Why Is There So Much Soluble Fibre In Human Breast Milk?

Stuart

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Why do you think there's so much soluble fibre in breast milk? Breast fed babies consume at least 25g of soluble fiber every day. So doing the math, an adult human would have to get 120 g of soluble fibre to even approach that level.
Am I missing something? Didn't evolution feed a baby's gut bacteria so well for a reason?
Humans have such a big bag of bacteria - the colon- after all. In fact we're mostly bacteria aren't we? I thought bacteria far out number all the cells in the human body.
And if we don't feed all those bacteria the food their preferred food -soluble fibre- they have to eat the mucus lining of the bowel. Which I thought leads to increased gut perneability etc.
Humans have been eating fruit for ages. And all fruit contains a lot of pectin. Baobab, which we took where ever we dispersed to from the fertile crescent, presumably because it is such a healthy part of the human diet, is almost 50% pectin.
Stuart
 

Peat's_Girl

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That's something I've been wondering myself this week. I'll be curious to see what the others say.
 

Suikerbuik

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Didn't evolution feed a baby's gut bacteria so well for a reason?

Over 700 bacteria are found in breast milk. The fibers help establish the growth of these commensals for protection against infection.
 
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Stuart

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@ Suikerbuik,
That's amazing , thanks. I suppose that does then pose the question of why people think Dr. Peat doesn't like soluble fiber generally, and pectin specifically. Is it actually true that he thinks this?
Also, does Dr. Peat really talk about 'soluble' and 'insoluble' fiber? It would seem odd. That distinction between dietary fiber types hasn't been used in academia for about five years now.
AFAIK, (and please correct me if I'm mistaken) If a particular type of dietary fiber can't be metabolized in the upper digestive tract, but can be by colon bacteria it's considered to be 'fermentable' . If gut bacteria can't eat it, it's 'non fermentable'. The reason the concept of 'soluble' and insoluble' fiber is so unhelpful, is that some types of dietary fiber, for example resistant starch, are 'insoluble' but highly fermentable. Even hemicellulose is partially fermentable.
In fact the very notion of keeping a gut 'as aseptic as possible' indicates a grave misunderstanding of what is actually going on in a healthy gut.
It's a very sceptic place. That's the whole idea. Trillions of gut bacteria having their 20 minute life, during which they play their individually miniscule, but as part of the colonic symphony of bacterial fermentation, an achingly beautiful chorus of signalling pathways we are probably as yet hundreds of years away from even beginning to understand. Suffice to say that what we do know even now, is that feeding that bacterial colonic frenzy with decent amounts of its preferred food - fermentable fiber (including those that used to be termed 'soluble') - would seem advisable . The prodigious amounts of ''soluble' fiber in human milk is surely an incontrovertible testament to that. If an infant human needs that amount of soluble fiber to develop its immune system properly, starving an adult human gut of soluble fiber seems unwise.
Even antibiotics (at conceivable dose rates ) can only merely dent the bacterial party. They can certainly distort a healthy line up of gut bacteria though. Isn't that why antibiotics are such a bad idea for gut health, and people spend a long time resurrecting their gut from even a single course of antibiotics?
I've seen mention that raw carrot is considered to be 'antibacterial'. Perhaps on small cut it might have some mild antibacterial activity. But in a human colon? The small amount of pectin in carrot does feed gut bacteria though I suppose. Any polysaccharide nourishes gut bacteria. Practically all plant foods, and many types of animal food (for example organ meats), contain polysaccharides. Eating an entire fresh kill would have been a great way to properly nourish your microbiome. Eating just the muscle. or even the muscle and internal organs, seems like a recipe for metabolic disaster.
Stuart.
 

Amazoniac

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Probably the best term is fermentable carbohydrates, since that includes all types of it. Milk in this case contains oligosaccharides and there are many studies explaining its role in infants.
The main reason mammals have that is to avoid pathogenic opportunistic microbes from colonizing your gut before the desired ones get a chance to settle. But after that happens, you have to really put effort to disrupt that environment; and our modern lives are pretty effective for that.
Ray Peat acknowledges this whole aspect but when he mentions sterility, he's referring to the SI; which is very desirable to have it as sterile as possible to avoid interference with you absorption of nutrients.
Regarding carrots, they do contain some fermentable material (even RS) but it's not that accessible to microbes because of its antibiotic properties and the structure of its fiber.

