Inevitably, critiques of resistant starch are beginning to show up here and there. This is a good thing. Everyone—and I mean: EVERYONE—is highly biased, cherry pics, etc. The myth of objectivity exists merely to give the impression that scientists are somehow above or more trustworthy than any regular dude or dudess who experiments. All humans navigating a life experiment all the time, and since such experiments have actual application to their everyday lives, they are often doing the most valid, objective science that exists.
Still, everyone is biased, everyone lies to themselves.
So, I will be happy to help get the word out on critiques of resistant starch provided the following points are in some way acknowledged in those critiques:
- There exists an impressive number (hundreds at this point) of positive n=1 anecdotes covering a variety of beneficial outcomes, such as improved blood glucose regulation, improved bathroom habits, improved sleep and even slow natural weight loss.
- There are no reports of objective harm to anyone.
- While we desire to understand all of this better, discover what’s real vs. myth, etc., it seems reasonable to conclude that no matter what the underlying dynamics, this is obviously helping a lot of people in a lot of ways while doing no harm. Accordingly, “wait until the science is in” warnings do not seem justified and people are likely on very safe footing experimenting with it.
That is all.
The critics are just jealous Richard, that you and Tater Tot actually found a harmless natural food substance that has already helped many Diabetics “naturally” better control their BG. A $5.00 bag of Potato Starch is a small price to pay for BG control. Shoot,,,,,Potato Starch is SO popular now….you and TT have single handily created a demand that has influced the price increase…. I think we are in the top of the 1st inning with RS…. I’m betting you’ll start seeing some cholesterol improvements as RS starts healing the gut… KEEP blazing a trail my friend. RS has the left the station…. ALL ABOARD!?!?!
OH,,,,,one more thing….it actually doesn’t taste bad, even in water. I like the taste!
Apparently it’s pretty well known that Probiotics and Prebiotics help lower cholesterol. This study even mentions resistant starch a few times.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2904929/pdf/ijms-11-02499.pdf
Richard, thanks for all your insights. I could not find Bob’s Red Mill locally – I ordered it online but it’s not here yet.
So today I purchased Streits Kosher Potato Starch. Do you think I could use this for now instead? I don’t like to play game with my glucose but this seems so promising…
Good one.
What I find so funny about all this is that with so many other things we try, ie. Paleo Diet, IF’ing, maintaining a high ldl cholesterol, etc… are not found in studies, just anecdotal reports and N=1s. With RS, it has been just the opposite–hundreds and hundreds of studies saying what it can do for us, but nobody was trying it, so no anecdotal evidence of N=1s.
Now we have both–studies AND personal reports.
“wait until the science is in” = I can’t think for myself and therefore prefer deferring to a higher authority.
also, it is so easy to do this n=1.
I’m sure everyone here is probably guilty of eating worst than 4tbs of potato starch.
science might take years to catch up. with how long it takes for funding, testing, peer review and result to published.
@Wendy
No idea, but I’d guess probably. Only sure way to test is to administer 4TBS with water on an empty stomach and check your BG over 2 hours. If pure PS, you should get nothing but normal fluctuations from your baseline.
If you do that, let us know. Always good to add new sources to the mix.
So I took 2 tbs. My blood was already high – 135! For no good reason. Shot up to 150 right after consumption. In 15 minutes was back down to 135. In 30 minutes down to 125. In another 15 minutes it is at 112. So…Wow.
My pooch is now in. So far nothing posive to report . But nothing negative either.
Will only know if it has helped her after several months because the digestive problem I am trying to clear is rather sporadic. But I was willing to experiment on her because as you say in your post there have been no reports of harm and the only thing the vet had to offer was long term (as in forever!) antibiotics
Wendy, that’s similar to my test with a non-BRM PS. There wsa a glycemic response. But I can’t tell whether it was significant, as it was momentary. If the response is that small, I’d tend to think it is RS2 but who knows.
To be sure, I’d do another test when you’re at a stable fasting level, i.e., 80-95 or whatever your stable FBG is.
“wait until the science is in”
The science IS in–hundreds of studies; many more than have been done on low carb or Paleo–and it’s overwhelmingly positive about resistant starch.
These Pubmed searches don’t give a precisely accurate picture, but they do give a rough idea of where the science has been done:
Search term / link / number of hits
—————————————————
“resistant starch” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%22resistant+starch%22 766
“Paleolithic diet” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%22paleolithic+diet%22 30
“low carb diet” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%22low+carb+diet%22 14
Everyone’s biased… except, of course, Richard Nikoley, when he claims that everyone’s biased. That is the one fact, apparently, that can be objectively known.
