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The Resistant Starch Challenge: Is It The Key We've Been Looking For?

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
For those in the UK......I have the Bob's Red Mill and the H&B potato starch so did an experiment.

I stirred a teasp. of each brand of PS into small glasses of water and left it for a half hour.

They were the same, a layer of RS in the bottom of the glasses, and on examination, they both felt the same to touch.
 

maddietod

Senior Member
Messages
2,859
Was that a broad spectrum antibiotic that did that?

Sushi

Yes, amoxicillin. The frustrating part is that I was taking probiotics, carefully apart from the abx.

But also my cough got so bad that I used 2 humidifiers constantly for 3 days. I washed them well, but didn't sterilize.
 

bertiedog

Senior Member
Messages
1,738
Location
South East England, UK
For those in the UK......I have the Bob's Red Mill and the H&B potato starch so did an experiment.

I stirred a teasp. of each brand of PS into small glasses of water and left it for a half hour.

They were the same, a layer of RS in the bottom of the glasses, and on examination, they both felt the same to touch.

I guess that those of us with blood sugar issues should still probably do the test suggested of taking 1 tablespoon and 1 hour later take a bs reading just to be on the safe side.

I did buy a potato starch from my local health shop and it didn't seem to be any different from the Red Mill one I have now but a HUGE difference in price here in the UK. The local health shop one was under £1 if I remember correctly.

Thanks for that info though Brenda, its great that we can share experiences.

Pam
 

Violeta

Senior Member
Messages
2,895
Unfortunately, expect some symptom vacillation. RS and the organisms this nurtures are changing problems at the heart of the pathophysiology, I think, and there will be some give and take when your immune system confronts the endotoxin. As I just wrote about acetylcholine, which you may recognize as a neurotransmitter involved in regulation of the autonomic nervous system, there can be what is essentially, symptomatically, exactly what you don't want. The energy metabolism and thus acetylation and methylation will be transiently suppressed to protect you. I will have to think of a better way to describe this because I think this runs counter to traditional thought.


The vagus nerve is involved in OI, are you sure there isn't some connection to perhaps the vagus nerve reacting fairly strongly to the RS? I have heard of bacteria traveling along nerves all the way up to the brain. I could imagine a good dose of RS causing displacement all along the vagus nerve.

Just brain storming. I realize I could be wrong. Even if it were to be correct, I don't even know what good it would do to know that.

Try going to the ER and explaining that it was the RS that brought on your OI.
 
Messages
47
Got a packet of Rakusen's Farina Potato Flour from Waitrose today. Put some in a glass of water and it almost immediately sank to the bottom, forming a slightly sticky mass. Stirred it up and let it settle again, then microwaved for 1 minute and it turned into a clear gel at the bottom. It is listed as 80g carb per 100g.

So if I'm understanding correctly, this should be the same as Bob's Red Mill..? A search of Free The Animal for the term 'farina' turns up a few results suggesting it is indeed the same. Looks like farina could be another term for potato starch.

Costs £1.39 for 500g at Waitrose. Looks like Asda stock either Encona Farina or Island Sun Farina for 38p/500g! Tesco might stock the latter as well. Not sure about other supermarkets.
 
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Vegas

Senior Member
Messages
577
Location
Virginia
The vagus nerve is involved in OI, are you sure there isn't some connection to perhaps the vagus nerve reacting fairly strongly to the RS? I have heard of bacteria traveling along nerves all the way up to the brain. I could imagine a good dose of RS causing displacement all along the vagus nerve.

Just brain storming. I realize I could be wrong. Even if it were to be correct, I don't even know what good it would do to know that.

Try going to the ER and explaining that it was the RS that brought on your OI.

To clarify, the vagus nerve is likely involved involved via signal transduction. T-cells can synthesize this neurotransmitter, which can act to dampen the inflammatory response. So this is an important point as the cholinergic pathways serve as one of those balances to excessive inflammation caused by the immune response.

I don't remember exactly what you said, but I thought you were trying to convey that there was an infective source that was directly effecting the vagus nerve...in other words damaging the nerve sheath. I'm just looking at this more systemically. I've seen cases of non-infective vagus nerve trauma, and they have resulted in gastroparesis.
 

Violeta

Senior Member
Messages
2,895
In my other message I wasn't sure why, just that it felt like there was some sort of vagus nerve activation. Today I was thinking it was a sort of infection. But I think you're right that it's not actually damaging the nerve, or else it wouldn't come and go so quickly, so it must be a signal transduction thing. The transmission sent by the Tcells that are activated by the reaction of the immune system to RS is a safety regulator to balance excessive inflammation? Am I understanding?
 

Ripley

Senior Member
Messages
402
This study published just yesterday is making the Facebook rounds amongst RS skeptics. Free full text is available.


