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

whodathunkit

Senior Member
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1,160
Glucomannan (never got over the texture it turns into, but should try again)
Oooh. Ewwww. Bad, bad stuff! :confused: :confused: :lol:I have a very, very strong gag reflex and I can't do glucommanan powder *at all*. It's just nasty, nasty, nasty.

JUST. NASTY.

I do like glucomannan, however, so I use capsules. You might try them if you want to incorporate it into your regimen on a regular basis.

Toss the powder, though. Life's too short.
 

ariel

Senior Member
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119
Yeah, it's pretty weird! :D
I usually mix whatever powders I'm taking with some yoghurt, and the first time I tried this it turned it into some kind of sticky concrete... ! :confused: Huh?
Never touched it since. Might try some capsules at some point instead. Thanks!

Hey, what are other people doing to ease all the inflammation ??
I'd love some input here, I've said what I do a bunch of times, what does everyone else do? Do you just go super slow and have lots times where you don't take anything?

I now have about three mouth ulcers. :grumpy: Have totally overdone it. Am trialling yet another new prebiotic, one again supposedly for the distal end. Will let you all know if it is worth it.


I guess that whatever gets reactivated when we introduce all these prebiotics never actually goes away.
ie. the herpes virus is probably always going to flare up, but hopefully when the gut works better the herpes virus and so on is kept in better check.
I read somewhere that the Hadza are fine when they eat their traditional diet, but as soon as they move into the city or away from their traditional lifestyle they quickly become full of parasites and pathogens. So it must be all the fibre which keeps everything at bay. Once the amount of fibre decreases all the nasties get the upper hand.
We are hopefully reversing the process.
:sluggish::alien:
 

Sasha

Fine, thank you
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Hey, what are other people doing to ease all the inflammation ??
I'd love some input here, I've said what I do a bunch of times, what does everyone else do? Do you just go super slow and have lots times where you don't take anything?

With just PS/psyllium I had no inflammation and noticed improvement (in my OI) after about six weeks.

With Prescript Assist I had migraines and a massive outbreak of cold sores, so I gave up.

With C. butyricum, I started off on 2 tabs/day and felt fluish but having read the advice on this thread, decided to reduce the dose and then to take it in the evening so I'd sleep through the worst of it. Still experimenting.

I'm not convinced it's good to push through bad symptoms - I don't understand the logic, but I'm no bioscientist - but others here (who I respect) are saying that inflammation is a sign that something is happening.

But my experience with PS/psyllium makes me wonder if inflammation isn't necessary for improvement and if a sub-inflammation dose just works more slowly.
 

ariel

Senior Member
Messages
119
Thanks Sasha! :balloons:

Yes, maybe it isn't good to push through bad symptoms. I really don't know anymore. :thumbdown:
Feel very confused at the moment for some reason. I think mostly because my flare up is fairly intense at the moment and it as if little progress has been made.
But I will just have to stop and wait a week or so.

Argh these set-backs! What a process. Feel like I'm in this endless loop
Ok. Off to find a fluffy cloud to wrap my body and head in.
:angel:
 

alicec

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Australia
There are several places where I could post this but since this thread is where I posted the first analysis, I decided to follow-up here.

I've received a new gut microbiome analysis from uBiome. The first was done BEFORE I made mainly dietary changes plus added small amounts of concentrated prebiotics, as discussed in this thread. The second was done just over 4 months later with changes as listed in the attached table. Since I have decided to keep doing these analyses at regular intervals, I have listed various other things in the table which I thought it would be useful to track along with the microbiota changes.

The major change I made was including resistant starch (mainly RS3, some RS1 from legumes) with each meal. Essentially I went from a VLC paleo diet to the PHD. So far I have only looked at the big picture at the phylum level. Working through all the genera detail will take longer.

Changes in diet CAN make huge differences to the microbiome (though I think you have to keep up the dietary changes to maintain the differences in the gut - it will quickly revert to the established pattern).

Results show :-

a significant reduction in the problematic Proteobacteria (0.63 X previous) and now just slightly higher than uBiome average,

significant increase in beneficial Actinobacteria (1.53 X previous) though still massively depleted (10.0 X),

massive increase in Cyanobacteria (13.4 X), still a little lower than but much closer to average,

massive changes to Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes (more on that later)

minor phyla still virtually non-existent though one, Lentisphaerae is now registering as a real value (0.01%) rather than <0.01% as used previously, or now 0.0% - in other words detected but only just. This seems to be reflected in a member known to be important for maintaining the integrity of the gut epithelium, viz Akkermansia, now appearing on the list of genera detected in me (only just, but better than not at all previously). Acidobacteria and Spirochaetes have declined from just detectable to not at all, but at these low levels it probably doesn't mean much.

the increase in Firmicutes (1.5 X previous) and decrease in Bacteroidetes (0.43 X) could be interpreted differently depending on what is taken as average. According to uBiome, Firmicutes is now elevated (1.3 X) and Bacteroidetes is depleted (1.92 X). However the average values, which one presumes largely represent a North American population, are very different from much of the literature, not just for hunter gatherer populations but also Europeans.

The changes seen in my gut - Firmicutes 51.5 to 77.5 % and Bacteroidetes 27 to 11.7 % - are similar to those seen by Jeff Leach (in reverse)
http://humanfoodproject.com/going-f...cquire-healthiest-gut-microbiome-world-heard/

who like me didn't change protein and fat but went from high vegetable/fibre to very low vegetable/fibre (not that I was ever very low vegetable, more low resistant starch) .

