Don't Eat Raw Resistant Starch (RS2) If Pre-Cancerous or Cancerous for Colorectal Cancer, Temporarily (Part 4)

This is 4 of 5 series:

• Part 1: Don't Take Resistant Starch Alone and Other Precautions; RS2 Needs to Be Taken With Other Fiber To Spread Fermentation Completely Across the Entire Colon
• Part 2: Real Food Resistant Starch (RS3) Trumps High-Dose Potato Starch Diet To Expand the Lean and Immunoprotective Core Microbiota (Roseburia, Eubacteria, F. prausnitzii, Bifidobacteria)
• Part 3: Don't Take Resistant Starch If You Have Moderate to Severe Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Temporarily

Colorectal Cancer On The Rise

Colorectal cancer (CRC) like all cancers is on the rise. In Australia, the prevalence is quite high and has not waned despite CSIRO launching one of the largest RS (resistant starch) campaigns to get everyone to supplement scones, cereal, muffins, rice mixes, wraps and cookies with frankenfood resistant starches like genetically hybridized BarleyMAX.  Our guts are the same for the last tens of thousands of years, but the incoming food and environment are not. Parkin in Nature recently wrote about how cancer affects different parts of the world (source).  CRC is in high prevalence for: orange (USA, EU, UK) 36-48%; red (AUS) 48-60% per 100,000 in males. Men and women have similar rates.

Colorectal Cancer in Males Around the World: Highest in Industrialized Countries: USA, UK, EU, AUS Source

How Does Resistant Starch RS2 v. RS3 Affect These Gut Populations?

Prior post: Cooked/Crystallized RS3 Trumps Raw RS2: They are Vastly Different in Our Guts

Native South Africans have the lowest CRC rates (see first digram).  Their diet is rich in fermented, 'stale', whole grain-maize porridge which they sit out for a few days after making. This starchy staple is abundant in RS3 and it is estimated native Africans consume 40 to 60 grams daily RS3, and otherwise eat a relatively low 'fiber' diet of 15-25 g fiber daily.

RS3 is a network of crystallized and aggregated amyloses formed in double helical chains after 'melting' during cooking and cooling to room temp (25C) or refrigeration (4C) . The gut microbes can access RS3, but our pancreatic and salivary amylases (starch cutters) cannot. They are not 'calories' or 'carbs' in the traditional sense. They don't feed US, they feed our gut flora. Foods like maize porridge, legumes, lentils and whole grains are typically considered low glycemic index (GI). These are also the foods associated with the lowest risks of CRC in epidemiological studies across the world with estimated risk reductions of 30-81%. They are high in conventional 'fiber' and resistant starch (RS3).



Root Sources of Colorectal Cancer

More and more studies point to a microbial 'fingerprint' that characterizes CRC just as these microbial fingerprints fit nearly all other diseases of industrialized nations. According to recent examinations, guts of individuals with CRC might be described as being marked by low mucus barriers, deficiencies of big butyrate producers and overgrowths of Bacteroides. In the worst case scenarios, the mucus barriers are terribly eroded and overgrowths of even the 'good' butyrate producers have invaded. Antibiotics are the causes of many of our missing gut microbes. They wipe out the 'good' which allow opportunistic pathogens to grow in their empty niches without regulation or control. Bacteroides are overgrowing somewhere in CRC or pre-clinical stages the newest literature suggests. Bacteroides are ultra fast fermenters of RS2, raw green bananas/plantains and raw potato starch. Being omnivorous and voracious, they are involved with protein fermentation as well.

• Excess Bacteroides
• Pathogens, Opportunistic Flora Overgrowths, Yeasts: Fusobacteria, Klebsiella, etc.
• Low Bifidobacteria
• Low Clostridia clusters IV, F. prausnitzii
• Low Clostridia clusters XIVa, Roseburia and Eubacteria

CRC: High Bacteroides; Low Butyrate Factories

Let's look at 2 seminal gut 'fingerprinting' studies for CRC that came out 2 years ago.

ISME J. 2012 Feb;6(2):320-9.
Structural segregation of gut microbiota between colorectal cancer patients and healthy volunteers.

"One OTU closely related to Bacteroides fragilis was enriched in the gut microbiota of CRC patients, whereas three OTUs related to Bacteroides vulgatus and Bacteroides uniformis [ANCESTRAL CORE] were enriched in that of healthy volunteers. A total of 11 OTUs belonging to the genera Enterococcus, Escherichia/Shigella, Klebsiella, Streptococcus and Peptostreptococcus were significantly more abundant in the gut microbiota of CRC patients, and 5 OTUs belonging to the genus Roseburia and other butyrate-producing bacteria of the family Lachnospiraceae were less abundant. Reduction of butyrate producers and increase of opportunistic pathogens may constitute a major structural imbalance of gut microbiota in CRC patients."


