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

froufox

Senior Member
Messages
440
@froufox thanks for your reply, sorry to hear you had such a severe response, we really don't need to feel anymore ill do we? Do you understand why it had such an effect? sorry I don/t. So is your way forward to take even less and longer times inbetween?



@anne_likes_red

thanks for your reply, is you mix ready bought or do you buy the ingredients separately?
going off Froufox's response as well this sounds like it has the potential to be very powerful. So is it the immune system stimulating action of the stuff that is doing this? (with regards to the lymph symptoms I mean?)

Hi Maryb, thanks :) I should clarify a bit more...even though I had a very strong immune reaction, it definitely felt like a positive thing one on level as I very rarely get flu type symptoms and when I do, my ME symptoms abate somewhat, and that happened on this occasion too, so obviously it was reawakening part of my immune system that is normally very suppressed. Even though I felt pretty rough with the flu, my fatigue was not as severe and my brain was less inflamed (which is one of my worst symptoms by far).

However, clearly there was a big war going on and my lymphatic system was a) being stimulated too much and/or b) unable to process all of this die-off quickly enough leading to the increased swelling & congestion. In addition, as I do have leaky gut (low sIgA), and that might well be another reason for the OTT immune response as others have said.

I believe that I have parasites/worms and had been treating them prior to taking the resistant starch (I actually passed what looked like a tapeworm after my 2nd dose of RS which was a bit of a coincidence, so i'm wondering if the RS helped with that). So that might be another reason for my strong reaction. I was on antibiotics over the last couple of years, and ive not been consistent enough with probiotics which wont have helped matters. I also believe that I have SIBO and generally follow the FODMAP diet, as I cant tolerate certain types of carbohydrates, fruits and prebiotics (again no doubt another reason for my strong reaction) but I will take the RS again, but at a lower dose and hopefully build up the bifido! I hope that you get some benefits :)
 
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Violeta

Senior Member
Messages
2,895
I had taken a break from PS and probiotics to deal with a possible latent bacterial infection. I however, did go back to taking reishi since I had been slowly but surely improving since I started it last fall. I have been using colloidal silver and feeling much better, taking it orally and using it as a nasal spray.

I also started to have itching problems again, and that led me to looking into histamines and the inflammation that they cause. Histamines is a very interesting door to something, and I'm yet not sure what. Those who offer ideas about how to deal with it give several reasons for high histamine. Insufficient DAO, too much in the diet, too much being produced by the body. Those ways of dealing with it are helpful, but in some cases I think there may be more to it than that. I think it must have something to do with the Th1 and Th2 branches of the immune system.

If somewhere along the way your immune system became toward the Th2 branch, adrenals, the Th1 branch is much less effective at dealing with pathogens. The Th2 branch being overstimulated, you will have more allergic reactions, histamine release, the adrenals trying to keep up with it all, and then eventually being worn out.

If the resistant starch is in some way reactivating the Th1 branch of the immune system, that might take some load off the Th2 branch, relieving chronic fatigue and ME symptoms.

Which makes me wonder how much of Chronic fatigue and ME symptoms are caused by histamines.

I have read others say the same thing that you say in your statement, Froufox, "I should clarify a bit more...even though I had a very strong immune reaction, it definitely felt like a positive thing one on level as I very rarely get flu type symptoms and when I do, my ME symptoms abate somewhat, and that happened on this occasion too, so obviously it was reawakening part of my immune system that is normally very suppressed. Even though I felt pretty rough with the flu, my fatigue was not as severe and my brain was less inflamed (which is one of my worst symptoms by far),"

If I didn't lose you yet, there was another interesting thing that I saw on a different forum here about someone taking B12 and methylfolate and seeing the return of Parkinsonian symptoms. This makes me wonder what part B12 and/or methylfolate have in the balance of the immune system, and what part histamines play in Parkinson's and other "diseases" of the brain?
 