A study of the French and Dutch found Firmicutes 79.4% and Bacteroidetes 16.9%. The famous Hadza study compared with an Italian population and found Hadza Firmicutes 72%, Italians a bit higher (couldn't find an exact figure in my quick trawl of the paper just because of the way things were reported), Hazda Bacteroidetes 17.1%, Italian 10.1%.

In other words I don't think my results now are abnormal, but rather reflect a relatively high fibre diet.

I've had a quick look for changes to particular genera. Still no detection of Oxalobacter or Bifidobacterium though the closely related Collinsella is just registering, Lactobacillus and Akkermansia are just registering, Faecalibacterium has gone from 0.001% to 0.01% (still terrible since the average is 9.47%).

Better news is that butyrate producing Roseburia has gone from 0.271% to 3.93%, a little above average.

I'll do more closer study and try to come up with a strategy more targeted to the continued deficiencies. Still I am very pleased to have the analysis and to know that real microbiome change is associated with dietary change.

With best wishes
Alice
 

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alicec

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Australia
These are some awsome changes, @alicec, congratulations! And thanks for sharing your results. How long did you have to wait for them?

About 6 weeks - same as last time, though it may have been less. Last time they sent me an email when results were available. This time I received no email but was getting a bit impatient and decided to look at the website to see if they gave an estimate of current analysis time. My results were sitting there - don't know for how long.
 
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Still waiting on my results from uBiome. However the results from my OATS urine test was not good. Very high clostridia (HPHPA) and fungal markers are still prevelant, even after months of taking strong dosages of antimicrobials/antifungals. Great Plains Lab recommended taking antibiotic Flagyl for reducing bad clostridia, which no doubt will harm good microbiome too. But when desperation calls, desperate measures are needed.

My question here is I'm looking for the most effective way of administering probiotics after the microbial bombing campaign. Has anyone here experimented dosing probiotics via suppository or enema? If so, was it more effective vs oral administration? I know this has been done by others, but would like to hear your feedback. I have half a refrigerator shelf of probiotics to try including Miyarisan.
 
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31
Plenty of people here mentioned self administered coffee enemas. Using same borrowed technique instead with probiotics dissolved in water. The question remains, is it more effective and worth the extra trouble? Only one person on the Miyarisan thread mentioned doing this, commenting the extra effort was questionably more effective. My allergist claims getting clinical probiotic enema treatments can cost upwards of $1,000 a pop. Too rich for my uninsured blood, considering ongoing treatments would be necessary. .
 
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Gondwanaland

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5,100
Essentially I went from a VLC paleo diet to the PHD.
Did you feel that high consumption of meat and animal fat had additional damaging effects due to antibiotics used in the animals, other than just starving the fiber-eater gut bugs?
 

alicec

Senior Member
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Location
Australia
Did you feel that high consumption of meat and animal fat had additional damaging effects due to antibiotics used in the animals, other than just starving the fiber-eater gut bugs?

My meat and fat consumption didn't really change, remaining moderate. Also I eat organic meat and poultry and rarely eat farmed fish, so at least for me, antibiotics along with my food is not an issue.

What my and Jeff Leach's experiment showed is that the current idea that high Bacteroidetes reflects high meat/fat consumption is far too simplistic. Neither of us changed these dietary elements but there were dramatic changes in Bacteroidetes.

Leach hypothesises that Bacteroidetes thrive in a higher pH environment and the increased fermentation associated with a high fibre diet, which lowers pH, is what is causing the dramatic changes in the population.
 

jepps

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Austria
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.4030.html
Host microbiota constantly control maturation and function of microglia in the CNS
Received 11 October 2014 Accepted 29 April 2015 Published online 01 June 2015

As the tissue macrophages of the CNS, microglia are critically involved in diseases of the CNS. However, it remains unknown what controls their maturation and activation under homeostatic conditions. We observed substantial contributions of the host microbiota to microglia homeostasis, as germ-free (GF) mice displayed global defects in microglia with altered cell proportions and an immature phenotype, leading to impaired innate immune responses. Temporal eradication of host microbiota severely changed microglia properties. Limited microbiota complexity also resulted in defective microglia. In contrast, recolonization with a complex microbiota partially restored microglia features. We determined that short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), microbiota-derived bacterial fermentation products, regulated microglia homeostasis. Accordingly, mice deficient for the SCFA receptor FFAR2 mirrored microglia defects found under GF conditions. These findings suggest that host bacteria vitally regulate microglia maturation and function, whereas microglia impairment can be rectified to some extent by complex microbiota.
 

Sasha

Fine, thank you
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UK
My diet has become very, very narrow as a result of having gone onto the autoimmune version of the Paleo diet and then trying to avoid tyramine (possibly histamine) and things that trigger my eczema and things that trigger acid reflux (currently a problem) so a couple of days ago I tried to reintroduce some gut-bug-friendly stuff to give my microbiota a bit of healthy diversity...

...and yesterday was pretty much flat on my back feeling ill, with a headache.

I think I'm in a bit of a vicious circle with limited diet --> limited bugs --> food intolerances but I don't know how to break out of it.

Do we know which probiotics help with histamine problems (histamine degraders?)?
 
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