Many have come to realize that a healthy body depends on a healthy gut. We now know that the intestinal flora regulates the immune system and has a role to play in every part of the body.
In the early days of research on gut flora, it seemed that the answer would come from ingesting good bacteria. This approach has its place, but now our views are more nuanced. It is not just the bacteria that matter, but what they produce.
Product Recommendation: RS Complete contains two forms of resistant starch (RS) type II: organic green banana flour and organic potato starch powder. Click Here
Good bacteria are helpful because they make chemicals with helpful properties. One of the most studied classes of healing chemicals are short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). These include acetate, propionate, and butyrate. Of them, we know the most about butyrate.
Butyrate is a four-carbon fatty acid made by the intestinal flora with four main roles. First, it is the main fuel for the colonocytes – the cells that line the intestinal tract. It is a funny idea but your intestines need food too. Butyrate to your intestinal cells is like salmon, spinach, and blueberries to your body. It makes them strong and healthy. These cells use large amounts of energy in the assimilation and production of nutrients.
Second, butyrate helps control the rate of cell repair. The cells that line the intestinal tract die and get replaced faster than nearly any other cell type in the body. Butyrate gives them fuel to function and regrow new cells.
Third, butyrate regulates the immune system. If new cells don’t grow well, inflammation sets in. Inflammation in the gut leads to local problems like ulcerative colitis and irritable bowel, but it also leads to problems elsewhere in the body like thyroid disease, diabetes, and arthritis.
Fourth, butyrate regulates energy metabolism outside the intestines. It interacts with feedback cycles connecting the gut, liver, and brain. When butyrate is abundant, the body can use energy well, maintain low levels of body fat, and keep the appetite in check. When it is lacking, the risks for weight gain and diabetes increase.
Because of the role played in intestinal cells, butyrate is most widely studied as a way to remedy intestinal permeability and irritable bowel syndrome.
The gut is like a screen door. It lets some things in and blocks other things out. We know that many illnesses are related to big gaps in the screen door. Some ‘leakiness’ is essential.
The simplified view is that the gut gets leaky, bad things get in, the body attacks bad things and attacks itself as well.
We now know that this simplified view is mostly not correct.
Leaky gut may not cause disease but it often accompanies disease. Leaky gut may even be a healthy adaptation to disease. Thankfully butyrate is helpful at a deeper level. It can reverse the chronic inflammatory responses that result in excess permeability.
Butyrate has been shown to have a tightening effect on tight junction proteins which closes the gaps in states of intestinal permeability1.
Multiple studies have shown that people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) have less bowel butyrate than do controls2. IBS seems to relate to abnormal nerve signaling in the small and large intestines. Butyrate has been shown to normalize intesial nerves and reduce the associated hypersensitivity found in IBS3.
Because digestion is central to health and butyrate is central to good digestive function, it may play many more helpful roles including:
Much of these benefits relate to a reduction in appetite.
A recent study examined healthy participants and their reactions to resistant starch. When participants consumed foods that created butyrate in their evening meal, they had a decreased glucose and insulin response after their breakfast the next morning.
They also had increased p-PYY the next morning, both while fasting and after their breakfast. P-PYY is a peptide hormone responsible for helping you to feel satiated. They added to their diets, spontaneously ate less food, and got healthier8.
Butyrate is found directly in foods and supplements and indirectly in resistant starch. Studies have shown that it takes about 8000 mg of butyrate per day to measurably improve the bowel flora.
Butter typically consists of 3 – 4% butyrate by weight. If you ate a teaspoon of butter, weighing about 5 grams, you would get roughly 150 mg of butyrate. Not enough to help. How much would you need? To get 8000 mg of butyrate, you’d need to eat 1/2 pound (2 sticks) of butter each day. At 5300 calories and 116 grams of saturated fat, that would be a bad idea.
Unfortunately these just don’t work. Most have just a few hundred mg of butyrate. Some have as much as 1000 mg of butyrate per serving. One could take 8 of them daily. But nobody would more than once. Pure butyric acid is an irritant. High doses of it cause severe stomach upset. Butyrate is not made in the stomach because there are no bacteria there that can make use of it.
In fact, butyrate supplements may not even work. One study showed that butyrate supplementation lowered the amount of butyrate found in the stool9.
Most butyrate in the bowels comes from foods high in a fiber called resistant starch (RS). RS is digested by the bacteria in the colon. They slowly produce butyrate for 2-9 hours after eating. Since it is made slowly and where it is used, there is no upset like there is from butyrate in the stomach.
