Gut health is big these days – and for a big reason. Your mood, sleep quality, stress levels, immune system and even how likely you are to maintain a healthy weight, can all be affected by how healthy and happy your gut is, or isn’t.
And while a few different foods and lifestyle factors can help support your gut health, resistant starch plays a key role.
What is resistant starch
Resistant starch is a dietary starch that has fibre-like qualities, because, as its name suggests, it resists digestion in the small intestine.
This allows it to pass through to the large intestine unscathed, where it acts as a prebiotic, encouraging ‘good’ bacteria like
Bifidobacteria and
Lactobacilli to grow. It also feeds the gut’s resident population of bacteria, which ferment and break it down into a few different healthy fatty acids.
One of those is a fatty acid called butyrate. Because it’s the preferred fuel for the cells that line the gut, butyrate is vital for helping the gut to stay healthy and function normally.
But, butyrate has a number of other health benefits, too, including helping to maintain healthy cholesterol levels and even being able to potentially
boost weight loss.
