Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and behavio

Edward

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Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and behavioral functions in adult and aged rodents

Resistant starch (RS) is a dietary fiber that exerts multiple beneficial effects. The current study explored the effects of dietary RS on selected brain and behavioral functions in adult and aged rodents. Because glucokinase (GK) expression in hypothalamic arcuate nucleus and area postrema of the brainstem is important for brain glucose sensing, GK mRNA was measured by brain nuclei microdissection and PCR. Adult RS-fed rats had a higher GK mRNA than controls in both brain nuclei, an indicator of improved brain glucose sensing. Next, we tested whether dietary RS improve selected behaviors in aged mice. RS-fed aged mice exhibited (i) an increased eating responses to fasting, a behavioral indicator of improvement in aged brain glucose sensing; (ii) a longer latency to fall from an accelerating rotarod, a behavioral indicator of improved motor coordination; and (iii) a higher serum active glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). Then, GLP-1 receptor null (GLP-1RKO) mice were used to test the role of GLP-1 in brain glucose sensing, and they exhibited impaired eating responses to fasting. We conclude that in rodents (i) dietary RS improves two important indicators of brain function: glucose sensing and motor coordination, and (ii) GLP-1 is important in the optimal feeding response to a fast.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 5/abstract
 

jb4566

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Re: Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and beh

Edward,

I don't have access to the full text, but I was wondering what you thought of this:

http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/sug ... afe-doses/

It seems like the starch fed mice were able to take control of the nesting situation and "bully" the sugar fed mice into an early death. Maybe endotoxin from the starch caused the mice to behave aggressively, thus giving the appearance of sugar being harmful? Although it may not be the actual starch but rather the type of food (corn, and PUFA). It would be interesting to see a comparison of tuber/root vegetable starch and grain/bean starch. Anyways, I would like to hear your thoughts if you have time.
 

Gabriel

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Re: Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and beh

jb, according to your article "After 32 weeks in mouse barns, 35 percent of the females fed extra sugar died, twice the 17 percent death rate for female control mice. There was no difference in the 55 percent death among males who did and did not get added sugar. Ruff says males have much higher death rates than females in natural settings because they compete for territory, “but there’s no relation to sugar.”

If your hypothesis on aggressiveness were true then you'd expect more deaths in the male sugar-fed mice. But actually the higher deaths were found in the less competitive females. Also if the starch released endotoxin and given all the bad effects of endotoxin, they should have died more, but the opposite happened.
 

jb4566

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Re: Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and beh

"If your hypothesis on aggressiveness were true then you'd expect more deaths in the male sugar-fed mice. But actually the higher deaths were found in the less competitive females. Also if the starch released endotoxin and given all the bad effects of endotoxin, they should have died more, but the opposite happened."

I don't understand what you mean. Higher death's in the females makes sense, I wouldn't consider the lab a natural setting.

I'm saying that the endotoxin might have been "beneficial" , in that the starch fed mice were more aggressive and thus were able to "dominate" the sugar fed mice.
 

Gabriel

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Re: Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and beh

Males are usually the ones that battle out competitions, so you'd expect to see differences in them if one group had been more aggressive and dominated the other. But there was no differences in male mice.
 

jb4566

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Re: Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and beh

Yes true. However, the social behavior of the males surely has an effect on the females though?
 
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Edward

Edward

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Re: Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and beh

jb4566 said:
Edward,

I don't have access to the full text, but I was wondering what you thought of this:

http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/sug ... afe-doses/

It seems like the starch fed mice were able to take control of the nesting situation and "bully" the sugar fed mice into an early death. Maybe endotoxin from the starch caused the mice to behave aggressively, thus giving the appearance of sugar being harmful? Although it may not be the actual starch but rather the type of food (corn, and PUFA). It would be interesting to see a comparison of tuber/root vegetable starch and grain/bean starch. Anyways, I would like to hear your thoughts if you have time.

I dunno, why don’t you share your ideas about what you think the article means.