Lynn

Senior Member
Messages
366
I also started to have itching problems again, and that led me to looking into histamines and the inflammation that they cause. Histamines is a very interesting door to something, and I'm yet not sure what. Those who offer ideas about how to deal with it give several reasons for high histamine. Insufficient DAO, too much in the diet, too much being produced by the body. Those ways of dealing with it are helpful, but in some cases I think there may be more to it than that. I think it must have something to do with the Th1 and Th2 branches of the immune system

...If the resistant starch is in some way reactivating the Th1 branch of the immune system, that might take some load off the Th2 branch, relieving chronic fatigue and ME symptoms.

I am also concerned about histamines. When I started taking high dose thiamine therapy last July, along with energy that i haven't seen in years came chronic hives. After much research I decided the hives were histamine related.

I know I have a leaky gut so I am on a quest to solve that. I just started taking the RS so don't know if that will help. I have also tried L-glutamine for the hives and that does help but they never completely went away.

Unfortunately, after reading this entire thread, I am confused as to how much potato starch to take and how often. Part of me just wants to take the massive doses and weather the storm.

The effect of the thiamine on my energy has reduced. So I am stopping the thiamine supplements for a couple of weeks to see if the hives go away and if they will give me a boost when I start up again. As always I am doing too many things to feel better and I won't be able to tell what worked...the lack of thiamine or the RS.

Lynn
 

Violeta

Senior Member
Messages
2,895
I am also concerned about histamines. When I started taking high dose thiamine therapy last July, along with energy that i haven't seen in years came chronic hives. After much research I decided the hives were histamine related.

I know I have a leaky gut so I am on a quest to solve that. I just started taking the RS so don't know if that will help. I have also tried L-glutamine for the hives and that does help but they never completely went away.

Unfortunately, after reading this entire thread, I am confused as to how much potato starch to take and how often. Part of me just wants to take the massive doses and weather the storm.

The effect of the thiamine on my energy has reduced. So I am stopping the thiamine supplements for a couple of weeks to see if the hives go away and if they will give me a boost when I start up again. As always I am doing too many things to feel better and I won't be able to tell what worked...the lack of thiamine or the RS.

Lynn

@Lynn, that's very strange that taking thiamine caused hives. I wonder why? These weird symptoms are always a clue, but it's hard to figure out what they mean.

I am having a hard time right now finding something to eat that doesn't cause one problem or another. Also, my brain felt like ADHD to the max up until I took a couple of capsules of nettles. I made some tea with it yesterday, and included oat straw, and I had one cup of it, but I can't make myself drink it today so I just put some in capsules and took it that way. It is calming things down. I just remembered that nettles is good for hives, too, so I found this page in case you might want to read about it.

http://www.naturalnews.com/027290_stinging_nettles_tea_herb.html

Violeta
 

dmholmes

Senior Member
Messages
350
Location
Houston
I have only been on it a few days, but already I can tell it is having quite a different effect than Resistant Starch from Potato Starch or Plantain Flour. I know this is very subjective but mentally I feel clearer. It seems to have a very positive energizing brain effect where as in contrast RS has merely a gut energizing like effect. I feel like I have more mental energy.

I started taking the only supplement I have that contains larch arabinogalactan, Biotagen. The first day I had a noticeable improvement in fatigue and no PEM. Also had noticeable mucus in stool. But fatigue is back to normal after the second day unfortunately.
 

Asklipia

Senior Member
Messages
999
Reading today's post on freetheanimal I came upon a very interesting comment by Rene Sugar.
All about kynurenic acid, how it modifies the bacterial load in the gut, crosses the blood-brain barrier, is competing with tryptophan etc.
The angle is all about mental health.

In the links he gives is a very interesting one to one study by some Polish researchers describing the Effect of Kynurenic Acid on the Viability of Probiotics in vitro.
In which I learn that
We found that KYNA supported the growth of bacteria in the probiotics Acidolac (Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium) and Lakcid Forte (Lactobacillus rhamnosus) or retarded the growth of bacteria from the Acidolac, BioGaia (Lactobacillus reuteri Protectis), Dicoflor (Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG), Lacium (Lactobacillus plantarum) and Trilac (Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis) probiotics depending on its concentration. KYNA did not affect the viability of bacteria from the probiotic Linex (Lactobacillus acidophilus LA-5, Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BB-12). Our results suggest a potential role of KYNA in the regulation of bacterial growth in the digestive system.