Microb Ecol. 2013 Aug;66(2):462-70.
Dysbiosis signature of fecal microbiota in colorectal cancer patients.

"Partial least-squares discriminant analysis showed that 17 phylotypes closely related to Bacteroides were enriched in the gut microbiota of CRC patients, whereas nine operational taxonomic units, represented by the butyrate-producing genera Faecalibacterium and Roseburia, were significantly less abundant. A positive correlation was observed between the abundance of Bacteroides species and CRC disease status (R = 0.462, P = 0.046). In addition, 16 genera were significantly more abundant in CRC samples than in controls, including potentially pathogenic Fusobacterium and Campylobacter species at genus level. The dysbiosis of fecal microbiota, characterized by the enrichment of potential pathogens and the decrease in butyrate-producing members, may therefore represent a specific microbial signature of CRC."

Test Don't Guess Your Black Box: New GDX GI Fx Gut Microbiota PCR Testing

Here's an example of the brand, spanking new Genova Diagnostics gut microbiota testing with 16S rRNA PCR technology. I love the new interface and it offers all the strains that I discuss. Below 'RELATIVE ABUNDANCE' is an example of low beneficial Akkermansia and high Fusobacteria, opportunistic overgrowth.

GDX GI function stool testing Genova Diagnostics

Raw RS2 HAM Increases Bacteroides + Decreases Butyrate Producers: Roseburia, Eubacteria and F. prausnitzii (clusters XIVa and IV)

In a high dose RS2 feeding zero (control) v. 18% v. 36% high amylose maize, the big butyrate factories became reduced in abundance FIG S2 (Tachon et al 2013).  Yes Bacteroides went NUTSO in growth. Recall these are overgrowing in pre-cancerous and CRC subjects. Akkermansia too, but Akkermansia is also high in CRC (due to broken mucus linings and damage from missing symbionts).

"Tachon et al state: "This reduction was most obvious for members of the families Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococceae. Lachnospiraceae represented 51 ± 14% of total bacteria in Control mice and 36 ± 14% in mice fed HAM-RS2. Similarly, Ruminococceae were reduced from 7.7 ± 4.3% of total bacteria among the Controls to 4.5 ± 2.6% in mice fed HAM-RS2. Proportions of specific Firmicutes genera were also reduced by the presence of dietary RS including Roseburia  and  Butyrivibrio   (Fig. 3). These results were consistent with quantitative real-time PCR that showed that mice fed 36% HAM-RS2 carried lower levels of Clostridium from the clusters IV and XIV (Fig. S2).""

Fix Root Causes, Avoid Adverse Gut Shifts in Eating High-Dose Raw Resistant Starch

What does work for Lynch perhaps and other colorectal cancer prevention?  How to fix root causes?

The modern, disabled gut drastically needs 'resetting' back to ancestral norms. Find a farm. Play in healthy dirt. Vigorously look at the 7 Steps and appropriate seeding/weeding, not overfeeding Bacteroides and starving out the clusters XIVa/IV (Roseburia, etc). Prior posts on Roseburia: Massive Butyrate Powerhouse.

What raises Roseburia in abundance the MOST are starches, RS3 and inulin (Van den Abeele et al 2011, others). They don't seem to like RS2. Their preference after millions of years of evolution might be related to the broad diversification of resource allocation, eg NOVEL FOOD (roasted tubers, cooked legumes). Very few strains in the gut actually have a preference to live solely on raw tuber or banana/plantain starches. All of them however eat inulin and starches.  Cooked food offers much to man and their microbes. The bugs like them. Our brain and muscle metabolism likes them. Whole food also offer fiber which becomes easier to chew and assimilate after cooking and food processing.



RS3 Self Experimenter: 20 - 40 grams/day Resistant Starch in Real Whole Food

Here is a spectacularly diverse gut and N=1, whole, real food resistant starches 20-40 g/day (RS3) enriched Roseburia apparently by 26-fold (compared to healthy uBIOME controls, 4.3-fold higher): Whole Real RS Foods Expand the Lean, Ancestral and Immunoprotective Core Microbiota (Tim Steele's N=1) .

It appears folate and B vitamin supplementation might help. Our soil probiotics, bifidobacteria, and lactobacilli in our gut produce B vitamins and folates for us.

Both RS3 and inulin are very special for colorectal cancer prevention. Not only do they feed the butyrate powerhouses but they come as 'high fiber' packages from evolution.