You can also read: 50 Amazing Resistant Starch Foods for Better Digestion for a complete discussion of food sources of RS.
The richest food sources of RS include potatoes, bananas, legumes, and oats.
The best approach to raising butyrate is to consume a variety of RS sources daily. It turns out that there is no one food source that raises RS the same for all people10.
Some have a hard time with food sources due to low carb diets or certain foods they avoid for other reasons like avoidance of lectins or nightshades. Others find that they have a hard time eating these foods in high enough quantities to start seeing benefits.
Many people I hear from have unsuccessfully tried to use powders like unmodified potato flour or banana flour. The drawback is that these products are not standardized to contain RS. They may have some, none, or a lot and there is no way to know.
RS works best in a combination of several sources with verified RS content. Many years ago I formulated RS Complete to fill this need. It is a blend of organic green banana flour, organic potato starch powder, creafibe cellulose, and arabinogalactan powder. It is verified to contain no less than 4000 mg (4g) of RS per serving. It is a purified extract free of lectins, nightshade chemicals, and common allergens. One serving twice daily yields a full day’s requirements for RS.
Try the Thyroid Quiz today (Click Here: Take the quiz) to learn more about your thyroid and the impact it may be having on your overall health.
1 – Binienda A, Twardowska A, Makaro A, Salaga M. Dietary Carbohydrates and Lipids in the Pathogenesis of Leaky Gut Syndrome: An Overview. Int J Mol Sci. 2020;21(21):8368. Published 2020 Nov 8. doi:10.3390/ijms21218368
2 – Mars RAT, Yang Y, Ward T, et al. Longitudinal Multi-omics Reveals Subset-Specific Mechanisms Underlying Irritable Bowel Syndrome [published correction appears in Cell. 2020 Nov 12;183(4):1137-1140]. Cell. 2020;182(6):1460-1473.e17. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2020.08.007
3 – Banasiewicz T, Kaczmarek E, Maik J, et al. Quality of life and the clinical symptoms at the patients with irritable bowel syndrome treated complementary with protected sodium butyrate. Gastroenterol Prakt. 2011;5:45–53.
4 – Szentirmai É, Millican NS, Massie AR, Kapás L. Butyrate, a metabolite of intestinal bacteria, enhances sleep. Sci Rep. 2019 May 7;9(1):7035. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-43502-1. PMID: 31065013; PMCID: PMC6504874.
5 – Sengupta S, Muir JG, Gibson PR. Does butyrate protect from colorectal cancer? J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2006 Jan;21(1 Pt 2):209-18. doi: 10.1111/j.1440-1746.2006.04213.x. PMID: 16460475.
6 – Coppola S, Avagliano C, Calignano A, Berni Canani R. The Protective Role of Butyrate against Obesity and Obesity-Related Diseases. Molecules. 2021 Jan 28;26(3):682. doi: 10.3390/molecules26030682. PMID: 33525625; PMCID: PMC7865491.
7 – Harris KF. An introductory review of resistant starch type 2 from high-amylose cereal grains and its effect on glucose and insulin homeostasis. Nutr Rev. 2019 Nov 1;77(11):748-764. doi: 10.1093/nutrit/nuz040. PMID: 31343688; PMCID: PMC6786898.
8 – Sandberg, J. C., Björck, I. M. E. & Nilsson, A. C. Effects of whole grain rye, with and without resistant starch type 2 supplementation, on glucose tolerance, gut hormones, inflammation and appetite regulation in an 11-14.5 hour perspective; a randomized controlled study in healthy subjects. doi:10.1186/s12937-017-0246-5
9 – Cleophas MCP, Ratter JM, Bekkering S, et al. Effects of oral butyrate supplementation on inflammatory potential of circulating peripheral blood mononuclear cells in healthy and obese males. Sci Rep. 2019;9(1):775. Published 2019 Jan 28. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-37246-7
10 – Teichmann J, Cockburn DW. In vitroFermentation Reveals Changes in Butyrate Production Dependent on Resistant Starch Source and Microbiome Composition. Front Microbiol. 2021;12:640253. Published 2021 Apr 29. doi:10.3389/fmicb.2021.640253
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Dr. Alan Glen Christianson (Dr. C) is a Naturopathic Endocrinologist and the author of The NY Times bestselling Adrenal Reset Diet, The Metabolism Reset Diet and The Thyroid Reset Diet.
Dr. C’s gift for figuring out what really works has helped hundreds of thousands of people reverse thyroid disease, lose weight, diabetes, and regain energy. Learn more about the surprising story that started his quest.