Since many claim that RS raises their body temps, we can officially throw Matt Stone under the bus with these discoveries, too.
Matt promotoes a diet high in salt, sugar, saturated fat and starch (mostly white flour, not RS). With practically no empirical evidence, he claims this raises your temperature, which is supposedly the Holy Grail of health indicators.
Of course Matt’s approach is appealing to many: load up on ice cream, pretzels, Hershey bars, juice, soft drinks, pizza, pasta, etc. The only thing you have to cut out is excessive water consumption. Not surprisingly, many report large weight gains as a result. But they think high temps are worth it and believe the weight will come off in some distant day. It looks like potato starch may do the temperature-raising trick instead, but eating junk food is a lot more fun I suppose.
Eating real food + RS supplementation >>>>> “Eat for Heat,” “180 Degree Metabolism” or any other gimmicks.
I wonder if Matt has dealt with those actually suffering from primary or secondary Raynaud’s. I can imagine his High Everything Diet fixing low core body temperature. I’m not so sure about cold fingers and toes, however.
I have some questions about this whole RS thing. I started taking it help deal with dyshidrosis (which paleo helped somewhat with) which it has. However, I still have gas. Badass gas. the kind that is not even funny to joke about. I have been doing it for about three weeks now and there are numerous benefits as well as draw backs. Benefits 1)the aforementied healing of dyshidrosis, 2)I can drink way more coffee without getting strung out (which is awesome cause I love coffee), 3) I know this is TMI, but better erections,. The drawbacks have been 1)Just killer gas, the kind they could make a horror movie about, 2)A kind of perpetual low grade heart burn, 3)Less easy to pass BM’s. I have taken it numerous ways (with warm water, cold water, kefir, yorgurt, kefir mixed with raw honey, and finally mixed kefir and left out to ferment for a couple of days) but have only used Bob’s mill potato starch thus far. Any tips or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Just wondered why people are buying readymade.
With a blender and grating blade it takes 10 minutes to make a week’s worth and clear up?
Fred, What do you do with the grated potato bits that are left over after you extract the starch?
Paleophil
Store them in a dish, cover with water – in the fridge.
When you require potatoes in a meal dry them off a bit salt them then fry them in coconut oil or tallow as hash browns in a small cast iron pan.
What is BRM?
Did another N=1 experiment today. Blood was 100 fasting, 120 after coffee. Too high. SO I took the RS and blood shot up to 150 within 15 minutes. Tested every 15 or so from then on – 2 hours later 155. Five hours 125.
Not good. What am I doing wrong?
@wendy
If you don’t know what BRM is then what RS are you taking ? What form ? How did you consume the RS ?
Also, read in detail the blog post and the links posted on that blog post. Spend a day or 2 reading all the pertinent information. Once you understand the protocol then you will find that it is very easy to follow.
A Resistant Starch Primer For Newbies
https://freetheanimal.com/2013/12/resistant-primer-newbies.html
I’ve been having great RS results with Mt Uncle’s Banana Flour – http://www.bananaflour.com.au/. According to Mt Uncle’s website “Mt Uncle’s Banana Flour is a resistant starch, there is only a small group of foods that are RS2”.
Goes great in kefir smoothies.
I have read all the posts. I get lost in acronyms. I ate Kosher PS.
And – in my world – answering a question is a simple way of answering a question. Referring a person back to three thousand threads does not advance knowledge.
well guess what, you are not in your world.
BRM = Bob’s Red Mill
that’s simple isn’t ? I mean it might sound mean BUT BRM and Bob’s Red Mill have been mentioned all over the blog post that if you have read the blog posts there is no way that you have missed it.
Well I have started trying this. Two tablespoons of Bob’s Red Mill a day so far (it’s been a week).
In the first 24 hours I noticed something unexpected – my craving for diet soda disappeared. Very odd. I normally drink those things like water. Now I can take them or leave them.
Probably not an effect most paleo types will notice since they don’t drink anything as unnatural as diet soda. But there it is.
OH Thank you very much.
\
And in fact, I did miss it, given all the acronyms we all use all the time. Sorry to be an idiot.
One more thing: I read more than this blog, and people make up more stupid acronyms than one could imagine…
your welcome
and acronyms are cheap price to pay considering it has help a lot of people health wise NOT to mention the diabetics testimonials on how there blood glucose stabilized. so yeah I’m more than willing to read more about the acronyms and figure out what they are talking about so that I can be healthy.
@Neil
And of course all the N=1’s are generally worthless until they’ve been scientifically analysed.
