Prebiotics May Negatively Affect Glucose Tolerance And Increase Lactate Production

[Hans]

They fed two group of people some prebiotics. One group got 16g/day of fructooligosaccharides (FOS) and the other galactooligosaccharides (GOS). Limitations to the study is that the dose was rather high and the study was pretty short (14 days). Non the less, here are the results.

From: Fructooligosaccharide (FOS) and Galactooligosaccharide (GOS) Increase <i>Bifidobacterium</i> but Reduce Butyrate Producing Bacteria with Adverse Glycemic Metabolism in healthy young population

"A significant increase in the relative abundance of Bifidobacterium was observed both in FOS and GOS group, while the butyrate-producing bacteria like Phascolarctobacterium in FOS group and Ruminococcus in GOS group were decreased."​

Bifidobacterium reduces endotoxin formation, which is good.

"The OGTT of nine subjects was elevated after FOS, but reduced after GOS (Blue dots in Fig. 5A). Whereas, six subjects had the opposite situation. Their OGTT was reduced after FOS, but elevated after GOS."​

The response to prebiotics varies from individual to individual. That may be why some people do better on veggies/high fiber foods and others don't.

"In FOS group, the fecal concentration of butyric acid was significantly decreased by 46.1%, whereas the reduce of butyric acid in GOS group was only a trend with 31.2%. SCFAs, especially butyric acid produced in the distal gut by bacterial fermentation that might improve T2DM features".​

"The worsen α-diversity was observed with the adverse fasting glucose after GOS intervention. Consistent with this, Gordon et al. and Larsen et al. reported that α-diversity was decreased in obese and T2DM population"​

"Moreover, the prebiotic intervention also decreased some opportunistic pathogens, such as Enterobacter and Salmonella, which have previously been reported to cause or underlie human infections such as bacteraemia and intra-abdominal infections"​

"With all the results together, we inferred that high-dose prebiotics intervention mainly promoted the proliferation of Bifidobacterium with producing much lactic acid, inhibiting the growth of opportunistic pathogens, also hindering the growth of butyrate-producing bacteria and SCFA production, which may be related with deteriorated glucose metabolism."​

Feeling tired after a fiber meal can indicate the liver is getting bombarded with newly formed lactic acid, and is struggling to dispose of it.

"Similarly, the gut microbiome also varied with different types of prebiotic intervention in individuals. This observation was consistent with a very recent report that variable responses of human microbiome to dietary supplementation with resistance starch (RS)"​

 

[Spartan300]

Thanks Salmonamb. This reminds me of a UK TV programme where the reporter saw sleep improvements immediately when taking Inulin pre-biotic (FOS?) before bed. dosage wasn't clear but it stopped him waking around 3am.

Sadly it did nothing for me but I might try again if it is a good endotoxin defence.

 

[Hans]

Thanks Salmonamb. This reminds me of a UK TV programme where the reporter saw sleep improvements immediately when taking Inulin pre-biotic (FOS?) before bed. dosage wasn't clear but it stopped him waking around 3am.

Sadly it did nothing for me but I might try again if it is a good endotoxin defence.

Maybe the reported was just a good responder to it.
I would rather take cocoa powder as it has so much more benefits, such as detoxification, lowering inflammation, etc., while also increasing Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium species and lowering pathogenic species.
Maybe you can try a cup of warm milk with a tablespoon cocoa and sugar/honey before bed and see how you feel on it.

 

[Spartan300]

Good idea, that should make a nice addition to my pre-bedtime routine.

 

[charlie]

Great work Salmonamb! Enjoying your posts!

 

[raypeatclips]

I would rather take cocoa powder as it has so much more benefits, such as detoxification, lowering inflammation, etc., while also increasing Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium species and lowering pathogenic species.

Looked through your posts but couldn't see anything about this, would you mind directing me to any studies about them please?

 

[Elephanto]

BTW the study I posted where FOS reversed detrimental changes induced by diabetes used only 250mg in mice. Achievable with around 100g of Brussel Sprouts, Melons (Cantaloupe, Watermelon, Honeydew), Nectarine, Baby Spinach or Zuccini. Good to know anyway, thanks.

 

[Hans]

Looked through your posts but couldn't see anything about this, would you mind directing me to any studies about them please?

Going to be posting the study tomorrow :)

 

[raypeatclips]

Going to be posting the study tomorrow :)

Looking forward to it! Thanks again for the great studies.

 

[Hans]

BTW the study I posted where FOS reversed detrimental changes induced by diabetes used only 250mg in mice. Achievable with around 100g of Brussel Sprouts, Melons (Cantaloupe, Watermelon, Honeydew), Nectarine, Baby Spinach or Zuccini. Good to know anyway, thanks.

I'm definitely not disagreeing with the study you posted, however, they gave the fiber to the mice in their drinking water, 250mg per 100ml.
A mouse drinks about 4-7ml per day, giving them about 10-17.5mg of fiber a day and not 250mg. So that would be a pretty small amount of fiber for a human to consume for the same benefits.

 

[Hans]

Great work Salmonamb! Enjoying your posts!

Looking forward to it! Thanks again for the great studies.

No problem. I always enjoy researching and sharing.

 

[Elephanto]

I'm definitely not disagreeing with the study you posted, however, they gave the fiber to the mice in their drinking water, 250mg per 100ml.
A mouse drinks about 4-7ml per day, giving them about 10-17.5mg of fiber a day and not 250mg. So that would be a pretty small amount of fiber for a human to consume for the same benefits.

