To catch up, perhaps a dozen or more posts, thousands of comments from hundreds of people around the world self experimenting. No, you do not have to “wait for the ‘science,'” because self experimentation is science. And it’s arguably the best because since it’s self, that means it applies to you and only you. You get to do this and see for yourself.
OK, today, a rather sizable and meaty post . It’s a guest post by “Tatertot Tim”; and as everyone knows, the prime mover in the whole resistant starch awareness finally making its way into Paleo, Primal, Perfect Health Diet, and low carb circles. This is what we have all been waiting for. How does the gut flora of a habitual resistant starch consumer compare to that of a SAD eater, or, even an LC eater?
To review the problem for low carbers: Sorry low carbers, your microbiome is just not that into you, by Jeff Leach, prime mover at The American Gut Project.
~~~
Hey, Richard – I think I can provide some good closure on our grand RS experiment. Thanks for giving me so much wiggle room and taking the chance that this might blow up in YOUR face. My liability was extremely limited, but if people would have started dropping like flies after eating potato starch, you’d have been in deep doo-doo.
I think what we did was nothing short of miraculous. People embraced the idea and gave it a shot. What we saw was impressive improvements in insulin sensitivity, body temperature, skin conditions, bowel movements, sleep, and mood. To me, the best thing to come out of this was the use of potato starch and plantains (dried or flour). We researched the hell out of RS rich foods, and I still think we need to be eating them, too, but the purer forms of RS are what was missing.
This was the very first RS post we did back in April. I am still haunted by the very first comment this post generated:
“I’d tend to respect Michael Eades over a potato farmer hiding behind the handle ‘tatertot.’ Guess I’m wacky that way.”
Wow! A lot of water under the bridge since then, huh? We even, almost, got Dr. Eades to say he likes RS in a roundabout way! Norm Robillard, though not in love, gave RS a good, hard look. I noticed that Anastasia never finished her two-part series on the stupidity of RS, either. I figure I must have put thousands of comments on dozens of blogs and forum posts since February this year. With your help, we seemed to hit critical mass in September and since then RS has been turning up everywhere, all with rave reviews.
There were Mark Sisson’s RS mention, Dr. BG’s RS blogs, Chris Kresser’s interview with Jeff Leach, and the thousands of supportive comments on blogs and forums everywhere.
Anyway, shortly after we got started with all this, I realized how intricately all the RS stuff was tied to gut health. I started reading about gut microbes and realized I had no clue on the subject, and no way of knowing if RS was effecting my microbes the way the studies implied it would. Then in May or June, I read about the American Gut Project and my wife and I sent off a samples of our poo to be analyzed. I wish I could have sent a sample off before supplementing RS, but it was too late.
Here are my results, 2 years The Primal Blueprint
, 6 months Perfect Health Diet
and eating approximately 4TBS of potato starch plus 20g of RS foods prior to sample:
Tim
The American Gut Project just sends you a poster with these charts on it, it’s up to you to decipher. I spent a couple hours with my best friend Mr. Google and looked up all the microbes listed. Here are a few things that really jumped out at me:
- Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes (brown and orange on bar chart) – normal gut bugs for everybody, this is the bulk of everyone’s poop. These can contain pathogens as well as beneficial microbes. Nothing special here to see. It is the section under these that is of huge interest.
- On the colored bar-chart, which compares me to others who tested themselves, I had vastly more Actinobacteria than anyone else in the study. Actinobacteria is a common bacteria found in soil and in the human gut and is responsible for synthesizing hundreds of natural antibiotics. Bifidobacteria belongs to this Phyla.
- Also from the colored bar-chart, I had vastly less Proteobacteria than anyone else. This type includes a wide variety of pathogens such as Escheria, Salmonella, Vibrio (cholera), and h. pylori.
- From the ‘abundant and enriched’ table, you can see that my Bifidobacterium count is 11 times the test group average! Bifido, as you may recall, is the most beneficial of all gut microbes–it’s the basis of most probiotics. And I had taken absolutely no probiotic supplements except for some kefir and yogurt. Apparently, bifido liked the home I created with RS.
- Paraprevotellaceae was 10 times the average. This is a beneficial microbe who ferments plant matter into short-chain fatty acids.
- Lachnobacterium was 9 times the average. Not much is written about it, but it ferments glucose primarily to lactic acid along with minor amounts of acetic and butyric acids. So, I’ll take it!
- Also, Anaerotruncus was 6 times higher, this is another producer of butyrate and acetate.
The report also noted I had some rare types of microbes…
- Victivallaceae – A producer of acetate
- Limnobacter – A bacteria normally only found in high mountain glaciers, a tribute to my Arctic life, I suppose.
