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

Sidereal

Senior Member
Messages
4,856
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...

The same thing happened to me on restrictive paleo protocols. Started off by removing offending foods, only to find myself with an ever-shrinking list of tolerable foods until I was down to nothing I could eat without mast cell reactions.

Diet change can actually be incredibly dangerous due to the shifting microbial composition in the gut. It may shift in a good direction but it can also shift in an even worse direction.

Removing offending foods can make you feel better for a while and that works for some people long-term but for others it doesn't stop there; the immune system just starts reacting to something else. I know people who are down to just bone broth thanks to various guru food elimination protocols.

For me it took a few months of RS to get over the worst of it. I don't know if this would work for others. It was very painful at first, I'm not gonna lie to you. After about 3-6 months I could eat basically anything. Recently I messed around with C butyricum and now I have reactions to eggs and bananas which is incredibly annoying since I can only eat a tiny amount of food daily without weight gain and these used to be my staples.
 

Sasha

Fine, thank you
Messages
17,863
Location
UK
Sorry to hear you've been getting problems with CB, @Sidereal.

I agree that dietary change can be very problematic. During my first long bout of ME, I went on a restricted diet, didn't feel any better and so tried to come off it and couldn't, because it made me feel sicker. Eventually I went into ME remission and was able to reintroduce and eat everything, with no apparent problems. Then I relapsed, after about ten years.

At the end of last year, I removed high-tyramine foods to try to stop my migraines, which were putting me in bed, feeling awful and in pain, two or three times a week. Removing the foods has been spectacularly successful in pretty much ridding me of the migraines but now I wish I'd first tried supplementing with histamine-degrading probiotics. I didn't know about them at the time.

Man, this disease is a pig. I'm so confused about what I should be doing, and how, and in what order. o_O
 

Sidereal

Senior Member
Messages
4,856
Agreed Sasha. It's so tricky. I got great relief at first from various symptoms by removing offending foods. The initial successes are what keep people going despite a gradual worsening of the overall situation.
 

Sasha

Fine, thank you
Messages
17,863
Location
UK
I've been feeling what feels like a lot more lactic acid in my muscles since I started taking VSL3 (which I stopped three months ago). I suspect that C. Butyricum might also be increasing it (is that likely)?

Wondering what I should take that would tend to reduce that and also be a histamine degrader.

Any ideas?
 

alicec

Senior Member
Messages
1,572
Location
Australia
Removing the foods has been spectacularly successful in pretty much ridding me of the migraines but now I wish I'd first tried supplementing with histamine-degrading probiotics.

Removing the worst offending foods to make life tolerable is a good initial strategy but you have to realise that is only temporary and the aim should always be to expand the diet as quickly as possible.

During my first crash I became very food intolerant and existed on an extremely restricted diet. Foolishly I became fearful of food and stuck to this for far, far longer than I should have or even needed to.

The two things that helped me most to get out of it were high doses of pancreatic enzymes and probiotics. In your case, histamine degrading varieties of the latter would obviously be the way to go.

In my second relapse I went through a transient period of food sensitivities. This is when I discovered my oxalate sensitivities. Once I reduced my oxalate consumption other sensitivities just disappeared.

Essentially these sensitivities are the result of dysbiosis, so a gut strategy is essential, but at the same time you have to do whatever is necessary to survive.
 

Sasha

Fine, thank you
Messages
17,863
Location
UK
Thanks, @aliec. I'm finding it difficult to know how to go forward, and at what speed. I've been trying Miyarisan for a few weeks now and feel I'm in the early days with it - I'm still getting worsening of symptoms (and new symptoms, such as hand pain) if I try to up the dose and I'm not sure I've seen real benefits in terms of OI yet.

So I'm reluctant to add in other probiotics, because at this point it will make it hard for me to assess their impact and Miyarisan's, but at this rate, it's going to be years before I get anywhere. Plus I suspect I now have SIBO (waiting for a gastric endoscopy) so food is difficult generally now.

:bang-head:
 

South

Senior Member
Messages
466
Location
Southeastern United States
I wonder how much atropine there is in potato starch. Atropine is anticholinergic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticholinergic

@Violeta Atropine seems to be mostly in potato skins, which makes me guess the potato starch (for resistant starch uses) doesn't have much. Particularly since people are only using this starch in spoon size quantities, not eating it in main-dish type quantities.

http://toxicology.ucsd.edu/Newsletters/CPCS Newsletter Anticholinergic Plants.pdf

"a number of food staples, such as potato,
tomato, eggplant and chili pepper belong to the Solanaceae family. Although atropine can be isolated in small quantities from the unripe skin of these edible plants, symptoms of toxicity are rare."