This seems related to our problems doesn't it?
Would the amount of kynurenic acid be the judge that decides which bacteria we keep in our gut?

I cannot help but notice that kynurenic acid helps the growth some of the bacteria we do not want and retards the growth of L. Plantarum.

To treat his depression Rene "used large amounts of single strain probiotics whose growth is retarded by kynurenic acid and fed them prebiotics to try to create an environment inhospitable to kynurenic acid producing bacteria (and hopefully one also inhospitable to kynurenine producing bacteria)."
I suppose he means between brackets (and hopefully one also hospitable to kynurenine reducing bacteria)?

Plenty of food for thought.

The fact that he makes this mistake (if it is one?) means that his experiment at lowering kynurenic acid is not completely successful.:( Maybe not completely successful yet?

Because the more I find out about kynurenic acid the more I get interested.

Maybe people who can afford to get tested could try and find out their level of kynurenic acid.
 
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Aileen

Senior Member
Messages
615
Location
Canada
Very interesting indeed. What sort of test would we be looking for? It is probably something my doctor has never heard of. :( Anyone here ever been tested for this?
 

Asklipia

Senior Member
Messages
999
Very interesting indeed. What sort of test would we be looking for? It is probably something my doctor has never heard of. :( Anyone here ever been tested for this?
It says in the post :

You can test for kynurenic acid levels:
http://www.greatplainslaboratory.com/home/eng/full_oat.asp
http://www.pharmasan.com/testing.php?CatID=1&CatName=Neurotransmitters

https://www.neurorelief.com/index.php?p=cms&cid=498

Dr BG comments :
Another lab that tests kynurenic acid is GDX — I did mine — 7.5 and normal is << 7.1
 

anne_likes_red

Senior Member
Messages
1,103
Hi Anne, thats brilliant and very encouraging that you're experiencing similar benefits to Sushi, I hope these improvements continue! :) I am quite hesitant to take it again so will leave off it for the time being though the lymph symptoms have for the most part settled down now, which im relieved about. Will probably just take a crumb next time :cautious: I think that I'm feeling slightly better though energywise, but I dont know how much is down to the RS and/or the CDS!
I'm happy to hear things have settled for you. :thumbsup:
I have had a number of 'bad' days with the "hornet's nest" flu, but I can feel various positive shifts. As well as more activity tolerance I noticed I can handle more carbohydrates, and when I had a break from thiamine (I do this every so often because I don't really feel OK about taking a single B vitamin at such a high dose) my typical burning calf muscle symptom didn't return! Not one bit! Whether this means I'm making more of my own B1 I don't know? (Thiamine helps with carbohydrate metabolism as well.) So I have decided not to re-start B1 and wait and see what happens. Muscles overall feel much better....not so tight. <-- This possibly sounds like a LOT of improvement, but the changes are all quite subtle. I'm still dealing with mild lymph burning intermittently and the feeling I'm seeing off some unfriendly bugs....so it's a mixed bag.

@maryb I'm alternating Frontier Naturals potato starch with Honig (non organic) and an Australian made Green banana flour - Mt Uncle's brand. I'm using so little of either I think everything will pass it's Best Before Date well before I get through it! ;) Same as Frou, I noticed a change in the way my body dealt with it's recent flu-like challenge. Less inflammation and no autoimmune pain. Maybe a more 'normal' (and effective?) response? ...I am speculating there, but I have a good feeling about this resistant starch lark... ;)
 

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
I had a Great Plains OAT done in February 2014 and my results are:

Kynurenic Acid 1.5 (0.17-2.2)

I had high:

3-Oxoglutaric

Tartaric

Arabinose

Ascorbic

2-Hydroxyhippuric

I stopped using RS and everything else, a few days before the test.
 

adreno

PR activist
Messages
4,841

Asklipia

Senior Member
Messages
999
Whether this means I'm making more of my own B1 I don't know? (Thiamine helps with carbohydrate metabolism as well.) So I have decided not to re-start B1 and wait and see what happens.
I am so happy for you that you are getting improvements!:thumbsup::balloons::hug:

I also distinctly felt the Thiamine effect.