- And my favorite—because I am often thought to be a ‘slacker’—Slackia – a producer of a substance known as Equol. This is what I read about Equol:
“However, only about 30-50% of people have intestinal bacteria that make equol. Equol may have beneficial effects on the incidence of prostate cancer, bone health skin health and physiological changes during menopause, including reducing severity and frequency of hot flashes and stiffness in the neck and shoulder. Other benefits may be realized in treating male pattern baldness, acne, and other problems because it functions as a DHT blocker.”
How cool is that?
But what is almost spooky, are some remarks from a later blog we did. In the Diabetic Mashed Potatoes blog, I made these claims, that at the time, were purely speculative on my part:
“Generally speaking, though, we can say there are two basic types of gut microbes that we can impact with resistant starch: Bifido-bacteria and Entero-bacteria.
“Bifido-bacteria are the good kind. When you eat yogurt or sauerkraut for its probiotic strains of microbes, you are ingesting Bifido-bacteria. Bifido-bacteria comprise 90% of the gut bacteria of breast-fed babies, but only about 5% of adult gut flora.
“Entero-bacteria are the bad kind. Though many are harmless, some of the more well-known species are Salmonella, E. Coli, and Enterobacter, which is closely related to obesity. Some of these type of bacteria can release endotoxins and cause ‘toxic shock syndrome’. Many of these types of bacteria are also resistant to antibiotics, making them very difficult to deal with. Entero-bacteria can survive in a wide range of environments, even outside the body, and feed on many different food sources–sometimes resulting in extreme gaseous events.
“Studies such as this one have demonstrated that ingesting approximately 33g/day of resistant starch lead to major changes in gut microflora in as little as one week and at 3 weeks, Bifido-bacteria strains had increased up to 10-fold from baseline levels to almost 20% of total gut flora!”
And it’s EXACTLY what my Am Gut shows. My Actinobacteria (family containing Bifidobacteria) is about 18% of my total gut flora, and Enterobacteria (aka Proteobacteria), is a barely discernible thin line.
When I click on the links I used for those claims, I see this about these bacteria types:
“Bifidobacteria -A natural part of the bacterial flora in the human body and have a symbiotic bacteria-host relationship with humans…promotes good digestion, boosts the immune system, and produces lactic and acetic acid that controls intestinal pH. These bacteria also inhibit the growth of Candida albicans, E. coli, and other bacteria that have more pathogenic qualities than Bifidobacteria. Exert a range of beneficial health effects, including the regulation of intestinal microbial homeostasis, the inhibition of pathogens and harmful bacteria that colonize and/or infect the gut mucosa, the modulation of local and systemic immune responses, the repression of procarcinogenic enzymatic activities within the microbiota, the production of vitamins, and the bioconversion of a number of dietary compounds into bioactive molecules.”
“Enterobacteria (Proteobacteria) – Many members of this family are a normal part of the gut flora found in the intestines of humans and other animals…Some enterobacteria produce endotoxins. Endotoxins reside in the cell cytoplasm and are released when the cell dies and the cell wall disintegrates. Some members of the Enterobacteriaeceae produce endotoxins that, when released into the bloodstream following cell lysis, cause a systemic inflammatory and vasodilatory response. The most severe form of this is known as endotoxic shock, which can be rapidly fatal.”
Now, here are my wife’s results…keep in mind she eats a pretty straightforward SAD diet, has been on antibiotics nearly her whole life, and underwent a major surgery 6 months prior to sample. She has GERD and takes Nexium..She eats very few raw veggies, no fermented foods, lactose intolerant, and no extra RS. She’s thin and has good glucose regulation.
Tim’s Wife
[Editor’s note: I did not include the bar chart for Tim’s wife because it looks precisely like all those to the right of Tim in his chart above, so no real info. Hopefully, AmG improves that chart by providing higher resolution for the bottom 1/4″ that counts the most.]
Without boring you to death, here is the theme: There is absolutely no Bifidobacteria anywhere on the report. Her rare species are all pathogens, most that are normally found in the mouth and sinus and not the gut.
Peptococcaceae, is 19 times higher than the average. The link says of it:
“Carbohydrates may or may not be fermented by these organisms, which produce gas, principally CO2 and usually H2, from amino acids, or carbohydrates, or both. They are found in the mouth and in intestinal and respiratory tracts of humans and other animals; they are frequently found in normal and pathologic human female urogenital tracts.”