Oh you're right. But still, FOS are a particular type of fiber, many fiber-rich foods doesn't contain them at all. Given gut size differences, we'd probably have to ingest more to get the same effect too (usually human-mice conversions apply to substances that make their effects through assimilation by the liver and into blood, not ones that change the environment of the gut by their presence). I would have liked to see a comparison in your study between what you would normally get from a diet including some FOS (well under 1g except if you specifically eat a lot of garlic) and the 16g dose, seems like logically the lactic acid, butyrate and glucose tolerance changes would be much less while keeping the benefits shown at very low dose.

 

[Elephanto]

Like for 3.8g of fiber in 100g of brussel sprout, only 0.3g is from FOS. So it's not as simple as "dietary fiber = FOS".

 

[Hans]

Oh you're right. But still, FOS are a particular type of fiber, many fiber-rich foods doesn't contain them at all. Given gut size differences, we'd probably have to ingest more to get the same effect too (usually human-mice conversions apply to substances that make their effects through assimilation by the liver and into blood, not ones that change the environment of the gut by their presence). I would have liked to see a comparison in your study between what you would normally get from a diet including some FOS (well under 1g except if you specifically eat a lot of garlic) and the 16g dose, seems like logically the lactic acid, butyrate and glucose tolerance changes would be much less while keeping the benefits shown at very low dose.

Agree, they definitely used a big dose, and could have compared it with smaller dosages as well.

So it's not as simple as "dietary fiber = FOS"

 

[Elephanto]

A best of both worlds solution would be to take the specific amount of FOS that you want from one of its sources, then avoid other sources and get your dietary fiber from the daily raw carrot salad or veggies soaked in antiseptics. It would be pretty easy as there is only 20 or so foods with notable quantities of FOS or the others are from unPeaty categories like nuts & seeds. Link below for Fructans. And then Inulin which is mainly in coconut sugar and chirory root, off the top of my head.

Fructan and fructooligosaccharide content of food - Nahrungsmittelintoleranzen (Food Intolerance Diagnostics)

That's basically what a FODMAP-avoiding diet is (which has perceived benefits while allowing a small amount of FOS), though it also restricts fructose, lactose and most sugar substitutes.

 

[YourUniverse]

I would rather take cocoa powder as it has so much more benefits, such as detoxification, lowering inflammation, etc., while also increasing Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium species and lowering pathogenic species.

So cocoa positively modulates the gut microbiome? Have you already/are you going to write a post around it?

 

[Hans]

So cocoa positively modulates the gut microbiome? Have you already/are you going to write a post around it?

Yes indeed it does. Do you mean have I written a post about it on my website or on the forum? Because I haven't on either, but will be posting one on my website in the near future. I'll post the study tomorrow (about cocoa and gut microbes).

 

[Hans]

@Elephanto
"The lowest dosage showing a bifidogenic effect was 5 g/day for inulin (Bouhnik et al., 2007; Kolida et al., 2007) and oligofructose (Menne et al., 2000; Rao, 2001) and 9 g/day for long-chain inulin (Harmsen et al., 2002). As a bifidogenic effect is also found with short-chain FOS from sucrose (for example, see Bouhnik et al., 2006), it seems to be independent of chain length."
The bifidogenic effect of inulin and oligofructose and its consequences for gut health

 

[Elephanto]

@Elephanto
"The lowest dosage showing a bifidogenic effect was 5 g/day for inulin (Bouhnik et al., 2007; Kolida et al., 2007) and oligofructose (Menne et al., 2000; Rao, 2001) and 9 g/day for long-chain inulin (Harmsen et al., 2002). As a bifidogenic effect is also found with short-chain FOS from sucrose (for example, see Bouhnik et al., 2006), it seems to be independent of chain length."
The bifidogenic effect of inulin and oligofructose and its consequences for gut health

Nice. Perhaps a "bifidogenic effect" wasn't necessary to restore balance in gut microbiota in the other study. Lactic acid is definitely something I want to minimize, for mental clarity and all the other beneficial effects. So far I've found 2 probiotic strains that do not produce lactic acid, Bacillus laterosporus and S. Boulardii. S Boulardii can increase TLR4, interferon-gamma, IL-1Beta and Il-17 (all inflammatory, last is linked to prostate cancer) but I haven't examined the first for negative properties (I usually search nitric oxide, TLR4 and cytokines like nFkB, TNF-Alpha, IL-1Beta, IL-6, IL-8, Il-17). While searching this stuff, I found that autists have higher lactic acid concentrations.

 

[Hans]

Nice. Perhaps a "bifidogenic effect" wasn't necessary to restore balance in gut microbiota in the other study. Lactic acid is definitely something I want to minimize, for mental clarity and all the other beneficial effects. So far I've found 2 probiotic strains that do not produce lactic acid, Bacillus laterosporus and S. Boulardii. S Boulardii can increase TLR4, interferon-gamma, IL-1Beta and Il-17 (all inflammatory, last is linked to prostate cancer) but I haven't examined the first for negative properties (I usually search nitric oxide, TLR4 and cytokines like nFkB, TNF-Alpha, IL-1Beta, IL-6, IL-8, Il-17). While searching this stuff, I found that autists have higher lactic acid concentrations.

That's a very good reason to keep gut bacteria as low as possible, while keeping the "right kind" high. It seems that a bit of lactic acid in the gut is necessary to reduce bacterial pathogens by acidifying the intestines. Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium species also lower the expressions of TLRs, thus reducing the inflammation that can be caused by endotoxins.