Itsthewoo had a good sceptical post – an informed ramble making the point that bad gut flora is a symptom, not a cause, and that vinegar is the solution:
http://itsthewooo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/gi-dysbiosis-is-largely-reactive-to.html
Wendy, Streit’s does not label their potato starch as “unmodified,” . Given that and the fact that it spiked your BG, I’ll bet that it’s heated and thus fairly low in resistant starch. I would stick with Bob’s Red Mill or Frontier organic potato starch until someone reports that another one is truly sufficiently raw or low-heated to contain plenty of RS.
Paleophil, you may very well be right about the heating. I am waiting on a shipment of BRM (LOL!!!) right now. We’ll see.
@shtove,
you can wait for another 10 years for the science to catch up with what we are doing here
OR
You can spend a princely sum of $10 on BRM and do your own experiment for a couple of months to see how you feel. n=1’s might be worthless, but if it only costs you $10 and 2 months of experimentation for potentially HUGE benefits, you’d be quite dumb not to try it. Especially after 100’s have posted their positive results. Like it has been mentioned a numerous times here, PS is not a holy grail to cure all your illnesses. But it does have the potential to fix a lot of health issues caused by bad diet. The choice is yours.
In case you didn’t notice, Richard is not selling any proprietary stuff here. He is providing a sandbox for a lot of folk to feed one off each other. And his, Tatertot’s, Grace’s and a lot of other posters’ wisdom is not something you can get for free anywhere elsewhere.
Feel free to flame away…
T-Nat
Wendy, your second blood testing is pretty much meaningless since you drank coffee, saw your BG rise, then took RS. That rise from 120 to 150 is the only meaningful reading. There is a glycemic response but that may be reflecting what was in your coffee (sugar/milk/cream/cocoa), too. The readings 2 and 5 hours later are meaningless. RS’s impact isn’t that long-standing. I’ve now tested with different Asian brands and they all have a similar trend. A 15-25% BG response in 15 minutes but back to the baseline by 30 minutes.
I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss your kosher PS as non-RS. In fact, I’m gonna purchase one and test it myself.
My ex, who eats mostly LC, has both really bad periodontal problems (chronic) as well as Raynaud’s, (though otherwise she’s in great health with great lab numbers). But those two things together lead me to believe there are some gut biome issues going on. So I’ve talked her into trying the potato starch to see if it would help with either of those problems. She grew up on the 16th floor of an apartment in Manhattan, and her mother was a complete clean freak, so she probably got nothing in the way of dirt bacteria as a child. She has always slept incredibly well, and has great dreams, so that won’t change. But this should be an interesting experiment. Especially given that she doesn’t need whatever RS does for sleep and dreaming…
Charles,
Spanish Caravan has talked a lot about Raynaud’s — check out our previous discussions. He’s a brilliant dude~!! LUV HIM 😉
https://freetheanimal.com/2013/12/comments-resistant-fodmaps.html#comments
I believe if someone is ill, from my experiences, they need a full spectrum of fiber + SBO probiotics for the best and most optimal outcomes because the studies show otherwise that RS only does do much for those who lack gut commensals as well as have been on any course of antibiotics. I posted this elsewhere here. Hyperhygiene is everyone’s problem!
https://freetheanimal.com/2013/12/resistant-primer-newbies.html#comment-549860
(1) RS alone in commensal-free animals (see ‘germ-free’ on that post) doesn’t do shit.
RS + probiotics (or dirt) however works but not in every study, particularly human. We are complex (or really GI f*kcered). Feeding empty zoo cages goes nowhere. Feeding viper-filled zoo cages doesn’t go anywhere either! Yes pathogens will ‘ride’ RS granules but they can only ride so much once they are tenaciously attached and feeding well in the long long long 25 – 32 feet long small intestines!
These are human animals post-antibiotic, which is everybody nearly on earth unless you’ve been antibiotic free for substantial time and eating dirt dirt dirt… Also “In contrast, the probiotics provided no protection when a low resistant starch diet was fed and the resistant starch had no protective response in the absence of the probiotic [35].”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2743755/pdf/nihms124363.pdf
(2) RS alone without NSP doesn’t do shit.
Sorry VLC or Paleo sans RS-rich whole grains/tubers trying to add PS only… I don’t think it will work IMHO. A case of a male’s metastatic colon cancer has already been strong and clear evidence to me… VLC + potato starch = more metastates (no cure like below studies where FOS/NSP are missing or insufficient).
NSP = soluble and insoluble fiber, eg whole soaked gluten free grains, tubers, roots, vegs) RS + NSP has synergy to protect against inflammation that leads to colon tumorigenesis
http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/5/713.full
(3) RS alone without FOS doesn’t do shit.