~~~
Thanks Tim. Alright folks, what do you make of that? While not perfect—because we don’t know what his gut flora was like before any of this, or to what extent it was changed by the PB and PHD diets vs. the addition of supplemental RS—it appears the writing is on the wall, especially integrating this. On the other hand, Tim had read enough animal and human studies on RS to predict his results, and the results confirmed that prediction. Moreover, the fact that he has higher counts of some good bacteria and lower counts of bad than anyone else in the study is pretty eye opening.
…And we don’t—yet—know what his wife’s would be were she to decide to go on a Paleo/PHD, targeting RS for some period as Tim has. Hopefully we will. You hold the world in the palm of your hands, wife of Tim 🙂 Thank you so much for allowing him to put your results out there.
So really, the gold standard would be for some folks considering going on a paleo or Perfect Health Diet who now eat pretty standard, and send off a test before starting. Do it for three months, send off another test, then begin supplementing RS a 4TBS per day for three months and send off another sample.
Any volunteers?
sootedninjas 
tatertot 
Bernhard 
Nick 
Ash Simmonds 
mckohtz
Great stuff, Tim & Richard! I will soon submit a sample.
Is it weird that I suddenly want to know what your poop looks like?
to compliment the RS, what would be the best probiotic to take to even come close to Tim’s gut flora profile.
I’ve been eating on a consistent basis full fat plain European style yogurt from Trader’s Joe. I would think that will NOT be enough.
I’m also been making my own creme fraiche (1 pint Heavy Whipping Cream + 1 tbs of yogurt)
Many have mentioned that my poop resembles that of a mountain gorilla.
@sootedninja – At the time of the sample, I had never in my entire life taken a commercial probiotic supplement, except for a very limited amount of yogurt and kefir, but was eating quite a bit of home made sauerkraut and store bought kimchee. I think if someone, such as my wife, who knows they have very poor microbial profile wanted to do something about it, they would take a variety of probiotics, especially those containing soil-based organisms and bifidobacteria. Many, like my wife, cannot tolerate milk, so yogurt is out of the question. In that case, supplements and fermented foods are your only options.
However, most of the probiotic species that live in our gut are found naturally in the environment. Eating organic fruit, minimally washed veggies, and not being too anal about handwashing shoul introduce most of the probiotics to your system. A sustained program of RS consumption will create an environment favorable to probiotic growth and crowd-out pathogens. That’s in all the studies–and displayed in my results.
Hard to think of any food more “paleo” than RS and dirt. It made up a year round base 20% of diet during human gut evolution. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=565763050175930&set=a.320702151348689.74407.235960469822858&type=1&relevant_count=1
Time for the so-called paleo/primal “experts” to put up or shut up? Paleotards would do well to start asking their self appointed gurus to start ‘splainin’ themselves?
Interesting, latest studies on RS are looking at both microbiota and gene expression. Results are what Tim predicts:
-increase in healthy gut microbial groups
-decrease in proteobacteria and potentially pathogenic microbial groups
-increased colonic and plasma SCFA
-blunted glucose, insulin, and GLP-1 response
but the gene expression is, now, the interesting stuff:
-increase energy metabolism
-better immune system regulation
In the in vivo study, that Tim links above, it is the RS4 that causes the 20-30% bifido to appear in subjects guts, I’d love to see a SAD dieter eat a bunch of fibresym bread for a week and do some before and afters. They also label Hi-maize as RS2, which is interesting. Learn something every day.
Future gut results that would be great to see:
-low carb “paleo” self-appointed “expert”
-SAD dieter + RS4
-Hadza HG
-Sardinia Blue Zone village centenarian
first off I would like to thank you again for giving me a very valid reason to bring back rice to my life. as I mentioned in a previous comment I’m Asian and I eat rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner BUT I’ve have taken that out of my diet in the last 2 years following a LC diet. Don’t get me wrong I’m still keeping LC Paleo to my lifestyle because it did wonders, now I’m tweaking that diet to include resistant starch. Not to mention bananas, sweet potatoes and beans which was always part of my Asian heritage diet.
I have my best lunch today as far as I can remember, grass fed beef, pastured eggs, plate of steamed green veggies. I always have this combo except for today….. drum roll please … it includes garlic fried rice. The first bite was the best as childhood memories came back flowing in my mind as I close my eyes chewing on that garlic fried rice remembering how I enjoy so much this food. 🙂
In regards to Probiotics, I’ll search out a good supplement for now and use it for 30 to 60 days just to kick start the process to go hand in hand with resistant starch. gotta get kimchee again, I do love this food, just kinda turned off the store kimchee looking at the ingredients full of preservatives.
As being Asian Filipino, we do use fermented fish sauce and those dirty looking fermented anchovy a lot.
Regards…..
@sootedninjas – lol I’m a potato farmer and I didn’t eat potatoes for 2 years! Crazy, huh?
