In a healthy gut primarily consuming carbohydrates, approximately 70% of energy for colon lining cells comes from butyrate derived from fiber fermentation.

“for starters butyrate is thought of as the preferred fuel for the cells that line your gut and so it's for a long time it was thought of as the only fuel that it can provide energy for those gut epithelial cells and so it's it's produced from the fermentation of dietary fiber and it enters gut epithelial cells it's then oxidized in the mitochondria and results in energy for replication proliferation etc”

“we talk about butyrate which is the short chain fatty acid that is produced in the large intestine in response to the fermentation of plant fiber but there are many other short chain fatty acids like butyrate including isobutyrate acetate proprianate valarate which can also be used by the colonic epithelial cells for fuel”

“Well, as you'll hear in a moment, butyrate isn't exclusive to vegetable fibers. We can make butyrate from fruit fibers. We can probably make butyrate from honey. We can even make short-chain fatty acids that appear to have the same effects in the gut as butyrate like isobutyrate, acetate, propionate, maybe even succinate from things like protein in our diet.”

“well as you'll hear in a moment butyrate isn't exclusive to vegetable fibers we can make butyrate from fruit fibers we can probably make butyrate from honey we can even make short chain fatty acids that appear to have the same effects in the gut as butyrate like isobutyrate acetate propionate maybe even succinate from things like protein in our diet”

“but butyrate is this incredibly important uh short chain fatty acid that's been studied in a wide variety of conditions and so your microbiome one of the most important molecules it makes is butyrate um and so butyrate has role a role in GI health um the colon cells are the only cells that use butyrate as their source of energy as opposed to glucose which is what used by every other cell and so when you don't have enough butyrate that's been associated with things like colon cancer and you know not having good colon Health um but butyrate is also a small molecule that triggers G protein coupled receptors to then um uh release uh glp1 from these L cells in the microbiome so it also plays a role in sort of this gut metabolism axis um and so berate becomes this really important small molecule that the gut is producing based on the foods that you're eating um and and that's kind of where we've really honed in”

“So on the barrier side, our good friend butyrate and again a short- chain fatty acid produced by the fermentation of fiber is the preferred fuel for for colonic cells. In both cell and animal models, butyrate has been shown to strengthen the tight junctions that hold these cells together. Again, tight junctions are um as their name suggests, places where cells touch each other, but in a way that nothing can get between them. It reduces inflammation. It triggers cell death of damaged cells. That's something called apoptosis. It's a very important step in reducing the risk of cancer.”

“butyrate is a short chain fatty acid it is the major energy source full for cholinocytes these are your these are the the enterocytes the the gut epithelial cells that i was talking about they're producing about 70 of all the energy for for those cells”