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Resistant starch?

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vegmebuff
vegmebuff Posts: 31,389 Member
in Debate Club
Thoughts?
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  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited May 2018
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    I'm not sure what you are asking for here. Had to look it up to figure out what was being refereed to because I've never heard the term before. It is just referring to the fact that not all configurations of plant produced starches are digestible by eukaryotic enzymes and therefore some starch passes through your small intestine to your large intestine where it is metabolized by your gut microbiome. That sounds legitimate to me but I'm not sure what relevance it has or what you are asking us to "debate" exactly.
  • cathipa
    cathipa Posts: 2,991 Member
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    I like cold potatoes (the little ones), but I still think eating too many will keep me from maintaining my calorie deficit and could lead to weight gain.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,926 Member
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    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    I'm not sure what you are asking for here. Had to look it up to figure out what was being refereed to because I've never heard the term before. It is just referring to the fact that not all configurations of plant produced starches are digestible by eukaryotic enzymes and therefore some starch passes through your small intestine to your large intestine where it is metabolized by your gut microbiome. That sounds legitimate to me but I'm not sure what relevance it has or what you are asking us to "debate" exactly.

    Thanks for the explanation!
  • steveko89
    steveko89 Posts: 2,217 Member
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    Had to google, browsed the hit linked below. Sure, it probably has some benefits but nothing to supersede consuming the right number of calories, and a healthy distribution of macros, or as @cwolfman13 more succinctly put it. Rearranging deck chairs, if you don't have the higher priorities areas locked in.

    https://www.precisionnutrition.com/all-about-resistant-starch
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    A diabetic is taught to balance each meal for all the macros. Fats have about twice the calories per gram than protein and carbs.

    Generally speaking the carbs are absorbed first, followed by the proteins and the fats a slow third. Fiber slows absorption overall.

    None of this affects people whose insulin is not impaired. The insulin dampens down any spikes.

    If you learn to juggle the three macros with fiber, you can start worrying about slower carbs. I never did. I never noticed a difference.
  • vegmebuff
    vegmebuff Posts: 31,389 Member
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    Thanks - I think I was just confusing myself....I do appreciate/understand CICO concept.
  • rheddmobile
    rheddmobile Posts: 6,840 Member
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    Supposedly, cooling and reheating starches makes more of them into resistant starch, so in theory I should have lower bg after eating leftover spaghetti than the same amount of fresh. In practice, taking my bg after meals, if this is true the effect is so slight I can't detect it.
  • geneticsteacher
    geneticsteacher Posts: 623 Member
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    Good article on resistant starch. My take - eat more beans. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2015/11/16/ask-the-expert-legumes-and-resistant-starch/
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    Admittedly I'm not sure what the distinction they are making between "resistant starch" and just what we call fiber. I mean tree bark and wood is made out of chains of sugar molecules that we cannot digest, that is basically what fiber is....chains of sugars you can't digest. Grass in your yard is made almost entirely out of sugar and it certainly has calories in terms of that if you were to burn it you would get energy out, but clearly you wouldn't get calories from consuming it. So the components of starches that are not digestable I'd think would be a form of fiber, but I guess perhaps the distinction is between what your gut microbiome can and cannot digest. Perhaps fiber is what neither you nor your microbiome can digest while "resistant starch" is what your cells cannot digest but your microbiome can? I don't know simply because I've never heard the term "resistant starch" before but it is certainly true that not all components of your food that are caloric are actually digestable.
  • geneticsteacher
    geneticsteacher Posts: 623 Member
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    The distinction seems to be in the amylopectin vs. amylose content. The amylose, being an unbranched molecule can form structures that physically "hide" parts of the molecule from digestive enzymes.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    geneticsteacher wrote: »
    The distinction seems to be in the amylopectin vs. amylose content. The amylose, being an unbranched molecule can form structures that physically "hide" parts of the molecule from digestive enzymes.

    So it isn't a chirality difference with D-form or L-form isomers then? I literally just haven't looked into this at all, I'm assuming if I bothered to I could probably understand what distinction is being made.
  • geneticsteacher
    geneticsteacher Posts: 623 Member
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    Not a chemist, but it seems due to the formation of crystalline structures by amylose. From Harvard article linked above:

    "Why is some starch resistant to digestion? A small portion of it is physically inaccessible to digestive enzymes. But most of it is resistant due to the chemical structure of starch. Starch is composed of two molecules called amylose and amylopectin.

    Amylose is a linear chain of glucose molecules linked end-to-end.
    Amylopectin is a much larger molecule with numerous branches of short chains of glucose molecules linked to a main chain like the branches of a tree growing from the trunk.
    The starch molecules, especially amylose, form crystalline regions that are resistant to digestion by the starch digesting enzymes in our body (3). Compared with other high starch foods like corn, wheat, and rice, the starch in legumes is very high in amylose, comprising up to 40% of the starch, making it more resistant to digestion.