@yien
After publishing this I was wondering, given the different microbiota in different parts of the planet, is that all a result of human evolution or are marked differences in human evolution and cultural norms better explained by preceding microbiotic evolution (which happens far more rapidly).
Hi Tim – This is great info… thanks for sharing…
Besides your apparently stellar microbiome, have you noticed any health gains or changes since incorporating the potato starch?
Cheers!
Meredith
Love it. What would be really cool is to see some analysis on how gut bacteria correlate with medical conditions. For example, do fat people have a deficiency in a certain microbe etc. You could then test the same people after they have repopulated their butts with good microbes.
BTW Tim, did you just get the $99 package?
I’d love to see Sisson, Devany and Moore’s profiles.
Do you send in a whole turd or just a sample?
What are the implications of eating RS if you have tested positive for SIBO? It is “not allowed” on any SIBO diets like SCD or Cedar-Sinai diet. If you have a low motility, a factor in SIBO, what effect might the RS have in the SI?
FYI,
I was VLC for a year and when I saw that post in April I hopped on the wagon, off the wagon then back on for good. I wanted to see the effects first hand.
I do not sample blood or anything like that. My body is real sensitive as I have pretty nasty arthritis and psoriasis. I am like the canary in a mine. If I get my hands on something disagreeable I will know within 24 hours.
It did not make things worse, in fact I have a better general over all feeling of well being. Better sleep. Never really feel hungry more of a need to eat as body wants the food. Not a stomach grumble. My skin feels great and my friends seriously wonder what I have done as my fine wrinkles are all but gone.
I do a few things to amend the PS. I toss in a pure sulfur mix as well some powdered Vit C. Adds to the flavor. I also mix in an egg yolk or two on occasion plus raw milk kefir. I do those on heavy work out days.
I do sweet potatoes as well and greenish bananas. I peel and then slice the sweet pots in to 3/8 slices. Boil them to death and then toss the slices in to the fridge for at least 24 hours. When I eat them I toss some raw unfiltered honey on them and a bath that with coconut butter and a dash of nutmeg or ginger.
I am making weekly strength and endurance gains so I know I am good on my protocol.
n=1
if you listen very carefully to the feedback of what your body is telling you THEN you will know exactly what to do. gut feeling. pun intended 🙂
@bornagain – This was the $99 test. There are a couple others, I may do a more expensive test next time if it shows a more complete profile. You just have to send in a q-tip swiped across some used TP. It’s a really easy collection procedure, not gross at all.
@Jan – I think RS is a non-issue in SIBO, except that it probably helps cure it. I’d like to make these points:
1. RS has the proven ability to ‘mop up’ stray bacteria–good and bad.
2. It takes upwards of 4 hours for RS eating bacteria to begin digesting (fermenting) RS. Food does not stay in the small intestine that long.
3. The digestion (fermentation) of RS is a 2 or 3 step process involving several different bacteria, the chance that all of these different co-feeders are present in the small intestine is improbable.
4. SIBO is a problem of total gut dysfunction more so than simply a bit of bacteria growing out of place. By the time SIBO can occur, lots of damage has been done. Step 1 needs to be overall healing, not removing the one thing (RS) that offers a complete recovery.
When I started supplementing potato starch 10 months ago, I no doubt had SIBO, though undiagnosed. I had bouts of heartburn and indigestion I self-treated with low-carb and Tums. The potato starch caused me absolutely no discomfort and I now eat lots of carbs with no problems. I have not had any indigestion or heartburn pretty much since day 1 of supplementing potato starch.
Tatertot, I see your comments now and then and find your input intelligent and optimistic. Thanks!
Jan
I am am open to the possibility that SIBO is a fake disease. Just as for myself, GERD was absolutely not too low of stomach acid (it is way high, and the only thing that will kill it is a teaspoon of baking soda with massive burps). But it’s typically grains and other processed food that does that, in company with alcohol. Stop that, no probs.
I don’t really believe in SIBO and have seen little to nothing to convince me that’s it’s not just a disease to ‘explain’ what has up to this point unexplainable and now is. I don’t think we’re broken such that it requires dozens of tests and interventions.
Very informative post, thank you!
I have been eating paleo for maybe 4 years now, and look forward to adding in RS!
Richard,
Culture has many influences? However, a good test would be to put the paleo-sphere on some SBOs and RS and see if the collective “paleo” culture becomes more wiser, happier and peaceful. It could hardly go further in the other direction?