RS + FOS, combination, however maintains Bifido or Lacto species in the gut microbiota whereas either alone results in immediate decline in Bifido and Lacto species in one pig trial.
http://aem.asm.org/content/72/5/3593.full%E2%80%8E
FOS = fructo oligosaccharides — eg onions, leeks, chicory, artichoke, veggies, FODMAPS, etc…
I wouldn’t do inulin or pharmaceutical FOS as these are linked to polyps and cancer in a number of trials.
“An interesting observation from the feeding trials in
pigs is that FOS and RS maintain colonisation in pigs when
probiotic consumption ceases. Thus, in animals fed the
control diet faecal bifidobacteria numbers declined rapidly
after withdrawal of the probiotic, but the decline was much
slower in those fed the FOS or RS. When FOS and RS were
consumed together, there was no decline in faecal numbers.”
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPNS%2FPNS62_01%2FS0029665103000260a.pdf&code=3d9de51496e6048001f7ea49a2a202a6
Ellen,
If you are using resistant starch on dogs be careful. It HAS been looked at and is not beneficial for dogs, in fact they had to abandon the study for large dogs because it made them seriously ill.
Full text should be available here:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8404243
I have a particular interest in dog food as I own a dog food business, which is why I was aware of this study.
@mike ede:
What’s your opinion on this very recent study where RS is beneficial for obese dogs?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24228912/
Mike,
Thanks for that. I could only get the abstract. But it looks like this was in the context of a dry kibble , which I think would be very different from a diet of raw bones, organs, kefir, yogurt , veg etc. that my girl has been eating. So I question whether that trial is definitive…..
@SpanishCaravan, so you are saying I should be taking it on a completely empty stomach? I’ve seen people that they are taking it before meals (during the day) which implies they’ve eaten SOMETHING that day, right? Or not right?
Oh my after coffee readings, btw, are two hours after I first drink coffee. Normally I go up 20 points from 85.
Yesterday I started at 100, rose to 135. I took the 135 reading at 11am, ate the PS and saw the bg shoot to 150 and stay close to there for five hours (this was the second trial.)
After a drink of alcohol that evening, it dropped 20 points. This AM fbg was 95.
I will try it again tomorrow on an empty stomach, since I’ve already had coffee today.
@Mike / Ellen
Interesting. I’ve been giving my 2 Rat Terriers PS and Plantain flour (about 1 tsp of either/both in combo) most meals/days. My older one, a male, is an EPI dog and has been on porcine pancreas powder for about 3 years.
However, he’s hardly even a dog anymore. Sure, he gained back his weight, but the stuff makes him drink water like crazy, pee like crazy, etc. Anyway, since we figured he’s in a ‘last days’ state anyway, we stopped the meds a few days ago and now he gets the PS/PF in every meal. Stools are excellent, he’s more alert and relaxed that we’ve seen him in years, he drinks normally and plays again.
It’s only been a few days off the meds (but I’ve been ginning him some PS/PF for a good while now). We’ll be looking for any weight loss or degradation in stool quality. Incidentally, even on the meds, his stools were pretty lousy and too much volume. Since I began giving him the RS, they normalized, which is why I got the idea to take him off the meds (the pig pancreas) reasoning that since RS is obviously having a pancreas effect with the BG control and such, perhaps feeding the gut bugs helps kick it into gear so he produces his own digestive enzymes.
We’ll see. I think I’m also going to bake, cut up potatoes, keep em in the fridge and add some of those to his meals.
“And of course all the N=1’s are generally worthless”
Tell that to the N=1s. You better do it from the comfort of your own keyboard though, if you catch my drift.
They are worthless to other people. Don’t distort what I said.
Please speak for yourself. N=1’s are not worthless to me.
“other people”
Which “other people,” exactly? Name who you’re speaking for because I’m sure they’d like to know you’re speaking for them.
Jesse B. I have experienced the same thing using the PS. I seem to get a low grade heart burn thing going. I was wondering if anyone else had experienced that. I am prone to heartburn, but can control it by eating right (paleo/lc)
“RS alone without [insert intervention] doesn’t do shit.”
That’s only been falsified a few hundred times, already, by a few hundred people. Moreover, there are tons and tons of intervention studies that have demonstrated these results where RS was the only interventions and not shit tons of probiotics and other fermentables.
@DuckDodgers, the UK study was for fecal integrity only, not blood sugar. Nonetheless, interesting that RS regulates BG in both obese humans and dogs.
