Gut, Butyric acid and Autism

[integral]

AUTISM AND GUT HEALTH: BUTYRIC ACID COULD PROVIDE MULTIDIMENSIONAL SYMPTOM RELIEF

Butyric acid

Is a fatty acid that's created when the good bacteria in your gut break down dietary fiber. It's also found in animal fats and vegetable oils. However, the amount of butyric acid found in foods like butter and ghee is small compared to the amount that's made in your gut.

What probiotic is best for kids with autism?

Two of the most recommended probiotic strains for autism and IBS are Lactobacillus reuteri and Bifidobacterium. These can be useful tools in addition to incorporating whole probiotic-rich foods into your child's diet

Which probiotics produce butyric acid?

Butyricum, C. pasteurianum, C. perfringens) participate in butyric fermentation, as well as e.g., Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens and Fusobacterium nucleatum. The end products are butyric acid, a small amount of acetic acid and CO2 and H2.

WHY BUTYRIC ACID COULD BE ONE OF THE BEST ALTERNATIVES TO OPIOIDS

Wow

@Michael569 Thoughts ?

Ive been taking Butyric acid supplements starting yesterday, felt good and energized, no idea if its doing anything. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by integral

[integral]

On 4/22/2020 at 5:17 AM, Michael569 said:

I assume you meant to say Your "brain"? Yes, it is, it is made mostly fats: docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)  a 22 carbon-chain fatty acid with 5 double bonds and Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) a 20 carbon chain fatty acid with 5 double bonds. Butyric acid a short chain (4 carbons) fatty acids that is fully saturated.  They are "fats" but of completely different molecular structure and property. 

It is important to distinguish between saturated and unsaturated types of fats and than between length of chain and bond saturation. 

I am not bashing on ketogenic diet. It can be the only way for people with epilepsy and schizophrenia but an unmanaged ketogenic diet is a cardiovascular disaster. I've seen keto followers eat gigantic chunks of butter claiming they are doing a healthy thing. Stripping  human diet of fruits, legumes and most vegetables and calling is healthy is a very peculiar thing. 

BTW human milk is 3-5% fat and around 1% proteins and 8% carbohydrates including Human Milk Oligosacharides. Most of the fats are medium - to - long-chain fatty acids. If there are any saturated fats in maternal milk it will be very tiny amounts. The rest of the consistency is water filled with immunoglobulins and growth factors to create the newborns adaptive immunity. Careful where you source your facts

Based on this today i woke up and drank 1 litter of salted RO water waited 30 minutes then drank 1 cup of olive oil, 1/3 cup of MCT powder, butyric acid supplement, krill oil supplement (DHA,EPA), Plant-based omega-3 supplement (DHA,EPA). Stomach and body got very hot for some reason lol... what have i done... 

Edited January 29, 2023 by integral

[Michael569]

4 hours ago, integral said:

Based on this today i woke up and drank 1 litter of salted RO water waited 30 minutes then drank 1 cup of olive oil, 1/3 cup of MCT powder, butyric acid supplement, krill oil supplement (DHA,EPA), Plant-based omega-3 supplement (DHA,EPA). Stomach and body got very hot for some reason lol... what have i done... 

Well, that comment was written 3 years ago, I would say a lot of what I used to believe has been changing since then. If I wrote that comment today, it would come out as ...hmmm..  less arrogant I guess? 

Btw 1 cup of olive oil? that just sounds fucking gross . Seems like you pushed it a bit too far. I am not against occasional PUFA supplementation in the form of algae a couple of times a year but I would probably not go as hardcore as you did, haha. it is unlikely that even if some of that made it to the brain, all of it would somehow get deposited there. The fate of fatty acids in the body can go a gazillion way and all that olive oil may end up forming an expensive stool for all you know. I don't know this for sure but I think blood-brain barrier transporters have a saturation point and probably work on a bottleneck basis (e.g. more substrate does not mean automatically increased speed of shuttle - but this is just a speculation) 

Now to address the first comment. I have to admit that when it comes to autism in general, my knowledge and understanding of both pathophysiology and therapeutics are super limited as I have not yet worked with an autistic client and it is not my target audience. 

The gut-brain hypothesis appears to be one of the strong theories here (meaning, many with autism have GIT problems but that does not mean GIT problems necessarily cause or contribute to autism. It could be vice versa - autistic kids being picky eaters, eating low fibre diets, and more hypercaloric processed foods and hence their gut profile looks different to people who don't eat the same way and maybe if you made a study feeding autistic kids high fibre diets for 3 weeks you would see that microbiota profile adjusting towards what is considered normal. 