    It is important to realize that resistant starch is not a distinct molecular structure like glucose or cholesterol, but a concept developed to explain why some starch is not digested (8).
    The amount of resistant starch reported in foods is therefore highly dependent on the method used to analyze for resistant starch. In 2000 a standardized test for determining the content of RS in food was approved by AACC International (9). The numbers reported in this article were determined by this method (10).
    If cooked legumes contained as much resistant starch as raw legumes we would have a very difficult time digesting them. As with all high starch foods, when legumes are cooked in boiling water large portions of the crystalline regions are destroyed, reducing the amount of resistant starch. But since legumes are so high in amylose, a smaller amount of resistant starch is destroyed by cooking than in other foods because some forms of crystalline amylose are stable even in boiling water (8)."
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited May 2018
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    geneticsteacher wrote: »
    Not a chemist, but it seems due to the formation of crystalline structures by amylose. From Harvard article linked above:

    "Why is some starch resistant to digestion? A small portion of it is physically inaccessible to digestive enzymes. But most of it is resistant due to the chemical structure of starch. Starch is composed of two molecules called amylose and amylopectin.

    Amylose is a linear chain of glucose molecules linked end-to-end.
    Amylopectin is a much larger molecule with numerous branches of short chains of glucose molecules linked to a main chain like the branches of a tree growing from the trunk.
    The starch molecules, especially amylose, form crystalline regions that are resistant to digestion by the starch digesting enzymes in our body (3). Compared with other high starch foods like corn, wheat, and rice, the starch in legumes is very high in amylose, comprising up to 40% of the starch, making it more resistant to digestion.

    It is important to realize that resistant starch is not a distinct molecular structure like glucose or cholesterol, but a concept developed to explain why some starch is not digested (8).
    The amount of resistant starch reported in foods is therefore highly dependent on the method used to analyze for resistant starch. In 2000 a standardized test for determining the content of RS in food was approved by AACC International (9). The numbers reported in this article were determined by this method (10).
    If cooked legumes contained as much resistant starch as raw legumes we would have a very difficult time digesting them. As with all high starch foods, when legumes are cooked in boiling water large portions of the crystalline regions are destroyed, reducing the amount of resistant starch. But since legumes are so high in amylose, a smaller amount of resistant starch is destroyed by cooking than in other foods because some forms of crystalline amylose are stable even in boiling water (8)."

    Again haven't looked into it yet but that just sounds to me like the difference between alpha and beta linkages in sugar polymer formation which is the reason why we cannot digest cellulose (it has beta(1>4) linkages of glucose monomers) which is why it is considered dietary fiber. Starch is also known as amylose is glucose linked by alpha (1>4) links which we can digest.

    I wouldn't call it "crystaline" really but it sounds like that is what they are talking about. I mean that isn't weird that is just true of sugar polymers.

    The only difference between the starch of a potato and the wood of a tree is whether the glucose is alpha 1>4 or beta 1>4 linked. But traditionally we would just call that fiber, not "resistant starch" so not sure where that term arose from.

    Alright looked what you were saying up enough to realize that the distinciton between amylose (your basic starch) and amylopectin is that amylopectin contains alpha 1>6 bonds that cause branching. But glycogen, our main storage molecule for glucose in humans, has a lot of alpha 1>6 linkages and we totally can digest those so not sure.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited May 2018
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    Looked up to find a figure showing polymers of amylose (starch), cellulose and glycogen and found this

    lesson-3-starch-glycogen-and-cellulose-4-638.jpg?cb=1442246631

    All of those are chains of the simple sugar glucose, just in different arrangements. Top one is going to be plant storage molecule we can digest, middle is a plant structural molecule we cannot digest and the third one is animal storage molecule we can digest (it is how we store glucose). Amylopection is just like glycogen except the branch points are less frequent.

    Amylopectin is just amylose chains with branch points formed by alpha 1>6 links

    G4ZrU.png

    So we can digest the 1>4 links but not the 1>6 links which basically means when we digest amylose (starch) we digest all of it but when we digest amylopectin we digest the majority of it but leave the 1>6 links intact. Looks like standard amylopectin there is a branch point every 30 glucose units which would basically mean that 3% of it isn't digestable. You'd have a 30 unit chain branched with another 30 unit chain and after digesting it you'd still have two units connected with the 1>6 linkage so you would digest 58 out of the 60. That isn't that big of a deal really especially given your gut bacteria would digest it and you'd still get some caloric benefit from it.

    So basically you eat starch from a plant and most of that is amylose but some is amylopectin and of the part that is amylopectin about 3% you wouldn't be able to digest but your bacteria would and you'd still get something from it...so yeah its like less than 1% of a difference calorically from what would be written on the box.

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