Butyric acid plays a big role in keeping your gut healthy and happy. Who wouldn't want that, right? By the end of this blog post, you'll be ready to embrace this gut-loving superstar and support your overall wellness goals.
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Butyric acid, also known as butanoic acid, is a short-chain fatty acid that is naturally produced in the human body by gut bacteria during the fermentation of dietary fiber and hydrolysis-resistant starches. Some butyrate is also produced as proteins and peptides are digested in the bowel.
Further, it's found in small amounts in some dairy products and meats, such as butter and parmesan cheese. Butyric acid is an important source of energy for the cells that line the colon, and it plays a role in maintaining the health of the gastrointestinal tract.
It's thought to have anti-inflammatory properties and may potentially help reduce the risk of developing certain disorders.
Butyric acid is a gut powerhouse, nourishing your colon cells, and keeping your gut environment balanced and healthy. Butyric acid is a short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) that's naturally produced in your colon through the fermentation of dietary fiber and hydrolysis-resistant starches by gut bacteria.
Think of it as a little treat from your gut microbes for feeding them the good stuff. This fatty acid is like a VIP nutrient for the cells lining your colon, providing energy and promoting their overall health. And here's the real kicker: it also helps maintain a balanced environment in your gut by providing support against inflammation and harmful bacteria.
Now that we're well-versed in the wonders of butyric acid, it's only natural to wonder where you can find it in your meals. First things first: your gut bacteria produce butyric acid when they munch on the fiber you consume.
So, to keep your gut microbes well-fed and the butyric acid flowing, be sure to load up on fiber-rich foods like fruits, veggies, whole grains, and legumes, or sources of hydrolysis-resistant starch. It's a win-win situation, really. Your gut will thank you.
But wait, there's more! You can also find butyric acid in some dairy products, particularly butter, and ghee.
To help you visualize the many food sources of butyric acid, we've put together a list for you. It highlights some of the top dietary sources of butyric acid and their respective amounts. Consider incorporating these into your meals!
Caption: Butyric acid content in various food sources (Data source: USDA FoodData Central)
Before you go all-in on butyric acid, it's always a good idea to weigh the pros and cons. In the spirit of balance and informed decision-making, let's dive into the advantages and disadvantages of increasing butyric acid in your diet and lifestyle.
We get it – sometimes life gets busy, and it's not always easy to make sure you're getting all the nutrients you need from your diet alone. That's where supplements come to the rescue!
If you're wondering if there are any butyric acid supplements out there, the answer is a resounding "yes!" Butyric acid supplements usually come in the form of sodium or calcium butyrate.
They can be a great addition to your wellness routine, especially if you're looking to give your gut health some extra support. So, if you're all about that supplement life, here are a few things to keep in mind:
Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about butyric acid.
As you can see, this under-the-radar fatty acid has much to offer regarding gut health, inflammation, and overall well-being. It may not be the star of the show, but it sure packs a punch when it comes to supporting your body's functions. So, go ahead and give butyric acid a try – your gut will thank you!
Are you looking for an all-natural supplement to provide relief from symptoms such as gas, bloating and abdominal discomfort? Well your not alone, with gut issues affecting more and more people many are trying various probiotics, prebiotics and “gut formulas”. Butyrate supplements are one of the lesser known gut health supplements that is fast becoming a more popular choice. Find out why Butyrate (sometimes known as Butyric Acid) is fast becoming the ‘go to’ supplement for Australians seeking a healthy gut and where to buy the best Butyrate supplements in Australia.
Butyrate is an essential short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) along with acetate, propionate & valerate which is produced naturally by intestinal bacteria in the large intestine. Butyrate is often used synonymously with sodium butyrate, butyric acid & butanoic acid. Butyrate is found in certain foods such as full-fat dairy. A little bit of trivia… The name Butyrate is actually derived from butter in Greek. Comparative to direct food sources the majority of butyrate comes from the fermentation process by specific gut bacteria when they break down dietary fiber such as non-digestible carbohydrates and in the process produce short chain fatty acids including butyrate. Whilst there are many bacteria in the gut that produce butyrate, some of the common and potent butyrate-producing bacteria are faecalibacterium prausnitzii, Roseburia spp., and Eubacterium rectale.
Within the gut, butyrate has many health benefits. It helps regulate a healthy immune system, keep inflammation at bay, assist with the replication of new cells that make up the gut lining, maintain the intestinal barrier & possibly most importantly Butyrate functions as a primary source of energy for the intestinal epithelial cells. All these key features of butyrate helps to maintain healthy gut flora in the large intestine and promote optimal digestive health.
Outside of the gut butyrate has been shown to have positive effects on sleep, diabetes & in animal studies a host of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease & Alzheimers are showing some promising results. I suspect very shortly we are going to see more human studies carried out looking at butyrate's potential role in the management of these diseases.