Edit: forgot to mention that the oligosaccharides in milk are an example of why referring to them as fermentable carbohydrates generates less confusion. They are just complex sugars that act like soluble fiber..
 
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Stuart

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@amazoniac
Is there any soluble fiber that colon bacteria eat not a fermentable carbohydrate? An unsterile small intestine is referred to as 'SIBO' (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) isn't it? Difficult to treat if you have it of course. But can you ever hope to be well again if you don't eventually start feeding the bacteria in your colon the fermentable carbohydrates they crave? Otherwise you condemn them to eking out a meagre existence cannibalizing the mucus lining of your colon. That can't be good for your health surely?
It's just hard to ignore that we all are responsible for properly feeding more bacteria in our colon than there are cells in the entire human body. It's a big sceptic tank after all.
So why do you think Dr. Peat advises starving them of their preferred food? It does seem as if he thinks what happens before the colon is more important than what goes on in it. The health of those 100 trillion bacteria is absolutely integral to whole body health don't you think? I thought it was becoming increasingly understood that having properly fed colon bacteria is intricately related to rest of body health - through endocrine/ hormonal interrelationships and signaling pathways of staggering complexity.
Isn't it interesting that some sugars are ideal for the upper digestive tract, and the oliggo (soluble fiber) sugars can only nourish gut bacteria? So we should be eating a lot of those sugars (inulin, pectin etc.) shouldn't we?
And it's hard to avoid the fact that all fruit contains pectin. Oranges and melons are packed with it. And many vegetables ( the stars would have to be the alliums -garlic, leeks, onions) are bursting with inulin, which is probably the most fermentable carbohydrate there is. Gut bacteria have daydreams about inulin. Curiously long chain inulin is actually called 'polyfructose' in China (but not in the West). Dr. Peat would approve don't you think?
So I'm just really wondering if he really does advise not to eat soluble fiber, or whether some people think that's what he advises. The constant reference to the unscientific term 'soluble fiber' rather than the current 'fermentable fiber' usage I have noticed in the Peatarian commentariat lends credence to that belief being mistaken ( or perhaps just outdated - not reflecting Dr Peat's current understanding). Because following the advice (to starve your microbiota) would seem to sentence you to never being able to attain optimal health. And perhaps constantly attempt to fine tune hormone (and other dietary) supplementation in a doomed attempt to try to compensate for that omission.
How can you starve your gut microbiota and expect to be well?
Perhaps if the colon was not so big, and contained not nearly as many trillions of gut bacteria - all of which can only thrive on fermentable fiber - it would not be such a glaring mistake. Did you know that the appendix is now thought to be a repository of 'seed' bacteria to re innoculate the colon following periods of low availability of soluble fiber? Back in the day appendices were whipped out without hesitation weren't they?
Those people ( me included) just have to resort to soil based organisms to recover from lean soluble fiber times. And of course if you were delivered by caesarian, or your mum's microbiome was lacking some important commensals, dirt comes in handy anyway. Fermented food probiotics, even the ones that do survive stomach pH etc. can't populate the colon. It has to be SBO's. Which when you consider that pre- tables/chairs, plates and eating utensils humans (kids still do) humans routinely consumed daily dirt without even trying. Which when you think about it, is probably the genesis behind the old adage: 'eat a pound of dirt before you die'.
Stuart
 

jyb

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Stuart said:
@amazoniac
Is there any soluble fiber that colon bacteria eat not a fermentable carbohydrate? An unsterile small intestine is referred to as 'SIBO' (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) isn't it? Difficult to treat if you have it of course. But can you ever hope to be well again if you don't eventually start feeding the bacteria in your colon the fermentable carbohydrates they crave? Otherwise you condemn them to eking out a meagre existence cannibalizing the mucus lining of your colon. That can't be good for your health surely?

