Hi All,
I’d like to revisit the topic of resistant starch. Many of threads have covered the benefits and potential benefits of using RS, so I’ll skip that. I hope the community will share their specific detailed experiences. For example:
Does taking the RS before a meal help to improve post meal BG ? or does taking RS once daily work just as well? How much was your BG affected by using RS?
Has anyone added RS to cold beverages such as cold coffee or cold tea?
It has been written that there appears to be no additional benefits beyond 4 Tbspoon RS daily. Has anyone found this to be the case or is more than 4 Tbsp better?
It has been noted that taking it 4-5 hours before bedtime is the best because it gives the RS a chance to travel to the large intestine. That would mean close to dinner time for some of us (if bedtime is around 11pm, dinner around 6 pm). Does it make a difference to take it before, during or after dinner?
Realizing everyone’s diabetes is unique, I am still curious as to individual experiences.
Generally I feel better (more intestinal regularity). Because my BG varies quite a bit, it’s unclear if RS has made a difference for my BG. It doesn’t seem to have increased BG; but unsure if it has reduced BG significantly.
I don’t have any experience with this yes, but my doctor has suggested I try it for exercise. Right now, I tend to crash about 30 minutes into good aerobic exercise (biking, running, etc.). Blood glucose drops, and I’ve had a hard time getting carb-intake right. I’ve tended to either stay uncomfortably low(ish) or overshoot and end up high(ish).
Doctor suggested UCAN “super starch” for refueling mid-ride, but I haven’t tried it yet. Ridiculously expensive, and I also would love to hear personal experience with using that or other resistant starches. I’ve read on Peter Attia’s blog that he’s a huge fan of using it, but not sure how it works for diabetics.
I’ve been using resistant starch in the form of potato starch for about three years now. I started using it in the hopes of slowing or stopping the progression of the gastroparesis (GP) diagnosis I received four years ago. I mix up about three tablespoons in hot tap water and drink it about an hour before bedtime. I also add a dose of “super beets” powder to the mix.
My GP does not seem to have progressed. I do not take any meds for it but I still experience some GI distress. I feel my symptoms are relatively mild but still significant. I do feel the resistant starch habit has helped things. I use the Bob’s Red Mill unmodified starch that @lh378 references above. I do not notice any specific beneficial effects on my blood sugar that I could attribute to my potato starch habit. It’s helped me enough to continue this nightly ritual.
I’ve actually done the experiments my doctor suggested for me. I use 30g of Bob’s Red Mill unmodified potato starch before serious workouts. It flatlines my BG without a spike (i.e., doesn’t seem to be digested as a carb at all). It’s extremely useful for me when I do strength training, which normally spikes me. It also seems to have some protective effect against lows for me when biking. So, all in all, I like it.
It does, however, taste more or less like wallpaper paste. Really important note about resistant starch: if you cook it it will decompose to a regular starch, in which case your BG will be shot. So, regardless of what the package says, don’t use it in gravies, cooking, or baking if you want to benefit from its mysterious BG protecting effects
It’s interesting that it also seems to have some protective effects against lows. Does your doctor have any theories about the resistant starch, how it works?
I wonder what happens to it when it reaches our stomach where the environment is “body temperature”. I know that we dissolve it in cool or cold water so that it doesn’t turn to regular starch.
Not sure about the volume measurements. I weigh everything on a kitchen scale (I’m both a scientist and a compulsive food measurer… I literally weigh everything that goes into my mouth)! Feels like maybe two big soup spoons?
There is a very good explanation for how it works, although it’s kind of hard to prove at this point. The theory goes thusly:
Resistant starch is not digested in the small intestine, but instead passes through to the large intestine.
In the large intestine, it’s fermented by gut flora (bacteria, protists, maybe some fungi if you’re lucky).
The primary byproducts of fermentation are medium chain triglycerides (fatty acids!) that are about 90% used by good gut flora (so RS feeds the good guys), and about 10% or so is absorbed and makes it into your bloodstream.
As with ingesting MCTs in other forms (coconut and palm oil, grassfed butters, etc.), having high levels of these fatty acids makes working out easier because they are more easily used by your muscles (and brain) than even glucose, from an energetic standpoint.
Since you now have a read-to-use form of high-energy fuel in your blood, your liver doesn’t need to dump glucose when you workout, so you tend to have lower spikes.
I have no idea how it can possibly work against lows, but it does seem to help to some extent. If you like the effects of RS, you might also look into bulletproof coffee, since it more or less works on the same biochemical processes: i.e., using MCTs for fuel rather than glucose. It’s also similarly related to true ketogenic diets, where you use Triglycerides of different types (including MCTs) for primary fuel instead of glucose.
Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCTs). There are four or five chemical versions, two of them are particularly good for using as energy. The two most useful ones are produced by fermentation of RS and also are found in high quantities in coconut oil and palm oil. Grassfed butter also has MCTs (as do some other oils, like flaxseed, etc., but they often have smaller proportions than coconut, which is kind of the gold standard). It’s one of the reasons why coconut oil has become all the rage.
Generally speaking, we don’t really know enough about gut flora to say, but most people think RS is going to feed the good bacteria. I’m a biologist, and I’ve studied the human microbiome along the way (I actually was trained to study plant microbiomes). There’s a lot going on down there we just don’t understand yet. In the meantime, it appears that yoghurt, kefir, lacto-fermented vegetables, vinegars, and Resistant Starches are good for the good gut friends. So keep feeding them! I try to eat pickled olives, cucumbers, and peppers daily, RS three times a week, yogurt at least once a week, and I also take a prescription-strength probiotic.
Most probiotics are garbage, because they are full with the same cultures you’d get from eating live culture yoghurt, pickles, or kefir. If you have a good coop or health store, you can look in the refrigerated section for brands like Solray that have non-shelf-stable multi-strain supplements. They are commonly used for chemo patients, but also work very well for people with diabetes, IBS, and other such metabolic/dietary issues. Good probiotics have to be refrigerated or they lose potency.
I tried it twice for running events (10 miler). Each time I stayed quite stable from a BG perspective. I didn’t go low at the end of the run like normal. Unfortunately the taste, for me, is less than desirable.
Taste is terrible, and I’ve used it to the same effect while on intense rides. My BG usually plummets after 60 minutes, but for some reason RS seems to help with that. And yes, it is more or less wallpaper paste. Worth not having to take a gel in the middle of a ride and then deal with high BG afterwards, though, for me.
Glad that the RS has helped to keep your BG stable for running and exercise. It’s marvelous that something so reasonably priced and pretty easy to purchase can help stabilize BG!
