butyrate Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Incredible Bacterium Prevents Disease

AHA Publisher — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 07:00:19 +0000

Al Sears, MD, CNS – Researchers made a startling discovery… A never-before-recorded new gut bacterium with impressive disease-preventing properties. Researchers in Belgium spent two years examining 12,000 microbiome samples collected from all over the world. During their research, they came across something no one had ever seen before… A new “gut bug.” They named their new discovery Dysosmobacter welbionis. Dysosmobacter exists in about 70% of the population. But it’s almost nonexistent in patients with chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome.1,2 What makes this discovery so exciting is that Dysosmobacter welbionis produces a critical metabolite called butyrate. Butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid, is generated by beneficial bacteria that thrive in your digestive tract. Its ability to keep you healthy is stunning. In fact, butyrate has been shown to: Lower insulin resistance and improve blood sugar3 Boost mitochondrial energy in cells4 Tamp down inflammation by shielding you from leaky gut syndrome5 Stimulate your brain to grow more neurons6 Relieve Crohn’s disease and inflammatory bowel disease 7 Alleviate symptoms of depression and anxiety8 Modulate your immune response to keep it from overreacting9 And the latest research shows that butyrate exhibits “extraordinary anti-cancer activities.”10 Unfortunately, today’s high-glycemic, processed foods destroy the beneficial bacteria that create butyrate in the gut. And that sets the stage for what I call Syndrome Zero. But there is good news: Once you rebalance your gut biome, butyrate flourishes and your risk of chronic disease plummets. Here’s what I recommend… Start Your Own Gut-Flora Revival I always advise my patients to start with natural nutrients. Most doctors will never tell you this, but butter or clarified ghee made from the milk of grass-fed cows are two of the best sources of butyrate. In fact, the word butyrate comes from the Latin word butyrum, meaning butter. Upping your intake of prebiotic fiber is another smart move. Butyrate-friendly bacteria love almonds, garlic, apples, kiwi fruits, chickpeas, asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, and avocados. Beyond nutritional changes, here are three butyrate-boosting steps for you to follow… Three Simple Steps To Protect Your Health Ban these butyrate-killers. Obviously, you want to avoid consuming an excess of processed carbs and sweets. Buy grass-fed beef to avoid ingesting the antibiotics routinely fed to most livestock and poultry. Try to buy organic veggies… And be sure to avoid artificial sweeteners since fake sugars harm beneficial flora. Add inulin and XOS. Inulin is a non-digestible fiber. Once it reaches the large intestine, it turns into a prebiotic that feeds a host of butyrate-producing microbes. Fresh chicory root is your best source of inulin. Many butyrate-producing microbes also love to dine on another plant fiber called XOS (xylooligosaccharides). This little-known prebiotic is found in bamboo shoots, corn husks, and eucalyptus wood. But who wants to eat that. I recommend supplements. When it comes to XOS, be sure to check the label. Make sure the label specifies xylooligosaccharides, and keep an eye on portion size, too. My advice is only buy supplements that offer at least a 2.8 gram portion of XOS. That’s the level at which XOS really becomes effective. But go easy at first, start with a gram a day. Then gradually increase up to five grams. Supplement with butyrate. Studies show that low dosages (below 3.5 grams daily) of butyrate supplements are the most beneficial to your digestive tract. But excessive rates (above 7 grams daily) can disrupt the intestinal barrier. Start with 500 mg a day and build up to 2 or 3 grams over a period of four or five weeks. You should always take butyrate with healthy fatty acids like omega-3 to replenish your cell membranes. To Your Good Health, Al Sears, MD, CNS References: 1 “A New Bacteria, Made in Belgium (and UCLouvain).” EurekAlert!, 9 June 2021, accessed September 2021. 2 Le Roy T, et al. “Dysosmobacter Welbionis Is a Newly Isolated Human Commensal Bacterium Preventing Diet-Induced Obesity and Metabolic Disorders in Mice.” Gut. 2021 Jun 8;gutjnl-2020-323778. doi: 10.1136/gutjnl-2020-323778. Online ahead of print. 3 Gao Z, et al. “Butyrate Improves Insulin Sensitivity and Increases Energy Expenditure in Mice.” Diabetes. 2009. 58(7);1509–17. 4 Rose S, et al. “Butyrate Enhances Mitochondrial Function during Oxidative Stress in Cell Lines from Boys with Autism.” Translational Psychiatry. 2018. 8(1)10:1038/s41398-017-0089-z. 5 Canani R. “Potential Beneficial Effects of Butyrate in Intestinal and Extraintestinal Diseases.” World J Gastroenterol 2011. 17(12):1519. 6 “Modulating Gut Microbe Populations to Generate More Butyrate, Thus Raising BDNF Levels and Improving Cognitive Function.” Fight Aging! 2019. 7 Gevers D, et al. “The treatment-naïve microbiome in new-onset Crohn’s disease.” Cell Host Microbe. 2014 Mar 12; 15(3): 3828392. 8 Varela RB, Valvassori SS. “Sodium butyrate and mood stabilizers block ouabaininduced hyperlocomotion and increase BDNF, NGF and GDNF levels in brain of Wistar rats.” J Psychiatr Res. 2015 Feb;61:114-21 9 Chang PV, Hao L, et al. “The microbial metabolite butyrate regulates intestinal macrophage function via histone deacetylase inhibition.” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2014 Feb 11;111(6):2247-52. 10 Williams E,et al. “Anti-Cancer Effects of Butyrate: Use of Micro-Array Technology to Investigate Mechanisms.” Proc Nutr Soc. 62(1):107-115. To read the original article click here.