Verrrry interesting, Tim. And I will definitely take that test as well. I’ve been religiously doing potato starch for what, three months now? Or maybe a little more. The difference in sleep is the most dramatic. I actually gained a few pounds, but I’m pretty sure it’s muscle, as my strength is increasing, and my pants still fit ;=)
The sleep thing is amazing though. I sleep much more deeply and straight through most nights. If I have to get up to pee (I am 62 after all) I can barely keep my eyes open afterwards and fall right back to sleep. I used to have to read for 20-30 minutes to fall asleep again. I have to think it has something to do with cortisol, with that cortisol boost now being unnecessary because enough SCFA is being produced. At least that’s a guess.
Blood sugar is still stable, but it never really was an issue. Gut stuff in general is good. As I said before, thanks to Tim and Richard for pumping this so hard. I’m convinced it’s important. I also imagine it will peel away one layer of evolutionary intelligence, and we’ll run up against another. But that’s the fun of this kind of science.
Congrats to Tatertot and Richard for going out on a limb with this one. You’ve helped more people than you realize.
By the way, have you guys watched the latest TED Talk that was posted this month about the evolution of the human brain?
A group of researchers examined the data of why “cooking” foods allowed our primate ancestors to leap beyond other primates and develop an advanced high-neuron, and high energy brain and cortex.
A must watch for those who are curious as to what cooking did for our species and our brains:
http://www.ted.com/talks/suzana_herculano_houzel_what_is_so_special_about_the_human_brain.html
It makes me wonder when RS became a major component of our ancestral diet.
I just wanted to add some input regarding SIBO and RS. I have SIBO/fructose malabsorbtion/Fodmap intolerances. I am coming from a longtime vegetarian and then vegan diet to about 5 months of a vlc paleo diet. The only starch I was eating during this time was green peas and I never ate more than 200 grams of peas a week I ate about 75 grams of vlc vegetables and 3/4 pound of meat and 70ish % calories from fat daily during this period.
About a month ago I added white potatoes to my diet and noticed an immediate improvement in body composition and energy levels. I went from 5’7 145 pounds to 138 pounds while eating an average of 150 grams of potatoes everyday in the first 2 weeks while keeping my intake of low carb vegetables, and meat the same while adding more fat. I also started to eat potato starch during this time although not everyday. The potato starch definitely did not make sibo or any of my conditions worse but I can not say I noticed any benifit from the potato starch. Although, I was cooking all of my potatoes in ways which yield higher amounts of RS as per the advice on this blog. The last 2 weeks I have substituted white rice for potatoes and lowered my intake to around 100 grams starch/day as something about the potatoes was bothering me although I don’t think they were feeding sibo. I have usually been freezing rice after I cook it and then eating it as fried rice. During these 2 weeks I have also been eating 2-4 tbs potato starch everyday. I still can not really attribute anything to the potato starch, haven’t had any farting episodes, but I plan to continue eating it for the next couple of months and if you also have sibo definitely do not avoid RS or starch in general. I cant say the RS helped but it definitely didn’t hurt any of my conditions and i’ve only had improvements from adding starch/RS to my diet.
@Richard Nikoley, I’m inclined to agree. I have been LCP for two years and then added white rice, per PHD, felt much better. However, a low absorption of nutrients from my nutrient-dense diet persisted. I had no other gastro symptoms. Told I have a mild SIBO case due to an increase in hydrogen on the lactulose breath test. Methane was low. I was told no sugar or starches and low residue diet. Out here looking for answers trying to heal my gut! Thanks.
@tatertot I read your posts on RS, recently and I had Bob’s PS on the shelf. Added it to the pumpkin pie recipe yesterday. Thanks for the list of benefits. I’m going to continue raising my intake. I do have gut dysfunction that is the root cause of a chronic health issue. So, RS is definitely worth trying. I did find PS online, that is unmodified and certified organic (Abe’s Market-free shipping). Reading all the info I can, thanks!
DuckDodgers, remember that PS and many other RS types are raw vegetable starches in powder form. Cooking would diminish the RS content (although subsequent freezing would restore some). So the cooking argument does not really seem to apply to RS. It applies to meats, legumes, and grains, however.
I am in for the experiment! I sent my sample to American Gut a few months ago while i had severe gut issues, sibo confirmed by breath test. I just started the RS routine with some prescript assist. So far so good, seem hungrier than ever and am ready to double my amount. Do you think 3 months is enough time? I also started bovine colostrum and VSL#3 to speed gut healing.
Just wondering how your progress has been Ann. I have very similar issues and have just started Prescript assist and RS. I’m wondering how long it will take to heal. Have you “healed” yet?