Hmm...
There is one problem with the study: the team stored their Hadza stool samples in alcohol, which can seriously affect the proportions of different species found within them. This may explain why both the Hadza and Italian samples were dominated by bacteria from the Firmicutes group—a trend that has been linked to obesity in past studies. Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello from New York University has run into this problem before, and had to repeat a lot of past work to correct for it. She has looked at the microbiomes of hunter-gatherers in Venezuela (as yet unpublished) and rural kids in Mexico, and neither group were dominated by Firmicutes.

“The conclusions about relative proportions of bacteria are likely not valid,” says Rob Knight, a microbiome scientist with expertise in technical issues. “Unfortunately there is no published reference for this yet; we’re working on one.” It’s not clear if this problem affects the study’s other conclusions, like the lack of Bifidobacteria. [LINK]

Dummies.
 
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place

Be Strong!
Messages
341
Location
US
I just wanted to post back that my IC was really an UTI! I am on Cipro now. I think I will try the ps again. I did it for 2 days last week with probotic (1 table spoon). I took it at 5:30 and by 9:00 I was so sleepy, as if I took a sleeping pill. It was super weird. I am wondering if it just feeds all bateria.
 

Vegas

Senior Member
Messages
577
Location
Virginia
I just wanted to post back that my IC was really an UTI! I am on Cipro now. I think I will try the ps again. I did it for 2 days last week with probotic (1 table spoon). I took it at 5:30 and by 9:00 I was so sleepy, as if I took a sleeping pill. It was super weird. I am wondering if it just feeds all bateria.

I've had intermittent kidney pain since starting resistant starch, and have observed this pattern, with much less frequency, for the last couple of years, as has been associated with attempts to bolster the immune system. I think there is a very good chance you didn't develop a new infection. What this may have reflected was an enhanced immune response to a latent infection. Bacterial translocation as a consequence of intestinal permeability is well-established. It starts in the GIT and I would speculate that it most readily spreads to those tissues with the most direct communication to the lower GIT: prostate in men, urethra, bladder and kidney. Obviously, this could have been a newly acquired, and thus an acute infection, I'm just suggesting you keep this in the back of your mind, in case you start experiencing pain--that this is not always what you may think it is.

As to your question about feeding all bacteria. This is most certainly not the case. From what I have seen, only a relatively small number of organisms are known to have the specialized amylase enzymes needed to efficiently break down the ps, and the commensal organisms that are generally highly represented in healthy infants are particularly efficient at doing so. Perhaps there is some information to suggests otherwise, but I haven't seen this yet.
 

place

Be Strong!
Messages
341
Location
US
It's funny you say that. I had a uti in December, they gave me cipro. It got better. I had them run the labs anyway. When I went in today I asked about the results from decembers and they said that I was put on the wrong antibiotic as my infection was of a different kind. The nurse even said todays uti could just be a reactivation bc it was not treated properly. Very interesting.....the plot thickens.
 

adreno

PR activist
Messages
4,841
I've had intermittent kidney pain since starting resistant starch, and have observed this pattern, with much less frequency, for the last couple of years, as has been associated with attempts to bolster the immune system. I think there is a very good chance you didn't develop a new infection. What this may have reflected was an enhanced immune response to a latent infection. Bacterial translocation as a consequence of intestinal permeability is well-established. It starts in the GIT and I would speculate that it most readily spreads to those tissues with the most direct communication to the lower GIT: prostate in men, urethra, bladder and kidney. Obviously, this could have been a newly acquired, and thus an acute infection, I'm just suggesting you keep this in the back of your mind, in case you start experiencing pain--that this is not always what you may think it is.

As to your question about feeding all bacteria. This is most certainly not the case. From what I have seen, only a relatively small number of organisms are known to have the specialized amylase enzymes needed to efficiently break down the ps, and the commensal organisms that are generally highly represented in healthy infants are particularly efficient at doing so. Perhaps there is some information to suggests otherwise, but I haven't seen this yet.
This is exactly what happened to me. Besides the liver pain, I experienced low back and pelvic pain/cramping, including the prostate and genitalia, and even ED. It's slowly getting better, though it's lasted close to two months now. Zinc makes it worse. Would antimicrobials help, or better to wait it out? If the antimicrobials kill off the good bacteria too then perhaps it would just put us back to where we started. Also I worry the die off would overload the liver even more.
 