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Food Allergies Can Be Reversed in Mice by Targeting the Microbiome

AHA Publisher — Wed, 24 Aug 2022 07:00:45 +0000

American Chemical Society (ACS) via Newswise – CHICAGO, Aug. 21, 2022 — Although many people with dietary allergies experience mild symptoms when exposed to triggering foods, some face potentially fatal consequences. A bacterial compound called butyrate that’s made by healthy microbiomes has shown promise against allergic reactions in lab tests, but it’s nasty to take orally. Today, scientists describe a more palatable way to deliver this compound and report that their “polymeric micelles” are effective against peanut allergies in mice. The treatment could someday counteract many types of food allergies and inflammatory diseases. The researchers will present their results at the fall meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Fall 2022 is a hybrid meeting being held virtually and in-person Aug. 21–25, with on-demand access available Aug. 26-Sept. 9. The meeting features nearly 11,000 presentations on a wide range of science topics. Some of the bacteria in the gut microbiome produce metabolites, such as butyrate, that foster the growth of beneficial bacteria and maintain the lining of the gut. If a person’s microbiome is unhealthy and lacks these butyrate-producing bacteria, fragments of partially digested food can leak out of the gut and produce an immune reaction that results in an allergic response. One way to treat those with allergies would be to provide the missing bugs to them orally or with a fecal transplant, but that hasn’t worked well in the clinic, according to Jeffrey Hubbell, Ph.D., one of the project’s principal investigators (PIs). “So we thought, why don’t we just deliver the metabolites — like butyrate — that a healthy microbiome produces?” “But butyrate has a very bad smell, like dog poop and rancid butter, and it also tastes bad, so people wouldn’t want to swallow it,” says Shijie Cao, Ph.D., who is presenting the results at the meeting for the team, which is at the University of Chicago. And even if people could choke it down, butyrate would be digested before reaching its destination in the lower gut. To overcome these challenges, the researchers, including co-PI Cathryn Nagler, Ph.D., and Ruyi Wang, Ph.D., designed a new delivery system. They polymerized butanoyloxyethyl methacrylamide — which has a butyrate group as a side chain — with methacrylic acid or hydroxypropyl methacrylamide. The resulting polymers self-assembled into aggregates, or polymeric micelles, that tucked the butyrate side chains in their core, thus cloaking the compound’s foul smell and taste. The researchers administered these micelles to the digestive systems of mice lacking either healthy gut bacteria or a properly functioning gut lining. After digestive juices released the butyrate in the lower gut, the inert polymers were eliminated in the feces. The treatment restored the gut’s protective barrier and microbiome, in part by increasing production of peptides that kill off harmful bacteria, which made room for butyrate-producing bacteria. Most importantly, dosing allergic mice with the micelles prevented a life-threatening anaphylactic response when they were exposed to peanuts. “This type of therapy is not antigen specific,” Cao notes. “So theoretically, it can be broadly applied to any food allergies through the modulation of gut health.” Next up are trials in larger animals, followed by clinical trials. If those trials succeed and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves the oral treatment, the micelles could be marketed in small packets; consumers would tear open a packet and stir the contents into a glass of water or juice. In other work with the micelles, the team is analyzing data on treating inflammatory bowel diseases with the oral therapy. The team is also investigating administration via injection. The researchers have shown that this method allows the micelles and their butyrate cargo to accumulate in lymph nodes, which are part of the immune system. They found that this approach is effective in treating peanut allergies in mice, but it could also be used to suppress immune activation locally — rather than throughout the body. For example, injections could be helpful in patients who have had an organ transplant or who have a localized autoimmune and inflammatory condition, such as rheumatoid arthritis. The researchers acknowledge support and funding from their start-up company, ClostraBio, and the University of Chicago. To read the original article click here.