Renee
I am sorry to report that i started getting joint pain in my hands especially but other joints as well. Joint pain was never one of my issues so decided to stop the potato starch to see if it was nightshade related. After a week or so, the pain started going away and now is pretty much gone except in my left thumb! So, i have been eating the plantain chips and rice and still taking the psyllium husk at night along with the prescript assist. I should also add that the SIBO symptoms were gone before i started this. I got off track with the holidays so am recovering from that (chocolate). I should say i travelled form a week and ate at restaurants almost nightly and did OK. Hang in there!
Ann, I am having similar issues like you in my left knuckle I believe are from PS. It is strange because I never had any nightshade allergies that I know of my entire life and now this. I have been hoping that my system would get used to it by now and the pain would go away but it hasn’t happened in the 2+ months so far.
It would be a bummer if I am forced off PS because I love the results so much. I have not tried plantain flour so far and I hope it will work for me and the benefits will be similar to PS. I still have a lot of PS left in my pantry so I will continue to take it since the pain is manageable except when I do pull-ups where I have to give up much short of my max limit.
T-Nat
T Nat,
Why risk making it worse and possibly irreversible?
Give the plantain flour a try.
T-Nat
Could you consider to add Natto as well?
“Natto is rich in vitamin K. It contains large amounts of vitamin K2, which is involved in the formation of calcium-binding groups in proteins, assisting the formation of bone and preventing osteoporosis. Vitamin K1 is found naturally in leafy greens, seaweed, liver, and some vegetables, while vitamin K2 (Menatetrenone) is found in fermented food products such as cheese, miso, and Nattō.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natt%C5%8D#Health_benefits
Peace.
Are you highly allergic to sulfites? They are apparently present at the Bob’s RM plant, though not an ingredient of the product: http://www.allergyfreegirl.com/products/bobs-red-mill-potato-starch-24oz
Tim, I am actually going to try Vitamin K2 and continue on PS for some more time before totally giving up on it. I read about the osteoarthritis and K2 connection(benefits) here at FTA a couple of days ago. I already knew about how K2 acts as a traffic cop for calcium absorption and it now makes sense about the arthritis connection. Any suggestions on a brand?
Another option like you suggested would be Nattokinase and/or Serropeptase.
T-Nat
Phil, I don’t think I am allergic to sulfites as I am a regular red wine drinker and it has not been a problem.
T-Nat
Also @Paleophil, is there a proven link between sulfites and joint pain/arthritis? If so, is it only sulfites or any sulfur compound? The reason I ask is because I also take MSM (organic sulfur) although I am pretty sure the knuckle pain started before I went on MSM.
T-Nat
I haven’t heard of a link between sulfites and joint pain. I just coincidentally had read about the sulfite issue and mentioned it in case it might be an issue. Some studies suggested that MSM is actually helpful for arthritis when glucosamine and chondroitin are consumed with it, IIRC.
Why don’t you mix and match potato starch with plantain flour. Can you get Maize starch as well? Use all 3 by using potato starch one, plantain flour the next and Maize starch the 3rd day.
I am trying to incorporate as many starch sorts as possible, because fixating on only one will cause problems again further down the line.
Let’s face it, it was our one-sided diet that got us where we are today, so varying our RS sorts can only benefit our gut flora.
Ha! We came up with that idea in like the very first post. just haven’t talked about it much. I think these starches all make a great mix:
Potato, tapioca, plantain flour, mung bean, and maybe even buckwheat flour and rice flour.
Besides that, also eat beans, rice, spuds, sweet potatoes, yams, plantains, taro, cassava, and any other starchy tuber you can find and learn to cook with. There are lots of good ones, just not many of us are familiar with them.
Tim, do you have any recommended commercial probiotic formulations? Preferably with iHerb link. And if you could comment as to why you like it, that’d be greatly appreciated 🙂
Nick – iHerb has good stuff if you got the money. The only probiotic I have ever bought online is iHerb Probiotic-3 which has 3 strains of soil-based organisms. I also have a bottle of Phillips ‘Colon Health’ which has two bifido strains and a lacto strain.
If you want to buy the best, get the one that has the most separate strains of bifido and lacto. If you want to really diversify your gut, get one that contains several SBO’s. If you are immune system compromised, stay away from SBOs.
Eat lots of fermented food, too.
Maybe Dr. BG can answer better.
Tim
Nick~
Seriously I think you should stand in line to lick either Richard’s or Tim’s butt for the best probiotics!
Have you heard of the new pharmaceutical invention of poop pills? They are sourced from healthy babies I heard but why not the healthiest Am Gut donors?