Kynurenic acid is a glutamate receptor antagonist. It stops excitotoxicity. Maybe it is elevated as a response to too much glutamate around. A situation created by Fake Folate intake and/or the presence in the gut of glutamate producing bacteria. Like the ones they use to make modern soy sauce for example, and thousands of ingredients meant to make bad food more palatable.
 

Sasha

Fine, thank you
Messages
17,863
Location
UK
Really, really delighted to say that Richard Nikoley was kind enough to allow through a post of mine about the Lipkin ME/CFS gut microbiome crowdfunding initiative and about what's going on here on this thread. I had insomnia and at 2am saw his brand-new post and so got the top slot. I was making a suggestion for the name of his book and thought... hang on a minute... I could...

I checked the blog first thing this morning and saw that he'd allowed the post through moderation and had posted a very kind message saying that he'd featured the campaign on all his social media:

http://freetheanimal.com/2014/03/microbiome-resistant-roundup.html

I wept tears of gratitude :cry::cry::cry: - I'm not kidding - but was too embarrassed to tell him. :cool:
 
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Asklipia

Senior Member
Messages
999
All we need to know about arabinogalactan :http://www.dadamo.com/science_larch.htm


In which I read :
"In general, oxidative agents inhibit the activity of most polysaccharides (21) whilst reduction can notably enhance them (53), typically by "reducing" side chains into more antigenic forms. Thus, concurrent administration of arabinogalactans with anti-oxidants such as ascorbate may enhance their efficacy. The use of halide donors, such as potassium iodide, in conjunction with arabinogalactan and ascorbate can produce quite prodigious increases in cellular myeloperoxidase activity, as measured by a candicidal index (54). Myeloperoxidase levels are typically depressed in chronic candidasis and increased in breast cancer (55)."

prodigious increase.

Halides are everywhere!

Maybe a good idea to start very slow...
 
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maddietod

Senior Member
Messages
2,859
Really, really delighted to say that Richard Nikoley was kind enough to allow through a post of mine about the Lipkin ME/CFS gut microbiome crowdfunding initiative and about what's going on here on this thread. I had insomnia and at 2am saw his brand-new post and so got the top slot. I was making a suggestion for the name of his book and thought... hang on a minute... I could...

I checked the blog first thing this morning and saw that he'd allowed the post through moderation and had posted a very kind message saying that he'd featured the campaign on all his social media.

I wept tears of gratitude :cry::cry::cry: - I'm not kidding - but was too embarrassed to tell him. :cool:

I didn't see a new blog on Free The Animal, but I went to Richard's facebook page and liked his link to the Lipkin initiative.
 

Ripley

Senior Member
Messages
402
Really, really delighted to say that Richard Nikoley was kind enough to allow through a post of mine about the Lipkin ME/CFS gut microbiome crowdfunding initiative and about what's going on here on this thread. I had insomnia and at 2am saw his brand-new post and so got the top slot. I was making a suggestion for the name of his book and thought... hang on a minute... I could...

I checked the blog first thing this morning and saw that he'd allowed the post through moderation and had posted a very kind message saying that he'd featured the campaign on all his social media:

http://freetheanimal.com/2014/03/microbiome-resistant-roundup.html

I wept tears of gratitude :cry::cry::cry: - I'm not kidding - but was too embarrassed to tell him. :cool:


@Sasha, I mentioned your gratitude to Richard and he added an addendum to his "roundup" post...
Richard Nikoley said:
Update: Oops, missed something worthy.

