By Sue Cummings
I’ve been talking with a lot of customers lately who, like me, suffer from irritable bowel syndrome, hypothyroid and multiple food sensitivities – all signs of a “leaky gut.” I’ve been working with a whole food diet, lots of fermented foods, fiber and probiotic supplements, but the healing process can be slow. Frustrated, I kept looking for answers and I think I’ve found a good one. It’s called butyrate.
Butyrate is a short chain fatty acid with some amazing research results, though many of the studies are small or on mice. Nonetheless, results show that butyrate can reduce pain and other symptoms of irritable bowel, improve the intestinal barrier (thereby reducing leaky gut), reduce inflammation in the bowel, improve Crohn’s disease (a form of inflammatory bowel disease), and may help with weight loss and insulin resistance!
With a list like that how could I not try it? So I’ve been experimenting for a couple of months now and I’m really pleased with my results. In general my once common IBS symptoms are few and far between, my food reactions are far less severe, and, best of all, my days of head-to-toe body pain are completely gone. I’m sold!
That said, this supplement may not be for everyone. The bad news is it stinks, rather like really smelly cheese. I usually swallow my pills then wash my hands. For me, dealing with an unpleasant smell seems a small price to pay in exchange becoming pain free. (I’m not saying this will work on any kind of pain. But if your pain stems from gut inflammation – think autoimmune diseases, IBS, food sensitivities, maybe even fibromyalgia – I think butyrate is worth trying.)
There is one other thing. Butyrate occurs naturally in our guts, provided we have enough good guy bacteria and we feed them plenty of fiber. I chose a butyrate supplement because I found the above process too slow and unreliable. I’d been trying to eat plenty of fiber for years and never got the results I’ve achieved in just a couple of months of butyrate supplementation. And because of those results, we’ve decided to offer butyrate for sale at Ruth’s. I’d love for some of our customers to try it for a month or two and give me feedback.
If you want to learn more, click here, here and here.