One the most studied effects of butyrate is the anti-inflammatory effects it has in the gut. Studies have shown butyrate inhibits the expression of certain inflammatory mediators such as iNOS, TNF-α, and IL-6, whilst promoting the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10. Butyrate has also been shown to activate anti-inflammatory cells such as Tregs and M2 macrophages. Butyrate influences gut macrophage differentiation to produce non-inflammatory anti-microbial macrophages. In a study where by researchers supplemented mice with butyrate they found that the macrophages in these mice had significantly enhanced anti-microbial activity
Butyrate also has antioxidant properties which is seen by it's ability to increase the activity of the antioxidant enzymes superoxide dismutase-2, catalase & glutathione which further contributes to it's anti-inflammatory effect in the gut & how it is involved with mopping up free radicals.
A feature of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and what distinguishes it from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is the presence of significant inflammation levels in the gut. Studies have shown that in patients with inflammatory bowel disease typically what is observed with the gut microbiome is decreased levels of SCFAs-producing bacteria in particular butyrate.
Other studies have also identified in children with IBD decreased SCFA levels in feces is a common finding comparative to healthy individuals.
In IBS it's not quite so straightforward. Whilst overall fecal SCFAs were decreased in individuals with constipation-dominant IBS compared to healthy controls, the reverse was seen with diarrhea-dominant IBS, whereby they were shown to have higher levels.
One of the more critical roles butyrate has is it's ability to modulate our immune system via interacting with several different immune system receptors. Butyrate has been shown to promote the differentiation of important Treg immune cells, activate B lymphocytes & regulation of neutrophils.
Several studies have been done investigating the gut microbiome and it's relevance to COVID-19. For a run down on the studies and what has been shown so far check out the blog post COVID-19 : Where does the Gut Microbiome fit in?
What seems to be a common theme with the recent studies to date, the gut microbiome in people with more significant and severe symptoms of COVID-19 have dysbiosis as evidenced by increased abundance of opportunistic and pathogenic bacteria such as Enterococcus and Eneterobacteriacea coupled with a decrease of butyrate-producing bacteria such as Faecalibacterium prausnitzii compared to patients with only mild symptoms. Furthermore a reduction in butyrate producing bacteria was associated with increased levels of C Reactive Protein indicating increased inflammation.
A recent study published in found the abundance of SCFA producing bacteria was markedly reduced in symptomatic COVID-19 patients relative to healthy individuals as well as asymptomatic positive COVID-19 individuals.
It has also be shown that these alterations of decreased abundance of butyrate-producing bacterial in the gut microbiome of COVID-19 individuals persist beyond 30 days after recovery from COVID-19 and positively correlated with disease severity.
Given these consistent findings relating the gut microbiome & COVID-19 from the studies done certain researchers have concluded:
we hypothesize that butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid initially produced by the gut microbiota, could be administered as supportive therapy to prevent immune system activation and disease progression.
In years gone by if someone were to say that our gut bacteria released certain chemicals & substances that impacted our sleep you'd probably think they were crazy. Turns out that bacteria do release a sleep inducing substance called Factor S & has been shown to build up in our brain when we are sleep deprived. Whilst many gaps in the research still need to be filled regarding the gut microbiome and its relationship with sleep we do know from the current studies that gut bacteria are a source of sleep-inducing signals.
In a recent study looking at the gut microbiome of patients with insomnia and comparing it to healthy controls found distinct differences in the gut microbiota in individuals with insomnia.
In this study, we observed a remarkable change in the composition of gut microbiota in patients with insomnia disorder compared with healthy controls.
Researchers have turned to short-chain fatty acids in particular butyrate to see if some of the sleep changes seen in previous studies could be due to bacterial production of butyrate. One particular study using mice the researchers mimicked the production of butyrate in the gut by orally administering tributyrin. They found a 50% increase in non-rapid-eye movement sleep (NREMS) in mice for 4 hours after the treatment, supporting their hypothesis that butyrate may serve as a sleep inducing and enhancing signaling molecule.
In another study, researches wanted to see the effect of a butyrate supplement on cognitive impairment associated with induced sleep deprivation. They gave sleep deprived mice butyrate and found it restored healthy inflammatory responses and memory impairment.
Now that we have covered what butyrate is & its importance to our health let's take a closer look at how we can test for butyrate levels in the gut, how to improve our butyrate levels. Which prebiotics and what foods produce butyrate in the gut. The evidence for butyrate supplements & how to choose the best Butyrate & Butyric acid supplements.
