USING RESISTANT STARCH TO DEVELOP PERSONALIZED DIETS TAILORED TO INDIVIDUAL GUT MICROBIOMES

It is increasingly recognized that the bacteria in our gut provide us with a number of important services related to development, immune function and metabolism. Ideally we would like to have a community of gut bacteria that perform their functions optimally and help keep us in a healthy state. However, these bacteria differ significantly from person to person and thus the best strategy may be to tailor our diets to some extent to the bacteria that are present within us. This project seeks to identify the factors that determine the amount of production of a particularly important bacterial metabolite, butyrate. Butyrate has important influences on immune function and metabolism and higher levels have been associated with beneficial effects. Bacteria produce butyrate as they are fermenting dietary fiber in the gut. One particular type of fiber, resistant starch seems to be particularly good at inducing butyrate production. However, there are a number of different resistant starches and not everybody that consumes a particular type of resistant starch experiences increased butyrate levels. This suggests that we need to tailor the type of resistant starch we consume to our particular group of bacteria. We are using bacterial cultures, studies of bacterial enzymes and feeding trials where people consume several different types of resistant starch to discover the factors that determine butyrate production levels from a particular resistant starch. This will allow the development of food ingredients or supplements targeted to certain bacterial community types in the gut, which could be tested for to allow more informed dietary choices for maintaining health.