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Apr 4, 2024 · Integrating Resistant Starch into Your Diet: Practical Tips. Incorporate Prebiotic-Rich Foods: Aim for a daily intake of asparagus, jicama, artichokes, beans, lentils, green bananas (the greener the better), and onions. Cook, Cool, Then Reheat Your Starches: When starchy foods like potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, and legumes are cooked and ...
- Overview
- Types of Resistant Starch
- How Does It Work?
- A Superfood for Your Digestive System
- Health Benefits of Resistant Starch
- May Aid Weight Loss by Improving Satiety
- How to Add Resistant Starches to Your Diet
- Bottom Line
Most carbohydrates in your diet are starches. But some types of starch can pass through your digestive tract without being digested. Many studies in humans show that resistant starch can have powerful health benefits.
Starches are long chains of glucose found in grains, potatoes, and other foods. But resistant starch functions kind of like soluble fiber.
Some of its potential benefits include improved insulin sensitivity, lower blood sugar levels, reduced appetite, and various benefits for digestion (1).
Resistant starch is a very popular topic these days. Many people have experimented with it and seen major improvements by adding it to their diet.
Not all resistant starches are the same. There are 4 different types (2).
•Type 1: Is found in grains, seeds and legumes and resists digestion because it’s bound within the fibrous cell walls.
•Type 2: Is found in some starchy foods, including raw potatoes and green (unripe) bananas.
•Type 3: Is formed when certain starchy foods, including potatoes and rice, are cooked and then cooled. The cooling turns some of the digestible starches into resistant starches via retrogradation (3).
•Type 4: Is man-made and formed via a chemical process.
However, this classification is not so simple, as several different types of resistant starch can co-exist in the same food.
The main reason why resistant starch works, is that it functions like soluble, fermentable fiber.
It goes through your stomach and small intestine undigested, eventually reaching your colon where it feeds your friendly gut bacteria (4).
The bacteria in your intestine (the gut flora) outnumber the body’s cells 10 to 1 — in that respect, you’re only 10% human (5).
Whereas most foods feed only 10% of your cells, fermentable fibers and resistant starches feed the other 90% (6, 7).
There are hundreds of different species of bacteria in your intestine. In the past few decades, scientists have discovered that the number and type of bacteria can have a profound impact on your health (8, 9).
Resistant starch feeds the friendly bacteria in your intestine, having a positive effect on the type of bacteria as well as their number (10, 11).
When you eat resistant starch, it ends up in your large intestine, where the bacteria digest it and turn it into short-chain fatty acids (14).
The most important of these short-chain fatty acids is butyrate (15).
Butyrate is the preferred fuel of the cells that line your colon (16).
Therefore, resistant starch both feeds the friendly bacteria and indirectly feeds the cells in your colon by increasing the amount of butyrate.
Resistant starch has several beneficial effects on your colon.
It reduces the pH level, potently reduces inflammation and leads to several beneficial changes that should lower your risk of colorectal cancer, which is the fourth most common cause of cancer death worldwide (17, 18).
Resistant starch has various benefits for metabolic health.
Several studies show that it can improve insulin sensitivity — the responsiveness of your body’s cells to insulin (24).
Resistant starch is also very effective at lowering blood sugar levels after meals (25, 26).
What’s more, it has a second meal effect, meaning that if you eat resistant starch with breakfast, it will also lower your blood sugar spike at lunch (27).
The effect on glucose and insulin metabolism is very impressive. Some studies have found a 33–50% improvement in insulin sensitivity after four weeks of consuming 15–30 grams per day (28, 29).
The importance of insulin sensitivity cannot be stressed enough.
Resistant starch has fewer calories than regular starch — two vs four calories per gram.
The higher the resistant starches content in a food, the fewer calories it will have.
Several studies show that soluble fiber supplements can contribute to weight loss, primarily by increasing feelings of fullness and reducing appetite (30, 31).
Resistant starch appears to have has the same effect. Adding resistant starch to meals increases feelings of fullness and makes people eat fewer calories (32, 33, 34).
A few studies in animals show that resistant starch can cause weight loss, but this effect hasn’t been studied properly in people.
Summary
There are two ways to add resistant starches to your diet — either get them from foods or take a supplement.
Several commonly consumed foods are high in resistant starch.
This includes raw potatoes, cooked and then cooled potatoes, green bananas, various legumes, cashews and raw oats.
As you can see, these are all high-carb foods, making them out of the question if you’re currently on a very low-carb diet.
However, you can eat some if you’re on a low-carb diet with carbs in the 50–150-gram range.
That being said, you can add resistant starch to your diet without adding any digestible carbohydrates. For this purpose, many people have recommended supplements, such as raw potato starch.
If you’re currently trying to break a weight loss plateau, have high blood sugars, digestive problems or if you’re simply in the mood for some self-experimentation, then trying out resistant starch seems like a good idea.
- Barbara Bolen, Phd
- Health Benefits of Resistant Starch. Scientists have been busy conducting studies on the health benefits of resistant starch. They are looking into whether resistant starch might be beneficial to your health in two ways
- Bananas. Bananas are a delicious source of resistant starch. They have the maximum amount of resistant starch when they are unripe — the content of resistant starch reduces as the banana ripens.
- Potatoes. Potatoes actually have their highest level of resistant starch when they are raw. But don't think you are doomed to eating uncooked spuds! You can also maximize your intake of resistant starch from potatoes if you allow them to cool before eating.
- Rice. Similar to potatoes, you will maximize your intake of resistant starch from rice if you allow the rice to cool before eating it. Levels of resistant starch are similar to whether your rice of choice is white or brown.
Jun 27, 2023 · Resistant starch may improve gut health and reduce post-meal hunger by stimulating the release of gut hormones that suppress appetite. Regular consumption of foods high in resistant starch, along ...
Resistant starch is a carbohydrate that resist digestion in the small intestine and ferments in the large intestine. As the fibers ferment they act as a prebiotic and feed the good bacteria in the gut. There are several types of resistant starch. They are classified by their structure or source. More than one type of resistant starch can be ...
FoodWeighted Mean ± Weighted SdRangeNPotato, unknown variety0 .7 ± 0.50.1 – 2.074Potato, high-amylose variety4.6NA3Potato, red variety1.7 ± 1.30.7 – 3.816Potato, russet3.1 ± 0.52.6 – 3.56Apr 30, 2024 · Health and weight-loss benefits come from getting at least 15 grams of resistant starch daily. You can get there by eating foods like 1 cup of cooked oatmeal, which delivers just under 4 grams of resistant starch. Half a cup of cooked pinto beans gets you around 5 grams, while fava beans can earn you up to 12 grams.
People also ask
Does resistant starch improve health?
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Dec 21, 2015 · Food starches have earned a bad reputation among low-carb adherents, but resistant starch—a type of starch that is not digested in the stomach or small intestines, and reaches the large intestine or colon intact—actually has numerous health benefits. Learn about the different types of resistant starch and how these foods can help improve both gut and overall health.
