Yet ANOTHER Benefit of Resistant Starches: The Gut

[00:00:00]Here we are again, as promised, to discuss yet another benefit of resistant starches. I've covered this a few times already, the impact that they have on visceral fat, liver fat, microbiome health, and more. And I'll leave those analysis linked for you, but I did promise at least one more look, and this one being a bit less clinical and more cutting-edge, in a manner of speaking.

[00:00:22]I'm talking about your gut barrier integrity. Your gut barrier, a single layer of epithelial cells that separate the contents of your intestines and the microbes that live within from your bloodstream is extremely important. When there is a loss of barrier integrity, meaning that the epithelial cells die or the space between these shoulder-to-shoulder cells is widened, there can be unintended leaking of unwanted molecules into the blood. For example, bacteria found in our gut can release molecules like lipopolysaccharides, or LPS for short, into the blood. This leads to an inflammatory response, meaning that the body creates or activates and sends immune cells to deal with that foreign object, the LPS. This is all called leaky gut, colloquially, but it's not clinically recognized. The one reason being that it's difficult to measure, but there's plenty of scientific literature indicating that it can happen, and it's often linked to diseases like inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease, metabolic syndrome, and more. This is where resistant starches play a role. If you haven't seen my other work on resistant starches, they are, in quick terms, a starch that resists digestion and absorption in the intestines. So, it behaves like other dietary fibers. So, let's return to this epithelial gut barrier and how it relates to resistant starches.

[00:01:51]In one influential study, we can see microscope images of the intestinal lining.

[00:01:56]These epithelial cells creating the structure of the intestines, a specific structure called a villus, the blue corresponds to the intestinal lining itself, the villi. The black area is where the microbes in the food that you consume would be traveling through.

[00:02:11]And the red dots all over the villi and the green dots are proteins that are involved in keeping the epithelial cells that make up the villi tightly hugging each other. This class of proteins are tight junction proteins. They literally hook into one another cell to cell, not allowing things to pass between the cells except obviously when the gut barrier is impaired. Then if these junction proteins are less present and or less functional. Anyway, the more green and red, the more of these tight junction-related proteins called ZO-1 and occludin, especially occludin, are there. And the assumption is that the barrier is intact. So, on the left we see two representative images without resistant starch given to animals. On the right we see the resistant starch condition. Clearly there's a difference.

[00:03:02]The resistant starch-exposed gut cells, the epithelial cells, have a far more of these tight junction-related proteins.

[00:03:09]That is also strongly confirmed in the average data as well. I'm just showing you the images here because they look cool.

[00:03:15]But that doesn't measure the actual intestinal permeability, right? We're just assuming that it's better because well, there are more tight junction proteins there, that would make it stronger. So, we can do experiments where we feed animals or humans a fluorescent tagged sugar molecule called dextran or DX4000 FITC and then measure the amount of that that is found in the bloodstream. If more is found in the blood then, well, there's more permissibility or permeability occurring. Not a good thing.

[00:03:48]And here we see those results. The RS condition, the red bar, clearly shows reduced DX4000 exposure in the blood.

[00:03:57]What a weird name.

[00:03:58]I can also tell you that the lipopolysaccharides, the LPS, which we briefly discussed earlier, the ones that are off the bacteria directly, those are also reduced when the gut is exposed to resistant starches. So, the big point here is that resistant starches reduce gut permeability or leaky gut by increasing the number of tight junction proteins between the gut cells, keeping the gut tight. Keep in mind though, this is mostly preclinical work, so we're discussing mice. Interesting, compelling, but not translational to humans. So, let's touch on the human element of all this. As we do, keep in mind that we're only going over some of the data. I cover more in the full version of this video that you're watching, my extended analysis, which includes a new mechanism of fat loss occurring at the intestines, uh the effect on a tissue inflammation, like in fat, and even why resistant starches may not work for everyone. If you're inclined to get access to all my work, including what I just described, it's all available in video, written, and podcast form for you as a Physionic Insider. The link to join is in the description. I hope to see you there.

[00:05:10]For human research, we need to turn to these studies. After 4 months, the people who consume resistant starches experienced reductions in blood LPS levels. The blue line there is the resistant starch condition, the red is the placebo. This is weakly confirmed in other studies. Now, I say weakly because the study methodologies weren't as robust. The studies were smaller and they often looked at slightly different outcomes. Overall, this all tells us that resistant starches likely improve whole body health, not just through the typical changes in the microbiome that I've covered before, but through a consequence of improved gut barrier integrity, reducing the inflammatory barrage happening at the gut, which might translate to the whole body. The most convincing studies use 40 g of resistant starch per day. And to be clear, people have asked me if this means 40 g of the powder, the answer is no. The powder, depending on the source, contains a percentage of resistant starch. So, the amount of powder is usually a little greater than the actual resistant starch amount consumed. Some sources of resistant starches are green banana flour, green plantain flour, potato starch, and high amylose maize.

[00:06:22]Now, if you're interested in vetted brands, I have several options for the Physiologic Insiders, along with all the supplements that I've covered in my master supplement guide. Another common question is, can I just, well, skip the powder and focus on foods? Well, that's a bit controversial because yes, there are foods that contain the right resistant starches like green bananas and plantains. The amount needed to consume can be prohibitive since studies used 40 g. On the other hand, smaller studies use much smaller amounts, around 18 g and even as low as three or four grams. And the evidence is weaker with these due to the nature of how the studies are done. I would still opt for what the better studies use, 40 g, though there's some evidence smaller doses might still be beneficial on these gut-related outcomes.

[00:07:13]If you aren't resistant starched out, then I would highly recommend my two other analyses on the benefits of resistant starch, which you can find right here and here, or I will have them linked in the description for you as well. These molecules are pretty impressive considering the wide-reaching benefits that they have across many health outcomes. I hope that you are just as excited about them as I am. I certainly plan on covering them in the future again as more research releases.

[00:07:38]Thanks for nerding out with me, and I'll catch you in the next one. See you.