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Asklipia

Senior Member
Messages
999
Briefly some results :
After 2 months of PS (twice a week if that 1 teaspoon) + 30 g dried plantain a day
and last two weeks L. plantarum Jarrows
my husband has no more eczema (which he had on his leg for years - nothing terrible but still a sign all is not well).
:thumbsup:
And
he has tried an experimentation with the plantarum, since it is not easy for us to get it.
He has opened a capsule and put the contents in a bowl with a little milk + chestnut flour.
It is growing beautifully and tastes good! We take a spoonful from time to time. It has thrived for one week now no sign of going bad.
Be well!
Asklipia
 
Messages
8
I've had intermittent kidney pain since starting resistant starch, and have observed this pattern, with much less frequency, for the last couple of years, as has been associated with attempts to bolster the immune system. I think there is a very good chance you didn't develop a new infection. What this may have reflected was an enhanced immune response to a latent infection. Bacterial translocation as a consequence of intestinal permeability is well-established. It starts in the GIT and I would speculate that it most readily spreads to those tissues with the most direct communication to the lower GIT: prostate in men, urethra, bladder and kidney. Obviously, this could have been a newly acquired, and thus an acute infection, I'm just suggesting you keep this in the back of your mind, in case you start experiencing pain--that this is not always what you may think it is.

As to your question about feeding all bacteria. This is most certainly not the case. From what I have seen, only a relatively small number of organisms are known to have the specialized amylase enzymes needed to efficiently break down the ps, and the commensal organisms that are generally highly represented in healthy infants are particularly efficient at doing so. Perhaps there is some information to suggests otherwise, but I haven't seen this yet.

That's very interesting - I've just had the results back of a bunch of blood tests that my GP decided to do at random and the only abnormal one was kidney function, which was slightly reduced - I've got to have it repeated. It hadn't occurred to me that that might be the resistant starch.
 

Vegas

Senior Member
Messages
577
Location
Virginia
This is exactly what happened to me. Besides the liver pain, I experienced low back and pelvic pain/cramping, including the prostate and genitalia, and even ED. It's slowly getting better, though it's lasted close to two months now. Zinc makes it worse. Would antimicrobials help, or better to wait it out? If the antimicrobials kill off the good bacteria too then perhaps it would just put us back to where we started. Also I worry the die off would overload the liver even more.

I can't say that the approach of taking antimicrobials (assuming you mean the OTC variety) has been effective for me. FluoroQ antibiotics were certainly counterproductive. I believe the most obvious consideration is that if you continue to have a substantial load of GIT pathogens along with significant epithelial barrier dysfunction to such a degree that bacterial translocation continues, it may not make much sense to try to address these "peripheral" infections. Of course, if symptoms are severe, you may want to, and sometimes have to use an antimicrobial or Rx antibiotic, and yes many of these do cause major harm to the commensal organisms, but you can get these back.

Another issue with taking an antimicrobial relates to what you are contemplating, this will transiently increase endotoxin concentrations, which can not only tax the liver, but it also increases inflammation in the GIT, which can significantly impair epithelial function, at least transiently. Some of the antimicrobials have the ability to suppress inflammation, but only to some degree, and you would have to use your past experiences to determine if this may have some beneficial effect on symptoms.

I suspect that the concept of using a course of antimicrobials to resolve the extraintestinal infection is not likely valid, and the microbial balance is simply re-established over time "naturally" as the microbiome re-adjusts, although it sounds like you may be at a bit of a stalemate. In this regard, I hate for you to be stuck there, I've had most of the symptoms you describe, but these were more episodic. 3-4 days at a time.

As for the zinc, endotoxins stimulate a pro-inflammatory cytokine release, but they also induce the release of intracellular zinc, which of course participates in this immune response, but eventually results in, depending on supplementation, reduced serum zinc. As the zinc stores fall, the pro-inflammatory cytokine response can as well. So stronger immune response in this case likely translates to more inflammation and pain. Does this also imply that there was an expansion of the infection, I don't know, but my experiences suggest that this was not the case.

It's a rather lame suggestion, but I do think cranberry can help. Perhaps try an OTC antimicrobial cautiously.
 

adreno

PR activist
Messages
4,841
I suspect that the concept of using a course of antimicrobials to resolve the extraintestinal infection is not likely valid, and the microbial balance is simply re-established over time "naturally" as the microbiome re-adjusts, although it sounds like you may be at a bit of a stalemate. In this regard, I hate for you to be stuck there, I've had most of the symptoms you describe, but these were more episodic. 3-4 days at a time.
Thanks. It is much better at this point, and the pain is mostly gone. Would you say that rather than using antimicrobials, it would be better to slowly restart the RS as to get over any potential "stalemate" situation?
 

Vegas

Senior Member
Messages
577
Location
Virginia
That's very interesting - I've just had the results back of a bunch of blood tests that my GP decided to do at random and the only abnormal one was kidney function, which was slightly reduced - I've got to have it repeated. It hadn't occurred to me that that might be the resistant starch.