@Mike Ede, that study on large dogs and RS (either Hi-Maize or PS) is interesting. It could possibly have human implications. Thankfully, we haven’t had anyone say they saw blood in their feces or even diarrhea. But it does seem possible that you can have excess fermentation of carbohydrates in your colon. The author conjectures that all this might be due to RS. However, he also acknowledges that dogs are carnivores while humans are omnivores. Mega RS supplementation might not be ideal for dogs for that reason.
But I can’t figure out exactly how much RS they fed to these dogs. Can you figure that out? It’s not clear from “Materials and Methods.” If I can figger that out, maybe we can decide whether the method was reasonable or not.
But it is an important study in that excess RS could possibly result in colon inflammation (colitis) and diarrhea:
“the study had to be discontinued due to signs of colitis (presence of blood and mucus in the faeces), a common complication of excessive carbohydrate fermentation in the colon.”
@Wendy, you don’t have to take RS on a completely empty stomach but to test whether it moves BG it would be wise to do so.
Coffee will move BG based on what you put in it, not coffee itself. If your BG stayed at 150 for that long, there is something wrong. Your PS could have no RS and is really potato flour and/or you could be diabetic/prediabetic.
I just did a test with another Asian brand of PS and this one didn’t move my BG at all, just like BRM PS. So I tend to think this one is as good as RS. I’m beginning to think my digestive enzymes may have been responsible for the small bump at the 15 minute mark.
start: 96
15 min: 101
30 min: 102
45 min: 103
60 min: 100
Richard
Mine is an almost 15 year old cairn terrier.
http://themodernhomestead.us/photo/show/id/78.html
I have been giving her 1/8 tsp. plantain flour twice daily.
So we are both dealing with small dogs here, which the study said were not affected.
Large dogs are also more prone to hip problems, so I wonder if that has an intestinal component as it does in humans and if so would it further indicate intestinal requirement differing from small breeds?
Anyway, like you I am willing to experiment on her since the rest of her life on antibiotics just does not make sense to me. Not only for her, but I don’t want her peeing antibiotics on our soil!
Richard, DrBG is talking about reversing Raynaud’s, which is more tricky than just reversing low core body temperature. I’ve completely reversed my low body temperature but my Raynaud’s persists. My cold fingers are better, however.
Raynaud’s is really an autoimmune disease though we have no antibody for it. It’s as common as psoriasis and sets the stage for other full-blown autoimmune diseases like RA and Lupus to piggyback. If your cold fingers are not from low T3 hypothyroidism, then RS alone probably will not fix RS, especially if Raynaud’s is advanced and you’ve had it for a while.
The upshot is that you need both RS and appropriate probiotic strains to reverse autoimmune diseases. I’m hearing that this is happening and it does make sense. Gut microbes control intestinal permeability and probably molecular mimicry, too. The only chance we have now of curing autoimmunity is to supplelement RS and introduce probiotic strains through trial and error.
Richard,
Grace started her post by saying that ” if people are ill”, they need other interventions as well. Just because there have been tons of studies showing the effectiveness of RS alone does not mean that there are NO cases where it needs to be combined with other things in order to get results.
I think it makes the most sense to alert people to all the possibilities
Here’s my view on ‘RS alone doesn’t do shit.’
If you are eating a SAD diet and in full-blown met syndrome, adding 6TBS a day of potato starch will probably be helpful to some extent, but until you get off SAD (or LC, VLC, etc..) you aren’t going to be magically cured.
Eating a pretty good paleo diet, PHD, or according to Richard’s guidelines from a few weeks ago, the simple addition of potato starch is going to be a big deal.
If you also have sever gut issues, cleaning up diet, adding potato starch may still not be enough. That’s where doctors make their money–especially ones who hate antibiotics.
@Ellen and Richard – Check this stuff out: http://www.biofeedtech.com/en/health-and-nutrition/mos.html
It’s called mannanoligosaccharides, acts exactly like HMOs and RS, binds pathogens, and increases bifidobacteria. Why it’s only for animals is the million dollar question–maybe it’s not made in sterile factory?
I am getting some of this for my chickens.