Overgrowth of endotoxin bacteria. E Coli and T Gondii are typical examples in gut disease. I don't think you get disease or even any overgrowth when feeding gram-positive bacteria, which is what happens to babies every time they breastfeed. Correct me if I'm wrong...
 
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There's nothing like suckin on a nice pair of titties. They are my back up plan when Whole Foods runs out of Whole Milk without added vitamins.
 

Dutchie

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From what I've read it's mainly the Bifido bacteria that feed on soluble fiber. Soluble fiber enhances the immune system by feeding the beneficial bacteria in the Colon. And if I recall correctly the beneficial bacteria turn it into short chain fatty acids.

Coincidentally,I've been kinda falling off the wagon and going round with cooled fries and I have the strong impression it's bc of the soluble fiber&RS (and to a lesser extend vitamins&minerals in the mix) that this keeps happening. I think that most of what I eat lacks enough soluble fiber,they're mainly insoluble fiber.
Usually the day after,surely my stomach feels full after such a massive binge,but it also feels less bloated and like I have less of a water pouch on my belly going on....and less lose soft flabby dry skin overall.
 
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Stuart

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@jyb
Actually just skewing the numbers (and don't forget that there are more than 35,000 species - and an order of magnitude more strains thereof - of gut bacteria, most of whose role in human health we know as yet very little about) with a single course of antibiotics, or habitually underfeeding them with insufficient soluble fiber, will have pronounced health consequences. Auto immune/allergy/food intolerance dysbiosis would seem to be the tip of the iceberg - though surely the most devastating. Suffice to say that we deny them sufficient soluble fiber at our peril. And don't forget, a breast feeding infant gets at least 25 g of fermentable fiber/day. That's an 8kg person. So do the math to arrive at the amount a 70kg adult should be consuming to feed their proportionally larger family of gut bacteria.
Remember also the growing family of bacteria the soluble fiber in the breast milk is nourishing in the breast feeding infants colon, will simply start eating the mucus lining of the bowel if , following weaning, the soluble fiber tap is suddenly turned off. In fact, when you consider how underfed most humans gut microbiota become after weaning, and the gut permeability which results from years of insufficient soluble fiber, it's hardly surprising that humans are so plagued with health problems.

@Dutchie
Enjoy those cooled fries! You know you don't reduce the retrograded RS that has formed while cooling if you then heat them up again. You can even increase the RS by further cooling/heating cycles , although the increases in each successive cycle are diminishing.

Let me add, that if Dr. Peat is half the endocrinologist we all know he is, I've no doubt the profound endocrine implications of restricting soluble fiber intake are already dawning on him. We all are saddled with this huge septic tank for life. And the whole body health implications of neglecting its soluble fiber needs are incalculable - although more is revealed constantly. Isn't it curious how gut dysbiosis has been so neglected by the research community for so long? I think its because sequencing the genomes of individual species of gut bacteria has only recently become possible.
Stuart
 

XPlus

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I meet many people who can eat things like bread, legumes, rice, salad without much negative consequences.
Fibre mustn't be thought of as bad, it's the body's ability to process it that should be.

There's something in common those extra stressed fall in: an obvious trap of bacterial-over-activity.
This - on average - ranges from subtle signs like bad breath, gas, skin conditions, UTIs to more serious ones like inflammatory gut conditions.


We know from Peat that aging and stress involve similar degenerative processes.
Also, we know that environmental variables have significant influence on early development and therefore contribute to robustness of the system in later years.
From there, we can think of physiological stress as something to be measured.

From an aging point of view, infants are at a stage where they're least stressed.
For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that negative environmental influence isn't too severe in most cases.
Accordingly, physiology would be at it's most robust stage during childhood.

The ability of a baby to handle firbe at that stage shouldn't be compromised.
 

Amazoniac

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Stuart,

I got question overload. So I'll touch in those aspects that I know and leave the rest for the others.