~ The Microbiome Discovery Project.
ME/CFS: a devastating neuro-immune disease as disabling as multiple sclerosis, affecting one million Americans and 17 million people worldwide.

The study: a cutting-edge hunt for the causes of ME/CFS in the gut “microbiome” – the bacteria, viruses and fungi in the digestive system – led by “the world’s most celebrated virus hunter”, Dr W. Ian Lipkin at the world’s largest and most advanced center for microbe discovery and diagnosis at Columbia University in New York.

The payoff: a world-class study with the potential to swiftly lead to treatments using drugs, probiotics or exclusion diets.

Our challenge: to raise $1.27 million (£760,000; €910,000) to fund the project and do it fast! The scientists are ready to go and can complete and publish the study within 12 months. The sooner we fund it, the sooner it starts.

Go check it out and watch the brief video by Dr. W. Ian Lipkin. And pitch in if you can.
 

Sasha

Fine, thank you
Messages
17,863
Location
UK
Thanks so much, @Ripley! I did thank him but I didn't mention the weeping. :cry::cry::cry:

That's fantastic new coverage and it's bound to bring in some donations. I'll post again and thank him. Wow!

What's fascinating to me now, on this thread, is that many people seem to have started out with PS and then started adjusting by adding different pre/probiotics for a bespoke solution. @Gestalt's experience is amazing.

I'm wondering if Lipkin's work will show that we all have the same problem or a range of different problems (i.e. different microbiome profiles) but with similar downstream effects on the immune system. The study will link each person's cytokine profile to their microbiome profile - it's a very sophisticated study. I'm wondering if it will lead to bespoke pre/probiotic treatments, further down the road, based on an individual's DNA-sequenced microbiome profile. That is, rather than blundering in the dark now, as we are, we'll be able to get guidance.

Thanks again!

:cry::cry::cry:
 

Vegas

Senior Member
Messages
577
Location
Virginia
This is what Great Plains writes about elevated kynurenic acid:


http://www.greatplainslaboratory.com/home/eng/Clinical Significance of the OAT.pdf


Sorry one of those long posts:

I think knowing a bit more about the tryptophan metabolism helps understand the bigger picture, the inter-related nature of biological processes, and how this all relates to exposure to gram negative bacteria.

Elevated kynurenic acid is what I was talking about with LPS interfering in the tryptophan metabolism and causing depressive symptoms. Depression is only one symptomatic expression of the effects the endotoxins produce, but it does illustrate some of the important underlying processes. (Unfortunately, like other inflammatory and immune markers, there is never going to be consistent disease-wide metabolite elevation because there are so many variables that can come into play. Amino acid metabolism will be influenced at so many places to attempt to mediate the immune response and people with ME/CFS are at many stages of immunocompetency. An elevated ratio of kynurenine/tryptophan, might interesting to see, at certain stages, but overall, there are going to be more useful tests).

When exposed to LPS, the depressive symptoms in animals are marked by an elevation of the kynurenines, which would include both kynurenine and one of its metabolites, kynurenic acid. Some of the metabolites can by themselves, like quinolinic acid, cause significant ROS, so this likely contributes to these symptoms. As the information you linked indicates, these diversions of tryptophan are also found in bacterial infections in humans.

In our murine friends, who have a dissimilar BBB but similar mammalian tryptophan metabolism, when LPS is injected directly into the brain, to at least overcome the confounding effects of BBB dissimilarity, this causes activation of the enzyme, IDO. The depressive effects are in part mediated by this enzyme IDO. Similar upregulation of IDO has now been established in a number of inflammatory disorders, autoimmune disease, cancer, asthma. I believe this is the same mechanism whereby Interferon can induce Depression, since Interferon has been shown to very potently activate IDO. So what does IDO do?