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How to Prevent Gut Inflammation

AHA Publisher — Sun, 15 Sep 2019 20:40:57 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – It’s important to note that we’re not referring to fiber supplements here, but whole plant foods. Fiber supplementation with something like Metamucil may “not replicate the results seen with a diet naturally high in fiber.” When you count all the little folds, the total surface area of our gut is about 3,000 square feet. That’s larger than a tennis court. Yet, only a single layer of cells separates our inner core from the outer chaos. The primary fuel that keeps this critical cell layer alive is a short-chain fatty acid called butyrate, which our good bacteria make from the fiber we eat. We feed the good bacteria in our gut, and they feed us right back. As shown in my video, Prebiotics: Tending Our Inner Garden, our good gut bacteria take the prebiotics we eat, like fiber, and, in return, provide the vital fuel source that feeds the cells that line our colon—a prototypical example of the symbiosis between us and our gut flora. How important are these compounds that our good bacteria derive from fiber? Researchers have explained that a condition known as diversion colitis “frequently develops in segments of the colorectum after surgical diversion of the fecal stream.” What does that mean? If you skip a segment of the bowel (like with an ileostomy) so food no longer passes through that section, it becomes inflamed and can start bleeding, breaking down, and closing off. How frequently does this happen? It can occur up to 100% of the time, but the inflammation uniformly disappears after you reattach it to the fecal flow. We didn’t know what caused this. Perhaps it was some kind of bacterial overgrowth or bad bacteria? No, it was a nutritional deficiency of the lining of the colon due to the absence of the fiber needed to create the short-chain fatty acids. This was proven in a study wherein researchers cured the inflammation by bathing the lining in what it so desperately needed: fiber breakdown products. Severe inflammation was gone in just a few weeks, demonstrating that when we feed the good bacteria in our gut, they feed us right back. It makes sense that we have good bacteria in our gut that feed us and try to keep us healthy—they have a pretty good thing going. Our guts are warm and moist, and food just keeps magically coming down the pipe. But if we die, they lose out on all of that. If we die, they die, so it’s in their best evolutionary interest to keep us happy. But, there are bad bugs, too, like cholera that cause diarrhea. These have a different strategy: The sicker they can make us, the more explosive the diarrhea, and the better their chances of spreading to other people and into other colons. They don’t care if we die, because they don’t intend on going down with the ship. So, how does the body keep the good bacteria around while getting rid of the bad? Think about it. We have literally trillions of bacteria in our gut, so our immune system must constantly maintain a balance between tolerating good bacteria while attacking bad bacteria. If we mess up this fine balance and start attacking harmless bacteria, it could lead to inflammatory bowel disease, where we’re in constant red-alert attack mode. Researchers explained, “The mechanisms by which the immune system maintains this critical balance remain largely undefined.” That was true…until now. If you think about it, there has to be a way for our good bacteria to signal to our immune system that they’re the good guys. There is. And that signal is butyrate. Researchers found that butyrate suppresses the inflammatory reaction and tells our immune system to stand down, so butyrate “may behave as a microbial signal to inform [our] immune system that the relative levels of [good] bacteria are within the desired range.” Butyrate calms the immune system down, saying in effect, “All’s well. You’ve got the good guys on board.” This ultimately renders the intestinal immune system hyporesponsive, (i.e., accommodating) to the beneficial bacteria. But, in the absence of the calming effect of butyrate, our immune system is back in full force, attacking the bacteria within our gut under the assumption that those are obviously not the good ones since butyrate levels are so low. We evolved to have butyrate suppress our immune reaction, so should our good bacteria ever get wiped out and bad bacteria take over, our immune system would be able to sense this and go on a rampage to destroy the invaders and continue rampaging until there were only good bacteria creating butyrate to put the immune system back to sleep. But what if we don’t eat enough fiber? Remember, our good bacteria use fiber to create butyrate. So, if we don’t eat enough fiber, we can’t make enough butyrate. We could have lots of good bacteria, but if we don’t feed them fiber, they can’t make butyrate. And when our body senses low levels of butyrate, it thinks our gut must be filled with bad bacteria and reacts accordingly. In other words, our body can mistake low fiber intake for having a population of bad bacteria in our gut. Our body doesn’t know about processed food—it evolved over millions of years getting massive fiber intake. Even during the Paleolithic period, humans ingested 100 grams of fiber a day. So, on fiber-deficient Western diets (Spam on Wonder Bread, anyone?), when our body detects low butyrate levels in the gut, it doesn’t think low fiber. As far as our body is concerned, there’s no such thing as low fiber. So, instead, it thinks bad bacteria. For millions of years, low butyrate has meant bad bacteria, so that’s the signal for our body to go on the inflammatory offensive. That’s one reason why fiber can be so anti-inflammatory and one of the reasons it’s said that “[f]iber intake is critical for optimal health.” It’s important to note that we’re not referring to fiber supplements here, but whole plant foods. Fiber supplementation with something like Metamucil may “not replicate the results seen with a diet naturally high in fiber.” This article has been modified. To read the original article click here. For more articles by Dr. Greger click here.

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