There is an interesting chapter on exactly this topic in Alana Collen's 10% Human book where she talks about this case report of a boy whose autism blew out of proportion on antibiotic treatment.

I don't really liked, in that article you shared, how quick they were to switch from "some studies show different microbiome profile in autistic kids" to "yo look at all the amazing benefits of short chain fatty acids" I don't think we should be so eager to reach a conclusion but I understand that this blog is part of their marketing strategy to increase supplement sales despite the obvious ethical question. 

When it comes to short-chain fatty acids (butyrate, valerate etc.) I think we know a lot about their structure, how they are made, where they are made and what dietary patterns stimulate more production. We know some association with disease such as lack of SCFAs in general, is seen with people with things like IBD, colon cancer and maybe even autoimmunity (there always exists possibility for reverse causality, e.g. people diagnosed with colon cancer are more likely to have poorer quality diets) 

But I think when it comes to therapeutics (e.g. give autistic kids some SCFAs in capsules), we know shit. The amount of research is too small, too short and too inconclusive, although they list one or two studies in the article you listed. 

If you feel like experimenting, definitely do but I wouldn't throw hundreds of dollars down that rabbit hole before exploring cheaper options such as dietary manipulation. 

In terms of their being so magical effect of supplementing either isolated SCFA or a cocktail of them, I have no idea. But from reading Sonnenburg's latest book (they are leading microbiome researchers in Stanford), the evidence does not definitely support the volume of products and marketing claims made not even for probiotics

To give you a more practical response: we know that SCFAs are a side product of oligosaccharide metabolism by the microbiome. And what foods contain the most of those? Plants. So why not just eat a shit ton of plants and see what happens? Just throw legumes everywhere, eat tons of soybeans, buckwheats, millets, oats, green leaf vegetables, root veggies, fruits and all that sort of stuff. The more variety the better. You might see more improvement in a month than you would see from a year of BA supplementation. I've seen (personal clinical experience) a guy with ankelosing spondylitis go completely symptom-free (does not mean healed) on a 100% high-fibre vegan diet, I've also seen a guy with multiple sclerosis go from being super sick to being relatively stable, energetic and happy and having no new lesions on a modified Mediterranean diet. I've also seen a fair share of mental health improvement cases but that could have been down to other stuff we did also. Someone I coached two years ago with what we suspected was SIBO (he never tested), responded beautifully to a gut healing protocol mainly based on a low FODMAP diet and a bunch of products for about 3 months. All of those are anecdotal stories and just my case studies but I think there is something to gorging yourself with high-fibre foods that we don't understand yet. 

Finally, get a copy of both "The Good gut" and "10% human" read them both and make up your own mind. The earlier also has a list of super cool recipes, including some home fermentation tips. That's actually stuff that can make a profound difference to how you feel in the long run rather than a 60 USD worth of pill box. 

hope that helps , ping me if you more Qs

Edited January 29, 2023 by Michael569
typos, spelling, grammar, added more info

[integral]

19 hours ago, Michael569 said:

To give you a more practical response: we know that SCFAs are a side product of oligosaccharide metabolism by the microbiome. And what foods contain the most of those? Plants. So why not just eat a shit ton of plants and see what happens? Just throw legumes everywhere, eat tons of soybeans, buckwheats, millets, oats, green leaf vegetables, root veggies, fruits and all that sort of stuff. The more variety the better. You might see more improvement in a month than you would see from a year of BA supplementation. I've seen (personal clinical experience) a guy with ankelosing spondylitis go completely symptom-free (does not mean healed) on a 100% high-fibre vegan diet, I've also seen a guy with multiple sclerosis go from being super sick to being relatively stable, energetic and happy and having no new lesions on a modified Mediterranean diet. I've also seen a fair share of mental health improvement cases but that could have been down to other stuff we did also. Someone I coached two years ago with what we suspected was SIBO (he never tested), responded beautifully to a gut healing protocol mainly based on a low FODMAP diet and a bunch of products for about 3 months. All of those are anecdotal stories and just my case studies but I think there is something to gorging yourself with high-fibre foods that we don't understand yet. 

Thanks for the perspective. I like these results  ?, Time to get to business, I've calculated 70 pounds a day of veggies should do it. ? Im getting the impression i need alot of diversity from many fiber sources to maximise butyric acid production. 

[Michael569]

@integral i assume you mean 70 grams? ?