoes for hash browns in a Vitamix. You chop up potatoes into 1 inch cubes; put them in the blender jug, add enough water to cover the potatoes and blend. Just one second at high speed is enough for a hash browns consistency, but I guess if you are instead trying to extract the starch your should go longer. Then empty the jug through a colander over the largest bowl you have. Over the course of maybe 15-30 minutes the starch – or at least quite a lot of it will settle at the bottom of the bowl. You will be surprised. It is pure white – like the powder – and it is very, very thick and starchy. Drain off the excess water and you will be left with just the white stuff and I guess you could either dry that or consume it as is. No idea how much one medium size spud yields – you’d have to experiment. Also – I have no idea if regular, less powerful blenders can do this. It may just take longer blending time.
here’s a page of YouTube search results for potato starch extraction: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=starch+from+potatoes&oq=starch+from+potatoes&gs_l=youtube.3..0i5.31627.36650.0.37780.20.20.0.0.0.0.113.1354.19j1.20.0…0.0…1ac.1.11.youtube.z7lv55WSUnM
If Richard had not mentioned his vivid dreams I doubt anyone would have reported any b/c when one has the intention of remembering dreams he usually does. We all dream vividly every night of our lives no matter what eat but most of us just can’t recall it upon awakening.
Thanks Mart but I quite like eating raw potatoes whole; I just don’t want to poison myself (if that’s possible)
I was very hopeful at the beginning. I am diabetic and on an average of about 30 gm of carbs / day. That and Metformin keep my BS in line. The addition of the potato starch (cold into some kind of beverage) jacked my BS by about 15-20, especially in the mornings. I quit after about two weeks and the BS dropped to my “normal” stage after three days. I had no other effects or side effects.
Richard, keep up the good work, maybe somebody will benefit from this. Thank you Tatertot, you are hard at work on this, we appreciate it!
I have done this for 7 weeks now and will continue to use it as a supplement. The main benefit i see from the RS is improved gut health. I have IBS type D and RS really help against diarhea. It feels like the gut is alot more “robust” when eating RS and a robust gut will always result in improved well being, especially for those with IBS.
@TJ,
What brand / type of potato starch were you using? This is the first time I’ve heard of it raising blood sugar..
Yes, I think that’s the first report we’ve seen in comments. My T2D mom has had hers coming down since ramping up to 4T per day.
Richard,
great references by tatertot and you to the real science behind this, from the start of this series and earlier in tatertot’s comments. Thank you.
Reading the science ‘for ourselves’ has become indispensable, which was also just brought to the foreground in a much broader sense for ‘paleo’ by Robb Wolf et al : http://robbwolf.com/2013/06/22/paleo-fantasy-time-reading-research/
Have been doing this for about a week now. 2T in am and 2 T after dinner
Sleep may be better. That is a big issue for me , and I need more time to really know because it is still somewhat inconsistent
Blood sugar has not improved at all. Fasting is around 107 . When I get my new supply of test strips will do more post meal testing, Dang! I really wanted those lower numbers. But I had slacked off on my exercise so am am getting back into a better routine. maybe the combination will help.
Satiation may be slightly better than it already was on PHD
TMI is very good. Had been eating some cold potatoes and cold rice for a while, which may account for not having the toots at the beginning…maybe just one or two innocuous ones. Had been taking the prebiotic Biotagen for chronic C. This works better, it seems. Though I may add some of the Biotagen back in a few weeks since that may complement this
I do seem to be remembering more of my dreams than in the past, when I did not remember a thing most nights.