Most cultures that eat roots seem to do fine, some roots have high estrogen content http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17685543. The potato has a long untarnished history as far as I'm concerned in humans both past and present http://www.biochemj.org/bj/022/0258/0220258.pdf.

I had a rabbit once that died from eating a raw sweet potato on accident. That was quite disturbing. Rabbits can't cook their tubers and neither can rats and even when humans do it for them it is not quite the same scenario.

Endotoxin is interesting because it does alter behavior. It alters hunger, fat storage, etc. (http://www.pnas.org/content/101/44/15718.long, http://www.pnas.org/content/101/44/15718.long) It seems that the entire endocrine system and hormones such as insulin all play at least a secondary role in regulating endotoxin (LPS). In the developing fetus a LPS challenge makes the newborn more likely to be sick at young ages and when older less able to deal with stressful situations. LPS can modulate brain development which tends to support some of Lynn Margulis’s ideas. I also think that lower levels of circulating LPS or mechanisms to modulate LPS associate with increased intelligence. With circulating being the key word. With intelligence being associated with the ability to dynamically learn and adapt rather than intelligence judged by social behavior.

If the tight junctions along the GI tract are healthy I think that LPS is less of an issue. Tight junctions are dynamic almost like an elastic coffee filter. They respond to stimulus e.g. nutrients and stress. This means that molecules can transport across the body without the need of entering the bloodstream. Bruising I think would be a good example of this. Thyroid hormone modulates the tight junctions. I largely suspect that part of longevity has to do with how well you can maintain the tight junctions given that sepsis is usually another term for dying of natural causes. It would be akin to a leaky pipe. Your ability to close leaks and or deal with endotoxin challenges probably is what is going to determine how long you live at least partially. Glucose loosens the tight junctions and there is a tendency for some to view this as a negative thing. I think it depends on what you are eating your glucose with. If the body is like a gradient then the tight junctions must loosen to allow nutrients to move across the gradient to cells that are not in contact with capillaries. In that sense tight junctions when healthy respond in healthy ways sensing the needs of the cells around them by dilating and contracting. Cellular respiration is important for tight junction function as well. It is sort of a chicken and egg problem. Malfunctioning cellular respiration and improper tight junction functions can essentially block nutrients from getting were they need to be causing systematic hypoxia.
 

jb4566

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Re: Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and beh

Interesting, thanks for your thoughts.

" had a rabbit once that died from eating a raw sweet potato on accident. That was quite disturbing. Rabbits can't cook their tubers and neither can rats and even when humans do it for them it is not quite the same scenario."

I didn't mean to give the wrong impression, I eat lots of potato myself.

"It is sort of a chicken and egg problem. "

Most things seem to be. Have you read anything by Chris Masterjohn? In his "Thyroid Toxins report" he seems to have a negative view of sweet potatoes. Although in a healthy individual I would imagine that they are not a problem at all.
 

Swandattur

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Re: Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and beh

Edward, do you favor sweet potatoes instead of carrots, because you believe they do the same thing, only better or because you don't need the raw carrot effect, but do need sweet potato?
 

jb4566

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Re: Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and beh

He is saying that they do the same thing.
 

Swandattur

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Re: Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and beh

Okay, thanks, I can't tell from that study what they do, exactly. I'll look at it again.
 
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Edward

Edward

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Re: Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and beh

jb4566 said:
Have you read anything by Chris Masterjohn? In his "Thyroid Toxins report" he seems to have a negative view of sweet potatoes. Although in a healthy individual I would imagine that they are not a problem at all.

I would like to believe that Chris is fairly unbiased, but nonetheless, food has a way of scarring people:

http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/01/wh ... -potatoes/

But sweet potato has a very long history and use, and I doubt there is a problem with modern varieties, the modern white potato has been selected for just like any other domesticated plant, so I think Paul pointing out they are bread for sweetness is rather ridiculous. Then again I'm biased.
 

charlie

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Re: Dietary resistant starch improves selected brain and beh

Edward, how frequently do you eat sweet potato and how do you prepare it?
 

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