Well this may well be the best bio-hack I’ve done other than initial switching to paleo/PHD/CBL/IF diet…
n=1 results for past 10 days (FWIW – I’m a 43 yo male, reasonably lean after several years of diet and weight training – taking 4tbs of BRM PS blended with Kefir/Milk/frozen blackberries an hour or two before bed daily):
Positive:
1. Always thought I slept well, but this has improved my sleep significantly, deep sleep, significantly higher energy levels during day – no vivid dreams though 🙁
2. Significantly improved results in Gym (presumably because of improved sleep => improved recovery) – having stalled for several months
3. While not bad before, skin has improved
4. Longtime fungal infection of toe-nails has improved dramatically
5. Larger, regular, better stools
Negative:
1. Fartage – improving and not smelly at all, but feeling of bloat is minor inconvenience – perhaps will reduce with time anyway
2. Initial weight gain of approx 5 lbs, but not a big deal, just feeling of bloating more than anything else, and has begun dropping back in last few days
On the dog study, I personally don’t see where dogs would benefit from RS. They are carnivores. The MOS supplement targets an increase in bifidobacteria in animals and infers better health, but bifido aren’t direct feeders of RS, there are other microbes (ruminoccocus) that eat the RS, Rumino is found in plant eating animals.
http://info.theclinics.com/mdconsult/pdf/Veterinary_Clinics_Small_Animal_sample_article.pdf
Gut bugs in dogs and cats
Mike, that’s a good hack on improved sleep. I also have experienced improved sleep. I’m a very light sleeper but on RS, I sleep so soundly. Even though I might awake to hit the bathroom, I fall back asleep immediately. You may not have vivid dreams but that could be because of your impaired dream recall.
Today’s is a holiday so, last night, I did an enema with 2 tbsps of BRM RS and I unloaded the 3 probiotics that I’m taking (Mark’s Primal Flora, Prescript-Assist, and DrBG’s Probiotics 3). Mixed them all in a 4.5 oz distilled water. There were some rumblings downstream but I had the best sleep ever and had an incredible dream involving a dog as large as an elephant that appeared on my front lawn; you’ll notice I’ve been posting about dogs and RS today.
Wow, I think what happened was a mega-Serotonin boost. I’ woke up 3 hours ago but I’m still in a state of euphoria. Those who know what a “running high” is will know what I’m talking about, only that it’s 10 times stronger. And I can recall details of my dream, which was very sweet and pleasant. Unlike DMT or DPT which induce nightmares, RS always ensures that your dreams are pleasant.
Part of me wonders if the initial weight gain is *literally* the increase in biomass of bacteria.
@ Tatertot As to carnivores –
“As in humans, the paper shows that dogs were selected strongly for a new agricultural diet. Just as in humans who descend from early agriculturalists, dogs have extensive duplication of the amylase gene. Humans express amylase in saliva, but as explained in the paper dogs only produce amylase in the pancreas, where it digests starches intestinally. Where this paper gets really exciting is when the authors began to investigate the entire metabolic pathway underlying starch digestion. The amylase gene AMY2B underwent duplications similar to those in humans, and not found in wolves. Two other genes that interact in starch digestion and glucose uptake did not undergo duplication but do show near-fixed haplotypes in dogs that are absent or very rare in wolves, and the paper shows using both biochemistry and phylogenetic comparison with herbivores and omnivores that the dog versions of these genes increase enzymatic activity on starches and glucose uptake.” Finally the link: http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/genomics/dogs/dog-selection-starch-axelsson-2013.html
Tatertot,
Thanks, but most of what is on those links is way beyond me!!! I rely on people like you to translate that stuff.
The biomannan looks interesting for chickens, but they have nothing for dogs it seems. Will see what Harvey thinks about it for the chickens. Ours are never sick though, so I don’t see why we would need it.
Have you tried deep litter for your chicks?
http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Deep-Litter-1.html
But Tatertot, dogs are omnivores and coprophagic. They aren’t carnivores, really. My theory is that the hung around humans to eat their crap. They still do in India and other countries where people leave their deposits just anywhere.
When I was in Labrador at a former Grenfell mission nursing station there was a bookshelf full of books written by people who had worked for them. One doctor used sled dogs to get to the patient. It took a few days and he couldn’t ‘go’. But when he finally did, the sled dogs couldn’t get to what he produced fast enough.
I would assume therefore, that dogs will eat anything and maybe a bit of RS wouldn’t hurt them. Any of these studies of what’s in a dog’s guts is based on what people are feeding them. Feed them crap and see what happens.
Gabkad, dogs may not be totally carnivorous especially under human care but they’re close to that in wild. Wolves are pretty much carnivores. So dogs aren’t omnivorous like the bears and humans are.
And I don’t think dogs are coprophagic to the degree elephants are; most baby elephants are coprophagic and there’re benefits specific to these pachyderms in eating their own and their elders’ feces. From what I understand, dogs revert to dung-eating in times of food scarcity and possibly indigestion. In the latter case, it’s similar to humans practicing fecal transplant to cure our own IBS. You’ll often see dogs approach and sniff feces carefully to see if they’re up to snuff. I suspect the dog is trying to see if the droppings are from a healthy donor. It would defeat the purpose to be indiscriminately coprophagic. So this probably is an evolutionary adaptation, one which humans have not had the time to develop. We have TUMS for that.