Richard if Mom is a T2D and a bit overweight I’d like you to consider this thought: Scientist hold their current beliefs about obesity and T2D because of how they are trained to think. They are not bad people. They just are not aware someone else is doing their thinking for them. In the objective scheme of science, the need for first person accounts of diseases never arise; this implies obesity from carbohydrates just never exists in their worldview. But we all know as obese people, that this belief can not be correct because it does not match the reality that we live. Our observations and experiences tell us otherwise. The post here you alluding to another possibility that reward theory can not explain. Science needs skeptics but it also needs observation. We must cultivate a culture of intense curiosity when we face a paradox. An unusual observation can not be dismissed too fast. For example, when bariatric surgeons rearrange a human gut who has diabetes and obesity with a gastric bypass operation the patient is CURED of diabetes in the recovery room. In fact, you may not know this, we surgeons do not even bother to put them back on their diabetes meds nor do we put then on a diabetic diabetic diet. We do not even monitor their blood sugars because 5o yrs of surgical observations show it doe snot matter. Their gut bacteria are the same in the recovery room. So, how is it that this observation has been ignored by obesity and T2D researchers? It might be because it does not fit their theory. These observations are a known surgical and medical fact. You would think this would get people to realize the reward theory of obesity is ludicrous at some level because of this observation. If simply rearranging your gut can totally cure T2D and allow you to lose “some weight” , there is no way the reward of food is the primordial etiology in obesity. Observations should stimulate our curiosity to destroy thinking that keeps a wrong theory grounded as some real reality to a medical condition. Why is change hard for scientists? I believe it is because they have forgotten the effects of observations on science. Observations create momentum in scientific theory. They should force a change of direction from where our beliefs lie today. Our dogma is tied to our thinking because of the “gravity” of our beliefs. We must use momentum to break free of the “gravity of our current scientific thoughts” if they are not serving our needs and do not explain the observations of patients or clinicians. We must get moving first to attain our goals to overcome the inertia or procrastination within science. We all want to break these “orbits”, and float like a ‘moon’ gone wild in space, while running the risk of disintegration of our current beliefs. We all want to take our lives and health in our own hands and hurl them out among the stars. That is when we allow our imagination to run free in the fields of curiosity we were created with. This is what observations are designed to do for science. Today’s science divorces itself from this.
Momentum represents movement towards the change. A current theory is like a monument made to a ‘old fact’. A monument represents movement in the past. Today, obesity research has lost all momentum and has become a monument to thinking. The proof is found in our country. 40% are now obese using a calories in and calories out paradigm with increased movement.
Food for thought for your mom…………
Hay Jack:
Actually, I am aware of the phenomena of GB surgery ameliorating or curing T2D. I think it’s about how GBS affects the gut. This is science reference 22 of my follow-up post.
http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/april2013/04152013bypass.htm
Thanks always for paying attention still.
So, after a few days of a few Tbsp RS in the evening, here are my observations:
– flatulence had increased at the beginning but seems to abate some
– sleep has been better the last 2 nights without nay particular change of lifestyle
– dreams are vivid, I remember them much more
Regarding blood sugar levels, insulin sensitivity and so on, I have no clue because I am not measuring anything. I am only interested in better sleep and a healthy gut. I am 5’9”, slim and lean, 145lbs. I have no weight to lose at all at the moment. I am actually building up a bit of muscle mass. I also eat one single big meal a day because it seems right to me, I am not hungry most of the day regardless of activities. Hunger kicks in at around 5pm and I eat between 6pm and 8pm, high quality foods (primal style usually) without any care for macros. I had been VLC for a few months to shed some bad weight (I dropped about 28lbs in 6 months) but it never was my plan to maintain ketosis. With summer coming, I was eagerly welcoming carbs back in my diet. I just wanted to be lean first. Looks like carbs (tubers and fruits) added some leanness to my body actually :D
Now, just to make sure I am doing things right: I live in Denmark where I buy something called “kartoffel mel”, which literally translates into “potato flour”. But the label says: “pure starch” and the nutritional breakdown is: 80g starch, 20g water. Nothing else. So I believe we are talking about the same thing. It is a thin white powder that smells nothing and tastes bland. My coconut milk shake does not taste potatoes when I add 3Tbsp of PS into it so it is the right thing, right ? I also complement the shake with another prebiotic which is xylitol (I like this stuff and had been using it here and there for a few months). According to Phinney and Volek, 50% of the ingested xylitol makes it to the colon and is fermented by those little bugs that craps butyrate. I also increased my consumption of konjac root noodles, which adds nothing to my nutrition but to that of my colon I suppose.