Note that a poisonous herb listed on that page (Not potatoes) made someone agitated and answer “I am Batman” to all questions :rofl:
 

Violeta

Senior Member
Messages
2,998
@Violeta Atropine seems to be mostly in potato skins, which makes me guess the potato starch (for resistant starch uses) doesn't have much. Particularly since people are only using this starch in spoon size quantities, not eating it in main-dish type quantities.

http://toxicology.ucsd.edu/Newsletters/CPCS Newsletter Anticholinergic Plants.pdf

"a number of food staples, such as potato,
tomato, eggplant and chili pepper belong to the Solanaceae family. Although atropine can be isolated in small quantities from the unripe skin of these edible plants, symptoms of toxicity are rare."

Note that a poisonous herb listed on that page (Not potatoes) made someone agitated and answer “I am Batman” to all questions :rofl:[/QUOTE

Strange type of high for sure!

Thank you for the information about atropine, that's good news.
 

Violeta

Senior Member
Messages
2,998
The symptoms people are developing on RS, Clostridium butyricum etc. are cholinergic, i.e. the opposite of what atropine would do.

Sidereal, do you mean the negative symptoms? What would be the reason for that? Something wrong with the receptors?
 

South

Senior Member
Messages
466
Location
Southeastern United States
Every now and then someone asks "how much resistant starch should people start off with".

There are some comments on the internet on this, but the opinions can be hard to find.

Maybe these three links will help with this. They illustrate the very different opinions on how much resistant starch to start off with.

"If you choose to try supplementing with RS, start with small doses of about ¼ teaspoon once daily, and very gradually increase the amount as tolerated. Some increased gas and bloating is expected as your gut flora changes and adapts, but... If you experience marked discomfort, then decrease the amount you’re taking for a few days until your symptoms resolve....the benefits of resistant starch may be seen when consuming around 15 to 30 grams daily (equivalent to two to four tablespoons of potato starch). This may be too much for some people to tolerate, particularly in the setting of gut dysbiosis....If you experience marked GI distress with even small amounts of RS, this may be an indication of SIBO...or microbial dysbiosis, and you may need to consider working with a healthcare practitioner to establish a more balanced gut microbiome through the use of herbal antimicrobials and probiotics before adding RS"
This comment was from: http://chriskresser.com/how-resistant-starch-will-help-to-make-you-healthier-and-thinner/

"I was hit with negative symptoms from several weeks in, and what worked best for me was to stop the starch (100%) and wait until things came back to baseline before proceeding very slowly. I'm currently taking 1/2 tsp every 4 days and I'm reacting less and less each dose. I'm still experiencing positive effects from RS on these modest doses."
This comment was from: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...ve-been-looking-for.26976/page-63#post-452597

"When I started this, I was mostly bedridden and couldn't take even 1/4 tsp of RS or other things without massive symptoms.... I don't post about it publicly because I don't for one second wish to encourage anyone else to push through damage. The most common outcome when ME patients push through anything is that they just end up sicker than they started, sometimes permanently so....That said, I think an honest discussion is preferable to hypocrisy. It's all well and good to talk about moderation and going low & slow but the harsh reality of the situation is that some people with ME will get negative symptoms even from one mg of these substances and for some there is no prebiotic - none - that doesn't produce inflammation."
This comment was from: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...e-been-looking-for.26976/page-140#post-577780
 

Christopher

Senior Member
Messages
576
Location
Pennsylvania
I've just got myself a bottle of aloe vera juice (recommended for oesophagiitis) and, typically, I've just found something that's scaring me off it:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/aloe...-glyphosate-and-celiac-disease/#axzz3ZRVTFYs8

I see that people here have been using aloe vera (gel? juice?) as a prebiotic.

Any thoughts?

Apparently there is a difference between whole plant and inner leaf. Inner leaf products are not supposed to contain the damaging parts. But I have no direct experience. I am going to try to find an inner leaf product and test it out on myself.
 

paul80

Senior Member
Messages
298
I started the Potato starch today. I took less than 1/4 tea spoon of it and i feel terrible. really bad gas, my guts are aching, my head and eyes are sore too. Really didn't expect this on such a tiny amount.
Is there anything i can do to get this out my system, would activated charcoal help?
 

adreno

PR activist
Messages
4,841
I started the Potato starch today. I took less than 1/4 tea spoon of it and i feel terrible. really bad gas, my guts are aching, my head and eyes are sore too. Really didn't expect this on such a tiny amount.
Is there anything i can do to get this out my system, would activated charcoal help?
Yes, that might help:

Biomater Artif Cells Artif Organs. 1987;15(1):229-35.

Effect of activated charcoal on endotoxin adsorption. Part I. An in vitro study.

Du XN1, Niu Z, Zhou GZ, Li ZM.

Abstract
An in vitro study by using cross-linked agarose coated activated charcoal (CAAC-II) as adsorbent was conducted. Endotoxin was quantitatively measured by chromogenic method of limulus lysate test. Results of the study demonstrated that endotoxin was fairly efficiently removed by CAAC-II. It may therefore be possible for effective adsorption of endotoxin in vivo studies and warrant further experimental study for CAAC-II hemoperfusion in clinical endotoxemia.