“RS alone without [insert intervention] doesn’t do shit.”
Richard wrote: "That’s only been falsified a few hundred times, already, by a few hundred people."
Yup, I'm one of them and I can't eat as much of the "safe starches" (nor Paul Jaminet's "safe" sugar–glucose, such as in rice syrup) that some of the people with serious illnesses report being able to combine with RS without negative effects, but maybe I'm not ill enough in other ways to fit what Grace is talking about? I don't have Raynaud's, so perhaps her comment applies to everyone with Raynaud's, though I wouldn't assume that. Lots of folks with serious illnesses, including Type 1 and 2 diabetes, have reported positive results just from adding RS, without the other stuff (I'm not saying the other stuff doesn't help anyone).
I didn't take Richard to mean that "there are NO cases where [RS] needs to be combined with other things in order to get results," just that RS has produced benefits on its own, even in the context of VLC, for lots of people, like me. Richard is the only person on the Internet I've noticed acknowledge the existence of people like me, for which I'm grateful.
I actually found that it worked better for me to add potato starch first and THEN weeks later start gradually adding in some "safe starch" foods. Experimenting with "safe starches" (or certain supposedly "safe" sugary foods that aren't very safe for me) too soon produced the same old negative effects of the past and I still have to limit or avoid those foods, just not as much as before, and I so far haven't been getting nearly as much BG spike from them, though my testing has been limited. I haven't yet seen probiotics improve the effectiveness of RS, but most days I now consume both anyway for the theoretical probiotic synergy that Tatertot and Dr. BG talk about. I'm hoping they'll eventually prove right on that for me too, and I also appreciate their contributions.
Tatertot wrote: "On the dog study, I personally don’t see where dogs would benefit from RS. They are carnivores."
Domesticated dogs are facultative carnivores, maybe even omnivores, who have been eating starchy foods for at least thousands of years, according to recent research:
Dogs Eating Carbs
The genomic signature of dog domestication reveals adaptation to a starch-rich diet
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23354050
Dogs first domesticated in Europe, study says
Merry Christmans!
I agree that domesticated dogs probably have adapted to starches pretty well. Dogs replicate much faster than humans do — they are basically like Tribbles. While they are clearly carnivores by design, the starch genes they possess would seem to be a major factor that allowed them to come in from the wild and hang around human houses to eat up human leftovers thousands of years ago. And again, my dog loooves starchy vegetables. She literally cries whenever she sees them at the farmers market. It’s embarrassing.
“she sees them at the farmers market” more likely when they smell it 🙂
Crying out loud, give the damn dog what the damn dog cries for and see what happens. Sheesh. I’ve never had a dog beg for starchy food. We used to play a trick on the dog. Put 3 green peas mixed into his food. He’s always leave three very clean polished green peas in his bowl when he was done.
Not because he was particularly desirous of it, but he used to share leftover spaghetti with my daughter. She’d sit on the floor next to his bowl in her Pampers and help him out with dinner. He was a big dog but I trained him from a few weeks old to not guard his food. The two of them together were adorable. The best dog ever. Passed on 1992 aged 14.
@while my old male never eats greens unless sick (grass, so he omits), the girl ratty loves her salad. I call her Nuke (short for Nanuka) the Cow. Most mornings, she goes out in the backyard and has her some greens, mostly off various plants.
Animals do weird stuff. One of the cats eats potting soil. After I moved the plants out of my bedroom because I found it annoying to wake up to this guy noshing on what’s in the plant pots, he’s taken to licking whatever accumulates between the tile and tub but only if I’m in the bathroom. Gahhhh! I think he’s neurotic. He’s the one who pukes if he eats too fast. I just leave it. Eventually he’ll come back and eat it.
There’s always got to be a weird one in the bunch.