If I am doing something weird, let me know because I don’t want to realize in a few months that I had been eating weird shit and just fooled myself :D :D
Richard,
>>>there’s a cheap alternative in the form of Bob’s Red Mill Potato Starch that mixes great with all sorts of things and costs pennies per day (and is 80% RS by weight).<<<
This product sounds like a no-brainer, but when I googled to confirm the 80% before pressing Amazon's One-Click buy button, I found this very recent link, which seems to be saying that the resistant starch content of potatoes is considerably lower, < 5% (vs 80%). So I want to double check with you on this.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/fi-rsc042513.php
BTW, I've been using a Hi-Maize resistant starch product for several months. But of course it's way more expensive that the potato powder you linked to.
Scott:
You’re talking about cooked tats, which destroys (bursts) the granules. There is retrograde RS if you let them cool, but not much. Bob’s is totally RS, starch extracted without appreciable heat. Tatertot has verified this and plus, just the results themselves. This is very different stuff.
You can do an experiment yourself to verify, and it takes less than 2 minutes:
https://freetheanimal.com/2013/06/resistant-starch-now-we%E2%80%99re-getting-somewhere-part-2-35-links-to-research.html#comment-530597
Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying. Buying now…
Great series, btw.
after 3 days of inquiring i finally got an answer,,i have been buying potato startch from the BULKBARN ,,there is almost 200 franchises of this store in canada,,,the rs they sell comes from germany and it is rolled pressed with heat (120 degree celcius (240f)) OUCH,,,so i guess i have been supplementing with glue for the past month,,at least i now know and will source some bob mill’s from now on,,,wonder how much retrograded startch is left in the stuff,,,,my poops seemed alot more healthier but i guess that was just the placebo effect…………………….leo
Why do people say it was ” just the placebo effect” as if it were inconsequential? If you had cancer and it went into remission and someone said that to you, what would you think?
@kayumochi – This is so funny. I just finished reading this article: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/09/gut-feeling.aspx and thought–I wonder if that’s how the placebo effect works, then you post this…
From the article:
“Recognizing that communication between the brain and the gut is bidirectional also points toward new ways of treating both the physical symptoms of intestinal disease and the psychological disorders that are so often present. Keeping anxiety and depression under control, Bercik suggests, may improve inflammation in the gut; and treating inflammation in the gut may improve mood by altering brain biochemistry.
But before clinicians can capitalize on gut bacteria to treat either physiological or psychological disorders, a great deal more research is needed. Despite intense interest in how beneficial gut bacteria might promote psychological well-being, few studies have probed such effects in human subjects. In one such study, published in the British Journal of Nutrition in 2011, researchers found that a 30-day course of probiotic bacteria (a mix of Lactobacillus helveticus and Bifidobacteria longum) led to decreased anxiety and depression in healthy human volunteers.”
the placebo effect comment was just a joke,,i thought it was funny,,didnt want to offend anybody…
no offense taken leo :)
From what I have seen and experienced many people cut themselves off from healing with that very phrase. It is as if they are saying “my healing can’t be real because it is only the placebo effect so let me continue to be sick” and so they continue be sick often with tragic consequences.
“It is as if they are saying ‘my healing can’t be real because it is only the placebo effect so let me continue to be sick’ and so they continue be sick often with tragic consequences.”
Ha ha ha. You’re so transparently Eastern, Kayumochi! :)
I approve.
@leo
I just read this from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starch_production#Potato_starch_production
“Dewatering of refined starch milk is carried out in two stages. In the first stage the excess water is removed by means of a rotary vacuum filter. Secondly moist starch is dried, without starch pasting. For this purpose a pneumatic dryier is used. In this device moist starch (with water content 36 – 40%) is floating in strong and hot (160°C) air flow and then dried during 2 – 3 seconds. Then, the starch is separated from hot air in cyclons. Due to short time of high temperature drying and intensive water evaporation from the starch granules, it’s surface is heated only to 40°C.”
So I don’t think you only ate “glue” :)