IDO is Indoleamine-PYRROLE- 2,3-dioxygenase and it catalyzes the breakdown of L-Tryptophan into N-formylkynurenine. Kynurenine pathways lead to niacin (NAD+) biosynthesis. By enhancing the biosynthesis of metabolites of kynurenine, however, this has the effect of limiting tryptophan availability for making your brain feel happier. As you know, tryptophan has more than one use, it doesn't just get fed into the kynurenine metabolism, it's collateral pathways is necessary for 5-HTP and biosynthesized into serotonin and then melatonin. Serotonin synthesis from tryptophan starts out with tryptophan hydroxylase, one of those enzymes that I think is going to start working better with RS supplementation. This enzyme, tryptophan hydroxylase, also uses tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4), and at the root level all these problems go back to the capacity to synthesize DNA.

So, the first question I was thinking about is, why, evolutionarily speaking, is tryptophan being diverted away from the serotonin/5-HTP pathways? One of the tested behaviors in mice they examined was the that the LPS inhibited their desire to consume sucrose. The other was that the mice were more immobile. So why would mice not want sugar or do they simply lack the desire to pursue anything (anhedonia) because the serotonin biosynthesis was inhibited? Also what purpose would this serve. From a pure evolutionary perspective, this sounds contradictory. On one hand, the immobility relates to caloric preservation and not wasting energy, but the failure to feed represents caloric deprivation. Of course, sucrose can quickly escalate serotonin levels, which would reinforce this decision to pursue sucrose, and depressed humans often resort to this compensatory strategy to self-medicate. Unfortunately, sucrose is not the sort of saccharide, a disaccharide, that is going to nurture the organisms we want and, in fact, the availability of sucrose would seem to favor a dysbiotic state, more gram negative organisms, and more LPS.

In ME/CFS, glucose can make matters worse by increasing lactate concentrations. Glycolysis is the way in which glucose is converted to usable energy, and in the process of doing so, pyruvate and lactate is produced. This can exacerbate oxidative stress. Certain forms of bacterial fermentation use these same basic chemical reactions, they produce much more lactate than Bifidobacteria, for example, and they don't readily yield reducing molecules we need to quench oxidative stress. This is the reason I generally think homolactic fermentation is not a good idea in ME/CFS.

So getting back to tryptophan, one of the really interesting things with mice is that when they are exposed to LPS and then given tryptophan, the tryptophan potentiates the toxicity of the LPS. The murine model has its limitations, including that humans are far more sensitive to LPS than mice, but I still think the combination of increasing the concentration of this amino acid should have the same effect in upregulating expression of IDO, regardless of the species. We have studies that have demonstrated that the availability of this amino acid (tryptophan) has the effect of significantly amplifying the endotoxin (LPS) toxicity often making non-lethal doses, lethal. Recall that I have talked about the many controls in place to limit the catabolism of proteins; and I think this is in part because the amino acids that become available via catabolism of proteins can amplify a immune response and initiate a dangerous, if not at least a symptomatically unpleasant immune cascade.

The counter-regulatory mechanisms are unbelievably complicated, and I am only familiar with a handful, but the redundancy is brilliantly engineered. Tryptophan is just one example, and seems to parallel the many other components of the metabolism, particularly the nitrogen/cysteine metabolism that simultaneously potentiate and suppress the immune response and hence inflammation. Just glancing at this page, the effect of thiamine, a sulfur-based compound, and the often mentioned problems introducing modifiers of the sulfur metabolism can readily stimulate the immune response. This is the paradox of immunomodulation; attempts to stimulate a response are often met with very adverse symptoms as they are also met with favorable symptomatic responses. It is about finding a tolerable balance as this is what the human body is trying to maintain.

The enzymatic reactions mediate varying responses to achieve a balance. IDO, for example, is activated by the endotoxins but it doesn't just divert flow from tryptophan, it also induces B cell activation. It plays a critical role in moderating the effects of the endotoxins to protect us. It seemingly, simultaneously influences our own actions via neurotransmitter inhibition. In this regard, Depression as induced by LPS, would seem to have a function, or evolutionary role.

Less melatonin, less serotonin, and more cytokines and kynurenine and QA is what you may get when you challenge the gram-negative organisms.