But your what??? Butyrate, it’s a type of fatty acid that helps your gut work right, and it might be important for gut-related diseases from autoimmunity to obesity to colon cancer. Now that I have your attention…

Let’s talk about B hydroxy butyrate, what’s it do besides gut health? Well let me tell you.

• increased energy
• treatment and prevention of metabolic syndrome in humans, since the rise of metabolic syndrome this is a huge discovery.
• Helps lower blood cholesterol by 25%
• lowers triglycerides by nearly 50%
• Lowers fasting insulin by nearly 50%

**Metabolic Syndrome: a group of syndromes which signal increased risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes**

So where do we get it?

You can get butyrate from food, but your gut flora can also make it out of fiber. I’ve also preferred this method until recently. Healthy gut flora digest food by fermenting it, when they ferment certain types of fiber, they create butyrate.

Your digestive system needs butyrate to function optimally. It helps control the both the growth of the cells lining the gut, and makes sure there is balance between the old cells dying and new cells being formed. 

Seeing as gut health is a major part of my clinical practice, you can see why it’s important to look into butyrate.

 Butyrate also has powerful anti-inflammatory effects that go beyond the gut. Ultimately, the anti-inflammatory benefits are helpful for a plethora of things but it’s ability to suppress inflammation in the gut is huge. 

The microbial metabolite butyrate regulates intestinal macrophage function via histone deacetylase inhibition: translation – it’s good for the bacteria in your gut.

Butyrate happens to be amazing at increasing and protecting brain function in those who suffer specific neurodegenerative diseases. Studies have been done on Alzeimer’s, Huntington’s disease, parkinson’s, lyme and MS to name a few.

What is one of the number one things that affect your gut? STRESS

It just so happens that due to the potent effect of butyrate on a number of processes in the body, it may be an important controller of metabolism, stress resistance and immune system function.

Let’s talk cancer for a second here. Butyrate is most famous for protecting against colon cancer. The protection comes from its anti-inflammatory effects, which reduce oxidative stress and help control free radical damage. This review connected colon cancer risk to a lower amount of bacteria that produce butyrate.

Let’s go back to gut health for a second. Butyrate also helps maintain healthy gut barrier function and reduce  intestinal permeability (“leaky gut”). Gut barrier function is huge for immune health and avoiding autoimmunity. We also have some evidence that the butyrate-autoimmunity connection exists in people. For example, people with autoimmune (Type 1) Diabetes have a lack of butyrate-producing bacteria in their gut.  Let’s be clear, this doesn’t mean that supplementing with butyrate is going to cure your Type 1 diabetes.

How about those suffering from IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease, including Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis). People with IBD have a reduced ability to metabolize butyrate. That might contribute to their inflammatory symptoms. I’ve seen some amazing improvement in my clinical practice from those who have added this as part of there supplemental regime. Keep in mind that not just any kind is good.

Problem is most of us, mainly women, don’t get enough fiber. Issue number two is that unless you are eating ghee, or grass fed butter, you aren’t getting enough butyrate to jump start your healing.

Want a better way to get it? Sure you do! You will have to be a member of my private FB group to find out. It’s free so jump on over to The Body Shop.