Butyrate - Health benefits, anti-inflammatory and key for the microbiota-gut-brain axis

[Ennio]

This Chiropractor's short video (who sounds like a knowledgeable Doctor of integrative medicine to me) gives a good summary of butyrate's effects, uses and benefits. One of the most impressive benefits of taking it, as he explains, is that by improving the health of one's gut function the use of butyrate helps the body, along with other supplements, in its own production of short chain fatty acids and the stabilization of T-regulatory cells - vital in healing from auto-immune conditions, and managing a number of gut-related diseases.

BUTYRATE. The Forgotten Nutrient For Irritable Bowel, Crohn's Disease, Ulcerative Colitis and SIBO.​

 

[Persej]

Apart from butyrate producing probiotics, and prebiotics which help probiotics to produce more butyrate, there is another factor that can influence the production of butyrate in the gut. And that is the gut transit time. I will post articles that talk about that, but in short - the shorter the gut transit time, the more saccharolytic fermentation you will have in the gut, and the more saccharolytic fermentation you have in the gut, the more butyrate your bacteria will produce.

Here are the articles:

Increasing butyrate concentration in the distal colon by accelerating intestinal transit | Gut

Advancing human gut microbiota research by considering gut transit time | Gut

Moreover, we saw the decline of butyrate producing taxa as well as lower concentrations of butyrate at pH > 7.5, that often occur together with CRC. Moreover, the alkaline pH usually accompanies slow gastrointestinal transit (Lewis and Heaton 1997) and constipation, that is typical for CRC (Kojima et al. 2004). This suggests that alkaline environments enable this bacterium to acquire benefits over lachnoclostridia or other mucin degrading bacteria such as Bifidobacterium bifidum, B. caccae and B. fragilis which abundances decreased at higher pH.

High pH in colonic lumen is one of the key parameters related to CRC (Kashtan et al. 1990; Walker and Walker 1992; Ohigashi et al. 2013), however, the data on the influence of alkaline environment on the development of colon microbiota are missing. It might be explained by the relevance of alkaline pH to protein fermentation resulting in formation of ammonia from amino acids. Branched short chain fatty acids (BCFA) isobutyrate and isovalerate, which are produced during protein degradation have been considered to be biomarkers for gut health as protein fermentation by genera such as Bacteroides and Clostridium can yield phenols, p-cresol and biogenic amines—potentially harmful compounds for the intestinal epithelium (Aguirre et al. 2016; Rios-Covian et al. 2020). Our results revealed the increase of proteolytic bacteria (Clostridium, Escherichia) along with the decrease of butyrate producers (Faecalibacterium, Blautia, Lachnospira) at pH > 7.5, even in the presence of fermentable carbohydrate pectin.

In conclusion, we showed that pH is a crucial trigger in the development of continuously growing faecal consortia. The changestat experiments demonstrated the pH-specific changes in the faecal microbiota, for example in relation to alkaline pH environment, often associated with pathologies. The species such as B. ovatus were prevalent within the whole range of pH, while butyrate producing Faecalibacterium or Coprococcus comes were severely inhibited at pH > 7.5. Further variations in the composition and metabolism were caused by the dilution rate, representing either fast or slow colonic transit rate. Consequently, the concomitant bacterial metabolites have specific health effects. The effect of pH on the fermentation of other dietary fibres, and their combinations, by faecal microbiota can be studied by applying a similar cultivation approach. As the pH of the colonic environment is directly related to diet, science-driven diet modifications could be an easy solution to support gut health.

Acidic pH enhances butyrate production from pectin by faecal microbiota

pH is a crucial trigger in the development and metabolic activity of faecal microbial consortia.

academic.oup.com

We tested the hypothesis that butyrate may serve as a bacterial-derived sleep-promoting signal.

Today, I talked with my mother about my aunt's experience with colonoscopy. She said that my aunt said that she was very sleepy and slept very well for a couple of days after her colonoscopy. And colonoscopy, of course, follows the colon cleanse protocol. Perhaps this protocol changed her microbiota, at least for a few days, which affected her sleep?

 

[DianaRose]

I'm not sure I understand fully but is butyrate better than probiotic then? Is it better to buy butyrate than a probiotic? There's so many supplements, sometimes it's hard to keep track which works best.