This is from your original post. Let's see where we are in the discussion.

- Colon Health

We've addressed colon health, the benefit is hypothetical, and not preventive but therapeutic after-the-fact. A real therapy can be had from low-carb without regard for RS or gut flora.

- Glucose (I assume you mean blood glucose?)

This is a low-carb forum, and the entire forum is dedicated to dietary carbohydrates and their effects on health, including blood glucose. We know pretty much everything there is to know about blood glucose, and it's got very little to do with RS or gut flora. If it does, then it does so through its effects on the hormones that regulate BG, i.e. insulin. Low-carb does this directly.

- Cholesterol

I will assume that you imply that cholesterol is involved in health, primarily through atherosclerosis, i.e. heat disease. We have tons of discussions on cholesterol and heart disease, and the consensus is that cholesterol is beneficial, and heart disease is caused by something else, if indeed it is a disease at all (some of us, myself for example, see heart disease as merely a consequence of some other aggressor, like a scar that's left after your skin healed following a cut). Low-carb restores normal cholesterol metabolism in most cases.

- Triglyceride Regulation

This is done primarily through insulin, and other factors like fructose with fatty liver for example. Nothing to do with RS or gut flora, though it's possible that some gut flora have an effect on hormones, including insulin, and then ultimately triglyceride regulation. Low-carb addresses this too.

- Weight Loss or Fad Dieting

You said that RS and gut flora has nothing to do with this. The reality is that if RS and gut flora have the potential to disrupt the hormones that regulate biological functions, including fat tissue (i.e. insulin), then weight loss is indeed a factor of RS and gut flora. You also admit that you've gained weight since you tried RS in various forms. This suggests that RS is actually detrimental to weight loss efforts. Considering that every hypothetical benefits claimed for RS can be had - in fact - through low-carb, and considering that a main point of low-carb is weight loss, it seems absurd that anybody would see any benefit to RS. And this is where Fad Dieting takes all its meaning. I can only conclude that RS is indeed a fad diet with no real benefit.

It still has to be established that there's any sort of a "cycle"--as in a downward-spiralling one, detrimental to health and metabolism, I think you mean, going on. Certainly things are different on a low carb diet so far as gut bacteria go. Whether they're better or worse, regardless of what's happening with butyric acid, still needs to be shown. Until we really know what's going on, you place your bets, you take your chances.

Gut bacteria are important, there's no doubt of that. Does healthy gut bacteria look the same in a healthy traditional Inuit as in a traditional Kitivan? Clearly not.

You are good--damn you!

I guess at this point, all I could do would be to link and quote from a bunch of studies to counter these arguments...but then you'd find the words 'may' or 'possibly' in them and we'd be back to square one.

I'll counter, instead, with personal observations. I did the low carb, very low carb, mostly meat, ketogenic stuff. I did the hell out of it. I used to resent anyone that said it wasn't optimal and read all about the Inuit (who are my neighbors here in Alaska, by the way).

When I started this journey--I was broke. 250 pounds. Fatty liver disease, pre-diabetic, gout, high everything. Low carb turned all that around. For that I am forever thankful.

However, somewhere in my journey to better health, sustainability and longevity came into my scope. Being a 160 pound weakling wasn't the dream of my future. I was sleeping poorly--waking every night at 3am, and had pre-diabetic levels of fasting blood glucose. My LDL was very high, even though HDL and Trigs were perfect.

The evolution of low carb usually involves adding back carbs to some extent--so I gave it a try, even if it meant seeing the scale go up. Once I realized that adding in carbs didn't make me return to the state I was once in, I experimented even harder. Playing with the resistant starches has made the biggest difference in my health of anything since I gave up the SAD.

My sleep is perfect through the night, my FBG is in the 85-95 range, and LDL dropped about 20 points after 6 months of a high resistant starch, moderate carb diet.

One oddity I find with RS, there is virtually no anecdotal evidence out there--it's all studies. Usually it's the opposite. Look at low carb, the studies all say it should be harmful, lead to poor health and is not sustainable and only works because of CICO. However, the internet is full of forums like this one with thousands of people reporting the opposite.

I have managed to get a few dozen people to try RS. With few preconceived notions, nearly everyone reports increased satiety from meals, better glucose control, better sleep, and better bowel movements. Many have reported having vivid dreams--which makes sense from the gut-produced serotonin angle, but that has never been reported in the studies.

So anyway, just like many said I was nuts to try to make low carb work, I will see my way past people who say that resistant starch is a worthless addition to my low(ish) carb diet.

Thanks for the discussions!

Good point on the anecdotal evidence.

I've actually flirted with resistant starch in the past (raw potato). Couldn't get myself to keep eating it. Right now I'm committed to a ridiculous diet of nothing but eggs and protein powder (please don't ask for studies to defend this ). Maybe I'll try some raw potato starch later, for a couple of months. If I mix it in with some sort of cocoa-pudding-ish concoction, I can probably get myself to eat it regularly.

Unless it helps with the social anxiety I've lived with since I was nine or ten years old, I'm not sure what I'd judge the effectiveness by. I feel pretty darn good on mostly eggs right now.