I used to buy the claims that domesticated dogs are obligate carnivores (not even wild wolves are–they are both facultative carnivores, and given the recent starch gene evidence, the case can be made that dom. dogs are actually omnivores). I told someone this and within an hour we discovered that their dog had gorged on a garbage can full of the discarded innards of raw holloween pumpkins. Raw! He was finishing it up when we caught him and he obviously LOVED it. Still not convinced, I repeated the myth to someone else eating an outdoor breakfast on a picnic table and this time within 5 minutes a little dog sprinted out of nowhere to leap up on the table and swallow a whole pancake in one big gulp and leap off the table again in a flash before anyone could even react. I think the dogs were trying to tell me something. 🙂
Don’t look at this unless you have a strong stomach, but there are pictures of what dogs will eat. I accidentally found this website after listening to a BBC radio broadcast about the guy who washes clothes in the Ganges. The government officials want him to stop because soap is polluting the water. So I just googled about fish in the Ganges and this is what came up: (at least the first few photographs are not as extreme but later ones are. Anyone in need of SBOs just needs to bathe and drink the water. Lots of SBOs and other bacteria too.) The people have a very casual attitude towards death….
http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/pictures/filthy-india-photos-chinese-netizen-reactions.html
I do! She gets my leftovers and I’ve made an effort to give her leftover meats, sweet potato skins, rice bits and a few dollops of mashed potatoes. She loves all of it. My feeling is that’s the pact we have with domesticated dogs — they serve us in exchange for scraps and leftovers. The only problem is that she’s developed a pavlovian response to begging for leftovers before we finish eating now. Anyway, she loves those safe starches.
Oh man. I looked. And now I can’t unsee it. I can’t even imagine what those AmGut results would look like.
My dog loves avocados, papaya, and banana, though I only give him a little of it. Isn’t it obvious they are omnivores? Oddly he won’t eat sliced ham. Either he doesn’t like the texture or he’s smart enough to know what is healthy and what is not (man made ham full of preservatives).
I was just talking to someone here in Columbia, where avocado trees are ubiquitous. that there dog not only eats avocados, but will forage for them himself.
I used to date a guy who had a macadamia nut tree in his yard. His Rottweiler would sit in the shad of the tree all day and crunch those massively hard shells to get to the nuts.
A month ago or so I started taking the potato starch. Tuesday I had abdominal pain, and yesterday (Wednesday) I was diagnosed with diverticulitis. I knew I had diverticulosis from a CT scan several years ago but I have never had diverticulitis till now.
Coincidence? Or is it possible that overfeeding the fish tank led to too many bacteria for my own good?
Curious if anyone else with diverticulosis/diverticulitis has had experiences, good or bad, since starting with resistant starch.
Guess I have to get a lot of probiotics lined up to restock the tank once the antibiotics have finished their gruesome work on my personal biome….
How much RS were you supplementing. Did you have any blood or diarrhea as BM? I’m assuming that your diverticulitis is at your distal colon, i.e., sigmoid colon. I’m curious, what kind of symptoms did you have, how severe was it, and did you have to seek emergency care?
Not exactly sure how much, usually several heaping tablespoonfuls of Bob’s. It didn’t seem like too much because I never got gassy (and I do eat yogurt and kefir so I doubt it’s an “empty cage” situation). Not sure what a “tablespoonful” of powder is supposed to look like.
It’s pain and tenderness in my lower left side. No bleeding or fever, I went to an urgent care because “point tenderness” in the abdomen is unusual and should be checked out. Got an x-ray, they didn’t seem too alarmed and prescribed flagyl and sulfa drugs for it. I get the impression it may take awhile to stop hurting.
It could be coincidence but it seems odd this would happen to me right around the time people are supposed to be getting the benefits of RS (around 4 weeks).
Re diverticulitis: you may be able to control it by a liquid diet (lots of liqids) plus probiotics for a few days, and let your own immune system knock it back. My husband has had success doing this after he had a bad reaction to antibiotic Cipro. Liquids for a few days plus kefir plus HLC probiotic plus BCQ (boswellia curcumin quercetin I think) for anti-inflammatory.
We have to be skeptic on Resistant starch testing we are confident as we have had the technical term of Resistant starch tested. In all staples there is starch isolating and testing starch in products that are said to be RS doesn’t mean the starch is all RS. Generally Total starch is the test, it may be anywhere from 60-88% in different foods. Only some of that is RS we have spent 2 years working and validating all products. We know we have been told and tested by some of the best that we have the richest most palatable source. So be careful on terms we have taking care to define RS and many company’s are simply falsely claiming. In time when it comes to crunch early research work we are carrying out will mater. BTW loves this blog and well done. I have been on banana flour for 3 years have never been better. We have established a hybrid variety that gives ultimate results and nutrition. The plantain inst the best suited for commercial and general production. We all have to love and appreciate the banana with thousands of variances it really is mans best friend through evolution. Take care all. Rob
Hi All…Its really not too clear if one should be taking PS if they are struggling with candida, especially as when people have been taking PS and checking their BG it has risen as much as 15-25%, if you have candida this increase would be enough to double your population of this troublesome bacteria! it would not matter how many antifungals you took or probiotics, if you are still feeding the beast it will not go!