Human cells don't produce significant amounts of butyrate and as such we are reliant on butyrate from foods such as full-fat dairy products being one of the food groups containing the most butyrate. Aside from full fat dairy there aren't any other foods that would be considered significant contributors to exogenous butyrate. Comparatively to the butyrate production from the good gut bacteria, food sources of butyrate don't stack up nearly as well. You'd have to eat considerably more butter than what would be considered healthy so not something we can solely rely on to increase butyrate levels in the gut. Therefore humans are reliant upon endogenous production within the gut for the most part.
Before we move onto ways to increase butyrate levels in the gut you may be asking yourself, or I would hope that you would be at least wondering if you have low butyrate levels. Since we now have an appreciation for the importance of healthy butyrate levels in the gut, what is the best way of knowing what your butyrate level actually is? Fecal testing is a relatively straight forward way of testing for SCFAs and Butyrate levels in the gut. It is often part of a comprehensive GI microbiome mapping test such as the Complete Microbiome Mapping Stool Test in Australia. This is by far the most utilised gut testing I do with my patients and provides a comprehensive analysis of the microbiome, butyrate levels, inflammation in the gut + a few more key gut health markers. A word of caution however whilst stool testing gives us a butyrate level in the fecal sample it isn’t necessarily an accurate representation of the luminal concentration which is what is important, so personally I tend to let the clinical case and gut microbiota profile guide me in determining if we are going to supplement with butyrate.
Butyrate supplements can provide several advantages to those looking to improve their digestion and overall gut health. Butyrate supplementation helps support the lining of your digestive tract by maintaining intestinal pH balance, increasing energy levels, promoting healthy bacteria growth in your microbiota and aiding in nutrient absorption. Additionally, butyrate has been known to support immunity, healthy digestion and metabolism, reduce inflammation, and promote better sleep quality.
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Research into the use of Butyrate as a supplement has shown promising outcomes across a range of health conditions. In one particular study, 66 participants with medically diagnosed irritable bowel syndrome were given a microencapsulated sodium butyrate supplement or placebo for 4 weeks. Pain associated with bowel movements were significantly less in the individuals who were supplementing with butyrate. There was also improvements with bowel habits and urgency in the butyrate supplement group, with the authors concluding:
It [butyrate supplement] significantly decreases the frequency of clinical symptoms including spontaneous abdominal pain, postprandial abdominal pain, abdominal pain during defecation, stool consistency and constipation.
A small clinical study of 13 patients with Crohn's Disease, which is a form of Irritable Bowel Disease investigated the effect of 4 g/day of a butyrate supplement as enteric-coated tablets for 8 weeks. 69% of patients responded favourably to the butyrate supplement and 53% achieved remission.
As for Butyrate dosage, it’s not uncommon to see dosages in the vicinity of 3-4grams used in clinical research studies & thus dosages in that ballpark are often recommended on labels of butyrate supplements.
When choosing a Butyrate supplement, it is important to make sure that you select one that is of the highest quality and potency in order to achieve the health benefits. Look for supplements that are free from artificial ingredients, as this ensures maximum efficacy.
Tesseract ProButyrate is a brilliant butyrate supplement offering a good therapeutic dosage as well as pioneering the field of natural supplements with their advanced absorption & delivery technology. ProButyrate® is a Butyrate supplement using the purest possible Butanoic acid, unlike other Butyric supplements that use Butyric salt. Tesseract utilises an advanced delivery system that encapsulates its supplements so that the ingredients can weather exposure to stomach acids, preventing loss of bioavailability as the result of digestion. ProButyrate is specifically designed to deliver butyrate to the colon (without the issue of dissolution in the oral cavity), making it more effective than traditional butyrate salts. It also requires a significantly lower dose to achieve therapeutic effects - only 600- mg/day compared to the traditional 3-4 g/day required with most butyrate salt formulations.
From my own clinical experience using Butyrate supplements with patients I have noticed Tesseract ProButyrate® consistently produces the most positive outcomes & a very good track record for improving constipation.
BodyBio Calcium/Magnesium Butyrate is another one that I use a lot of in clinical practice & also consistent results have been observed. BodyBio offers a good clean therapeutic dosage & reputable company that specialise in advanced supplements. BodyBio also have a straight Sodium Butyrate Supplement, which is much the same as their Calcium/Magnesium Butyrate version - the difference between the two formulas is the minerals used to bind the butyric acid, ie. Sodium vs Calcium & Magnesium which act as a buffer to allow the butyric acid to reach the gut. All in all the Butyrate concentration is identical. So which Butyrate Supplement is better between the two formulas? We stock and use the Calcium/Magnesium Butyrate formula simply to avoid adding any additional sodium to ones daily intake.
BodyBio also produce TUDCA which is another supplement I have found very beneficial with a lot of patients with many different health benefits, you can read more about TUDCA specifically over at this article.
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