Actually, given connections between schizophrenia and celiac, and autism and gut bacteria, it's not exactly all that far out in left field that an improvement in gut bacteria might improve social anxiety and other mental disorders.

The gut bacteria going in must be a factor--and might be a factor in the differing results, short and long term, of a low carb diet.

Martin, I don't think we should too casually (or enthusiastically) dismiss the things Akman had to say. I only disagree with his certainty, not with the plausibility of his suggestions.

A little slow on starting the Potato Hack Thread but I got to it. It would be nice if we get some results either good and poor. They sure are a lot of people who tried this elsewhere who indicated good things.

Glad to see you still here and posting.

My only certainty is that the published benefits are a possibility and that my own experiences point to better glucose control, leading to better sleep, and my LDL cholesterol dropped significantly when the only change was addition of RS.

As to gut flora and mood/mind, their are definite links. I recently heard about this book: Potatoes Not Prozac http://www.amazon.com/dp/0684850141 and lots and lots has been written about the connection. Dr. Emily Deans loves the subject, http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogs...rain-again.html .

Another of the supposed benefits of healthier gut flora is the vitamin creation and mineral uptake courtesy of the microbes. Vit K seems to be all the rage at the moment, lots of supplements on the market for K, but in the real world vitamin K is produced by healthy gut bacteria.

Yeah, I like Deans's blog. I'm going to stay away from Potatoes Not Prozac for now. I've tried small amounts of potato in my diet, nothing good happened. I'm actually more open to raw potato at this point than cooked.

The author of potatoes not prozac seems to be coming from another direction, sugar sensitivity. I don't have any cravings for sugar. Quite the opposite. Wouldn't mind reading the book though.

Akman, do you know anything about transit time? Say you eat a raw potato--when does colonic fermentation start? Six hours later? Ten? We've seen some articles in the media section where some people have more trouble getting into ketosis than others. I could see short chain fatty acids at just the right time of night being helpful with that.

I have been experimenting with the potato hack for just over a month now. As opposed to getting involved in the sciency argument that you guys are having, I thought I would just paste my most recent post from my own journal. Let me add though, that I, too, suffer from mild depression/anxiety. I, too, am reading Potatoes Not Prozac. I would say that potatoes do help me sleep better, but the dreams are vivid and not so great, overall though, the diet has kept me sated and kept my mood stable. On to my journal post:

I don't actually have trouble sleeping, and I remember my dreams.

I'd love to see somebody with a blood ketone monitor's results just adding resistant starch to the diet.

Raw potato starch, tapioca starch, and plantain (green banana) flour are all easy to find and cheap. Much easier than raw potatoes. You can also buy super-green plantains and salt/dry them out--eat like potato chips, nearly pure RS and tasty.




The transit time of raw starches is approx 3 hours. I can guarantee through personal experience and reports from others that no amount of potato starch will knock one out of ketosis. BG rise from 4 TBS of uncooked potato starch is minimal, like 5pts.

Okay. I was more interested in whether potato starch would increase ketosis, in resistant cases.

Are you saying it starts fermenting in three hours?

I actually like the idea of raw potatoes better, for the nutrients that come with the raw starch in that form. I find it palatable with salt-just not so palatable that I remembered to eat it much, last time I was messing around with raw starch.

No idea if it can increase ketosis....yes, starts fermenting in 3 hours. I read that in an ileostomy study and can confirm because that's when the fun starts if you take too much at once...riiiiip

Another idea for RS from whole potatoes, cook them sous-vide style. They sell expensive sous-vide machines, but you can do it in a pan of water with a thermometer. Maintain the water temp at 150 degrees while cooking cubed and peeled potatoes. The RS is stable until in reaches 160 degrees. Cook the potatoes at 150 degrees for 2-3 hours. They will still be crunchy, but not raw tasting. Crock pot works, too, if it will maintain that low of temp.

Alternatively, you can just boil potatoes until they are fork tender to 1/4" with inside still very firm. A probe thermometer will reveal internal temp of 150 degrees at this stage. I like to make a batch like this, cool and make potato salad with homemade mayo...delish!

It just occurred to me that for RS to produce any benefit, we must keep our crap inside for a while. I mean, when I gotta go, I gotta go. But seriously, the fact that RS takes time to ferment implies that there could be a mechanism that slows down colon transit when RS is present in the colon. What other by-products of RS fermentation are there, and do any of those by-products - including butyrate - do something like that?

Since water is extracted by the colon, it follows that this would be a good way to determine when to start contracting. Maybe it's got something to do with volume or PH.

Intestinal transit time and PH are both common themes in the studies on RS. Usually when discussing transit time, they talk about delayed gastric emptying from the stomach and more time in the small intestine. Something to do with blunting of ghrelin, if I remember correctly. I've never seen anything that suggests more time in the colon, but increased fecal weight is often seen due to the higher amount/turnover of microbes. Generally, people taking RS report much better bowel movements and a bit more gas than they are used to.

On a slightly bizarre note, National Starch, makers of Hi-Maize RS Corn Starch have developed a process to get RS into your colon which bypasses the eating process: http://gut.bmj.com/content/61/Suppl_2/A93.1