Lets keep gut health (and indeed whole body health given the gut affects every aspect of your health), simple.
Prebiotics: Non-digestible fibres (by us), and compounds that selectively feed beneficial bacteria in the gut. They help support a healthy microbiome, promoting the production of short chain fatty acids (like butyrate) that nourish the gut lining, support immune function, aid digestion, and may contribute to overall health and wellbeing. Common prebiotics include inulin, fructooligosaccharides (FOS), galactooligosaccharides (GOS), and resistant starch.
Probiotics: Actual bacteria that do not colonise the gut, but do produce peptides and molecules that help the microbiome and create a favourable environment and help to remove and crown out overgrown and bad bacteria.
Post-biotics: beneficial compounds produced by bacteria during the fermentation of fibres and other nutrients in the gut. They include substances such as short chain fatty acids like BUTYRATE, enzymes, peptides, and cell wall components that can support gut barrier function, immune health, digestion, and overall wellbeing. Unlike probiotics, postbiotics are not live microorganisms but are the health promoting substances they produce.
And in the King/Queen of the post-biotics is the short chain fatty acid, BUTYRATE.
Butyrate is the main fuel for the cells lining the gut (along with glutamine). Without fuel they cannot stay health and replicate, and every 3-5 days the whole gut lining has been replaced.
We have an amazing eco-system, in which we feed our good bacteria, and they make compounds like BUTYRATE, which nourish our gut lining.
One keep thing the goblet cells do is make MUCOUS, and that is where the ANAEROBIC good bacteria (obligate anaerobes) live, away from oxygen which kills them.
If we give them a good environment, they will thrive, replicate when we feed them, make peptides that keep us healthy and keep bad bugs out and stop them colonising us.
Think about how devastating a round of antibiotics can be to the microbiome and the subsequent gut and overall health issues, and fungal overgrowth.
We talked about the power of butyrate in treating hardcore gut conditions like Crohn’s disease back when we launched our Gut Hero butyrate product.
The study gave the participants 4 grams of butyrate daily, which is the equivalent of 8 of our 500 milligram capsules.
The results:
53% remission, 16% partial remission.
Tell me you are not impressed.
But most of us will not be treating patients with Crohn’s disease. But what you will see a huge amount of is patients with IBS, often secondary to an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine (SIBO – Small Intestinal bacterial Overgrowth). Which is particularly common amongst type 2 diabetics.
The setup here is 52 patients with type 2 diabetes with diagnosed IBS, randomized into two groups.
One group gets 1.5 grams of butyrate ( Equivalent of 3 of our capsules daily) vs placebo for 12 weeks.
Pre and post IBS questionnaires were recorded and also they did a lactulose hydrogen breath test, which is one of the tests used by the NHS for diagnosis of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.
The results:
In the butyrate group 100% had abdominal pain at the start down to 42% at the end.
57% diarrhoea vs 19% at the end.
Bloating 100% down to 34%, and constipation 53% to 30%.
In the placebo group – Nothing
Note also a drop in the SIBO breath test from 76% (note not 100% as not all IBS is bacterial) to 26%.
This is phenomenal use for your patients suffering from IBS as well as other health-related conditions.
Remember, there is the gut-everything-axis.
Your gut sets the tone of your immune system and if you have active gut issues then the chances are that you have a sustained low-grade inflammatory response and this is affecting your overall health.
And yes, that can include many neuro mechanical conditions and symptoms from headaches and migraine to back pain to tendinitis.
I would love to have seen the before and after body symptom questionnaire in these patients.
That’s why we always screen extensively on our health intake questionnaire for all the symptoms that may indicate a sustained low-grade inflammatory response and how we can intervene on a global health scale.
Note the study ran for 12 weeks and there is no data on the drop in symptoms after 4 or 8 weeks.
Frequently, when I’m in practice, I will prescribe supplements on the basis of a two to four week trial, which is usually one pouch/bottles worth of supplements.
However, with gut related issues, often you do need a longer run in order to see the difference, as we saw in the research supporting our EVERYDAY BIOTICS.
Re-read here:
Note the results take time to come through, peaking at 56 days.
Responders are defined as a patient that had a significant drop in IBS symptoms.
Day 14 (in red) only 3% responded (the number in brackets),
to 29% at 28 days in yellow
to 55% at day 42 (in green)
to 62% at day 56 (in blue)
Hence, while we might see a difference at one month with three capsules of Gut Hero Butyrate a day, we might not and miss those that would go on to improve if we had a longer trial.
So in an ideal world, I would recommend a minimum two, potentially three month trial of the gut hair butyrate at three capsules a day.
But note, some patients do need more as they did in the Crohn study.
This is bespoke, personalised medicine in action. You need to bespoke the care. If they’re taking one capsule three times a day and still having very strong symptoms, it is completely reasonable to increase the dose up towards eight a day as needed and hold that till symptoms settle and then reduce back down again to a standard three a day.
All patients are going to be unique, but clearly, one three times a day is an average dose that many will need.
Some may need more in the short term. And for many patients, they will need one a day as maintenance dose.
For your patients and yourself, if you are looking for health promotion and prevention of gut-related issues, one capsule a day of the Gut Hero Butyrate is a great idea.
Also, ideal would be to combine the Gut Hero products. That is, of course, the entire point of having the Gut Hero Trio.
It might also be the butyrate with the biome rescue product, which is particularly good at crowding out pathogens and stopping diarrhea associated with bad bugs.