I’d concur with the brands mentioned here on this thread — I like C butyricum because combined with resistant starch one study showed there is significant reduction in colon rectal cancer risk, whereas RS alone or probiotic alone were not in toxin-rodent models. When fed and populating the gut, C butyricum will cum and FLOOD YOUR RECTUM WITH COMBINED ACETATE, PROPIONATE AND BUTYRATE. 😉
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14695445
http://www.iherb.com/Advanced-Orthomolecular-Research-AOR-Advanced-Series-Probiotic-3-Natural-Probiotic-Formula-90-Veggie-Caps/43463
In another study with RS feeding the authors said “It is also feasible that although total numbers of clostridia in the gut were not significantly affected by CrystaLean, the resistant starch diet may have favoured certain species, such as Clostridium butyricum, which exhibit enhanced butyric acid production compared with other species.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2672.1999.00696.x/full
“Clostridium butyricum, an enterobacterium, produces high
levels of short chain fatty acids that have been reported to
be important in intestinal physiology. Two studies have
been reported in rodents, to examine the effect of this
microorganism. In the first, a C. butyricum derivative was
tested in a DSS-colitis model successfully [121], while
Okamoto et al.studied the M588 strain and demonstrated
that it attenuated intestinal inflammation and suggested
that oral administration of C. butyricum may be useful
instead of butyrate enema in the treatment of UC [122].”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2291386/pdf/bcp0065-0453.pdf
As for MSM.
I’ve had extreme chronic pain for about 2 decades now (CFS/ME, Fibro, neuropathy, MCS, bone pain) and in my experience, 5ml of MSM (1 teaspoon) gives me the same pain relief as an ENDONE does.
There are quite a few things VERY good for pain relief that do not come from a pharmaceutical company (damiana, tribulous, threonine, GABA, Brahmi, Schisandra, Mucuna, Circumin)… and instead of knowing about these other choices (most of which work better and are safer), they only know about the opiates (which of course they refuse to give you) and the NSAIDS (which destroy the liver).
I have extreme tooth decay (started rapidly after having perfect teeth until 15 year ago when I got CFS/FMS/MCS) and guess what? One of the (many) amino acids people with Fibro/CFS are low in is “Threonine”. It just ha[[ens that “Threonine” (aside from making your muscles relax) is needed to make *any* tooth enamel. No great wonder that people with CFS/MCS suddenly have terrible teeth – the can’t make tooth enamel.
Incidentally, CFS/FMS *definitely* cross over into SIBO territory. Prescript Assist has done wonders for my wife’s pain issues, and when you have the wrong flora in the gut, you wind up with a pro-inflammatory system, and unable to absorb the amino acids that are needed for health (my health issues started right after a large scale exposure to RoundUp/Glyphosphate – which kills off healthy gut flora)
Mind you low Threonine has been known as too low in people with FMS/CFS since the early to mid 1980s, and yet NOBODY (not even the specialists) bother to tell their FMS/CFS patients to supplement Threonine in order to keep their teeth (idiots).
But then the same docs and dentists, when PRESENTED with facts concering Threonine and the fact that their patients have terrible teeth (and that SIBI often comes with bad teeth) – they just disregard the science they have been handed, and *instead* continue to blame their patients for their own bad teeth (their eating habits and oral hygiene) … blaming them for the fact that their teeth break off when eating soft white rice, when they did not do that in the past.
I wish that more than 5% to 10% of doctors were actual scientists… but they are not. Some surveys put that at 2%.
More and more I believe that the FIRST degree a doc/dentist needs to have before moving on to medication/dental school, is a BARE MINIMUM of a masters in premed/biochemistry, so that they are not idiots… with a strong accent on the ‘scientific method’.
Guess I am just tired of mentioning body parts (liver detox pathways, etc) to my doctor and getting a ‘blank stare’ because they have no idea what the cytochrome P450 system is, or what the Temporal lobes are, or the white matter in the prefrontal cortex.
How do these people manage to graduate? My degrees are all in I.T. & accounting and yet I know more than than they do about medical topics (which scares me).
In response to “Sulphites” and bad/painful reactions.
Not all reactions that are (highly) unpleasant, arethere to tell you that a thing “should not” be taken by you.
Sulphites are natural detoxification items. If a person has a high “body burden” of poisons (perhaps due to where you lived as a child… which is my problem) … then raising up the amount of natural sulphur in your diet (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, MSM) will cause you to have a very unpleasant “healing crisis” (herxheimer reaction) and feel sick.
This does not mean you should never have that item in your diet, it just means you can’t handle a lot of it all at once. It needs to be a very slow increase.