May be coincidental, maybe not. Do you have a history of renal problems? Are you talking about eGFR.
Thanks. It is much better at this point, and the pain is mostly gone. Would you say that rather than using antimicrobials, it would be better to slowly restart the RS as to get over any potential "stalemate" situation?

Well you are probably going to get more symptom expression from whatever can more readily potentiate the immune response, so this could depend on how much RS you take. The antimicrobials are not going to correct the epithelial dysfunction that perpetuates the bacterial translocation to extraintestinal tissues.

In retrospect, when I had a systemic reaction last month, one that sent me home and caused me to be acutely ill for about a day, I recalled that I had taken a single dose of artemisinin, 2 to 3 days earlier. I generally take this for a couple of days after a tick bite. (We have more deer than people it seems).

RS, very, small dose, but it may be months before you win the battle.
 
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Vegas

Senior Member
Messages
577
Location
Virginia
Briefly some results :
After 2 months of PS (twice a week if that 1 teaspoon) + 30 g dried plantain a day
and last two weeks L. plantarum Jarrows
my husband has no more eczema (which he had on his leg for years - nothing terrible but still a sign all is not well).
:thumbsup:
And
he has tried an experimentation with the plantarum, since it is not easy for us to get it.
He has opened a capsule and put the contents in a bowl with a little milk + chestnut flour.
It is growing beautifully and tastes good! We take a spoonful from time to time. It has thrived for one week now no sign of going bad.
Be well!
Asklipia

It sounds like you and your husband are doing pretty well, all things considered. Perhaps you are, on the other side, so to speak, where changes may be more consistently positive.

I have noticed that eczema has flared in my youngest as I have too liberally used RS. I can't get them to eat the sauerkraut, and L. Plantarum probiotics are tantamount to nuclear weapons for me. This organism more prominently effects the small intestine, which is certainly not a bad thing because if one has dysfunction of the large bowel, one also likely has SIBO. I'm simply suggesting that this might be a bit more than some can tolerate.

At this point 3/4 tsp every 5 days is too much, and as I have observed from the things I have done for about three years now, aggressiveness of "treatment" doesn't pay off. Of course, if I did nothing, I would likely still have a child with extremely limited expressive speech and a whole host of other symptoms, or perhaps another one with ME/CFS. Mood and behavior changes are always obvious indications of this in young children.

I've notice that I have tightened up a bit, where I had already loosened up, and it seems like some of the extra-GIT bacteria has become a primary target. While this represents a worsening of symptoms, I suspect it signifies further improvement in the GIT. Maybe too much blind faith on my part. Lymph pain and clarity of thought is definitely improved. On days when the immune system calms down, I have better energy.

If the appearance of apthous ulcers is any indication, my immune system is rapidly strengthening, well at least the T1 Helper response.
 

Vegas

Senior Member
Messages
577
Location
Virginia
The biggest problem I am experiencing is the inflammatory response, Aside from keeping my PUFA and magnesium (via epsom salt baths) concentrations high, a little niacin has also been beneficial. I think niacin might have some ability to slow down the inflammatory symptoms, but I welcome any ideas or critique concerning why Niacin may be helpful. This is not going to be useful to everyone, nor would I generally recommend this, I just wanted to see if anyone had experience with this.

I mentioned before about the effects of LPS in diverting tryptophan to niacin synthesis and away from serotonin, This would globally inhibit the energy metabolism by altering the NADH/NAD ratio because more NAD reduces the availability of NADH. So in simple terms, one of the effects of the toxic part of the cell wall from this category of largely pathogenic organisms is to direct the break down of the essential amino acid tryptophan towards the synthesis of niacin. Increasing niacin concentrations reduces the capacity of NADH to donate electrons to the fundamental part of the metabolism where energy from our food is converted into chemical or usable energy by our brain, organs, muscles etc.

If one doesn't have enough NADH or ATP, he or she can develop lactic acidosis, so this has to be tightly regulated with a number of other counter-regulatory responses. An accumulation of ADP and NAD would have the effect of slowing down the energy metabolism at the most influential point. This is something seen in ME/CFS, and clearly involves multiple causes, but it appears there is a very clear way in which endotoxins could, independently execute this energy blockage, thus by design inhibiting the subservient processes of methylation and acetylation. Honestly though, I'm not sure the degree to which this would affect the PDC and energy synthesis, but this would intervene at what what happens to be the fundamental metabolic intersection. It is one way that our bodies could transiently, and without harm, inhibit energy synthesis at such a root level. The place where your food energy becomes usable by the body.

If you subscribe to a bacterial pathogenesis for ME/CFS, there is yet another interesting distinction between gram negative and gram positive bacteria in how their pyruvate dehydrogenase complexes are structured. Actually, humans and gram positive bacterial metabolism are highly similar, with gram negative bacteria again being structurally distinct.