For Example :
It is quite common for people who have “Multiple Chemical Sensitivity” to have a very high “body burden” and therefore need to be *VERY* careful when they add in detoxifiers like : Milk Thistle, Noni Juice, MSM, L-Glutamine, nebulized Glutathion, B12, etc. When my wife started on Dr Pall’s protocol for MCS (which works by the way) she had to use very tiny amounts of nebulized glutathione (etc) when she started out… because her detoxification pathways were not able to handle high doses.
MSM decreases joint pain and allergies. However if a person has a high toxic load then they CAN have a “herxheimer reaction” to the sudden increase in natural sulphur. Any increase in detoxifiers can cause a person to feel bad, because they are dumping more poison than they can process. The answer (normally) is to lower your dose, and start with more caution.
@DuckDodgers IDK, something does NOT jive BUT I can’t pinpoint why. our primate ancestors prolly did not cook everyday. they be lucky to eat everyday. it’s more likely what we ate and not because we cook.
“To review the problem for low carbers: Sorry low carbers, your microbiome is just not that into you, by Jeff Leach”
I think Leach is doing great things, this article isn’t one of them.
The headline act is touting stuff about “low carb” but then it’s mostly about fiber and resistant starch? Both of which you can get plenty of on LC – the question in the end is, should you…?
From: http://www.reddit.com/r/keto/comments/1h6ibk/great_study_on_gut_bacteria_and_potential_lchf/
||As fermentation drops, so to does the byproducts of fermentation which include short chain fatty acids (primarily acetate, butyrate, propionate), organic acids, and gases like hydrogen.
|
|Funny that you can get butyrate from butter. The Prevotella bacteria (the bad guys) produce hydrogen and you don’t want that. It’s a major cause of GERD.
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||less acidic environment means acid sensitive groups of bacteria, like those in the Phylum Proteobacteria, which includes a who’s who of bad guys like strains of E. Coli, Salmonella, Vibrio, Helicobacter, might bloom – not a good thing
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|Those bacteria feed of sugars, especially refined sugars. Stomach acid pH is lowered by eating a low starch diet, so I wouldn’t be too concerned with killing the bacteria.
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||A bit of a paradox in all of this is the increased likelihood that a low carb microbial community will most certainly lead to increased gut permeability…
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|Actually, he’s right. Ironically, your gut needs some irritation or it will stop producing as much mucus, so veggies help with that.
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||In addition, as pH shifts away from acidic, the genus Bacteroides can also bloom as well, gaining an ecological niche in this less acidic environment courtesy of a low carb diet. For those of you keeping score, many talk about the American gut in general being dominated by Bacteroides as a function of our high fat, high sugar diet.
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|You want your gut to be dominated by Bacteroides. It’s when it’s dominated by Prevotella that you have a problem.
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|A chart on how to grow different bacteria
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|http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3368382/figure/F1/
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|The biggest issue I have with that article is the pathetic correlation between BMI and % fat from calories. When you have a 40 point variation in BMI at a single % fat (that is in the middle of your data) and an R2 of 0.07, you have no correlation.
And here: http://www.reddit.com/r/keto/comments/1rjaym/science_keto_bad_for_gut_fauna/
|It’s all speculation.
|
|The lynchpin of the whole hypothesis seems to be a rise in pH (less acidic) on low carb which could lead to increases in bad bacteria like E. coli:
|
||A less acidic environment means acid sensitive groups of bacteria, like those in the Phylum Proteobacteria, which includes a who’s who of bad guys like strains of E. Coli, Salmonella, Vibrio, Helicobacter, might bloom – not a good thing.
|
|But studies on low carb say no change in pH and no increase in E. coli:
|
||Faecal form, pH, ammonia concentration and numbers of coliforms and Escherichia coli did not change with either diet.
||
||Brinkworth GD, et al. “Comparative effects of very low-carbohydrate, high-fat and high-carbohydrate, low-fat weight-loss diets on bowel habit and faecal short-chain fatty acids and bacterial populations.” – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19224658
I think the whole RS thing is interesting, also far and away a healthier option than the average refined carb diet, but the evidence that you’re better off with it as opposed to not eating starch at all is simply not compelling.
BTW, sold my Lotus 111R yesterday. 🙁
“the evidence that you’re better off with it as opposed to not eating starch at all is simply not compelling.”
I agree, I never want to improve; systemic immunity response, colon cancer risk factors, resistance to disease, colonic and plasma SCFA, glucose response, blood pressure regulation, insulin response, mineral absorption, leptin regulation, and decrease pathogens. Not even once.
Thanks Richard and Tatertot Tim for all the work you did on resistant starch, including all the criticism you put up with. The results have been outstanding for you and me and many others. You’ve helped reveal a big missing piece in the Paleo puzzle.
Is there a link to an article about what your Resistant Starch Diet looks like?