- Fermentable carbohydrate is just a broader term that includes fibers, resistant starch, etc.
- Small intestine is relatively sterile, not completely and you can have overgrowth of any type in there (fungal for example, not just bacterial)
- The problem is not the mucus in the instestines because it's there to protect it; and that includes nourishing those microbes. If you fast, you still have them nourished and prevent their loss by keeping that layer replenished. The problem is if for some reason they start to colonize excessively the SI and your organism is not able to contain that. Poor metabolism, not enough acidity, impaired MMC are common causes.
- I think that this whole gut microbes story is a bit overhyped but important nevertheless. But in my opinion we should focus on nourishing us with what's best and as a bonus offer leftovers of our digestion for nourishing beneficial microbes. Ray Peat seems to advocate just that: you don't need to be too concerned with feeding them and yeah, what happens before the colon is more important.
- Excess can be just as problematic as deficiencies, and that applies to fermentable carbs too. If you have too much food for microbes available you become an excessively attractive host and that can't be good. Bacteria, even when they are beneficial for us, they are still bacteria. Their life cycle is that typical bell-graph curve: too much food available, they thrive in a short period of time but that fast growth start to sabotage them as soon as their population outnumber the food available. By this time there is a lot of discomfort due to their by-products and then they start to die and release toxins, especially gram-negative. And Peat seems aware of that when he suggest to strain the orange juice, because considering the amount of oranges, to eat their fiber along can be problematic (but that amount of fructose can be problematic too, there's a limiting rate to which we can process it at once; and there's the balance of glucose/fructose; and so on..).
- Probiotics and soil based organisms are probably beneficial for their ability to disrupt your current gut microbes and open a window of opportunity for your immune system to attack what's undesirable and let those others thrive. Other than that, I don't think they are capable of doing so much. Maybe one strain or another are able to set themselves in, but I think it's rare.
- I honestly don't trust the dirt that you are referring to nowadays, unless you live in a farm, countryside, away from pollution. Otherside sanitation is very welcomed!

JRMoney15 said:
There's nothing like suckin on a nice pair of titties. They are my back up plan when Whole Foods runs out of Whole Milk without added vitamins.

Hahaha!
The funny thing is that if you offer someone a cup of human milk, they'll reject it. Yet they accept a gallon of milk that came from an animal somewhere that they don't even know. Maybe there's a milk spring inside the package..
 

InChristAlone

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Stuart,
Can you explain then why when I do feed my bacteria with vegetables or grains they give me irritable bowel? This has been going on since I was a kid regardless of whether or not I repopulate or was eating lots of probiotics (like in kefir or kombucha). The bowel movement is actually really good in terms of consistency but it for sure releases serotonin.... leaves me feeling very crappy. I actually feel better when my bowel is slow. Dr. Peat said the cramping is estrogen/serotonin related. But it only happens when there is plenty of poop making its way through.
 
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Stuart

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@Xplus
The bacteria in our gut needs soluble fiber. Breast milk contains a lot of it. After weaning if you eat enough whole fruit , inulin containing vegetables, or any of the many other food sources of soluble fiber, you'll continue to feed your gut bacteria properly. If you stop, you'll develop gut dysbiosis. And some people with gut dysbiosis will manage to soldier on with the gut bacteria eating the mucus lining of their colon until... they develop some symptom of the damage that has been being done. There are so many permutations and combinations of gut permeability. Unfortunately that is the way the human body is designed. I think we have to complain to evolution if we don't like it.
The easier approach is to just accept the design, eat enough soluble fiber for your guts design due. Whole fruit is packed with pectin. and many vegetables contain heaps of inulin. And even simply prepared, both are delicious. It's not very difficult to do.
And your gut bacteria will repay you in whole body health a thousand fold. Eat enough dirt to ensure the right bacteria are present, feed them enough soluble fiber to keep them happy, and relax.
Of course if you've already got some level of SIBO, or some other downstream health consequence of post weaning lack of soluble fiber intake it becomes so much more complicated...
Stuart.
 

pboy

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dude lol, what type of ***t is that. How can you actually claim to know? Its not cool to regurgitate ***t into other people. You don't need to feed anything and they don't feed on mucus lining, what a rediculous statement. You need to feed your cells, that's it. bacteria interfere with that. Its actually like a comedy skit or something reading some of this stuff to me

lots of oligo's are used as signal molecules and as immune factors, they aren't meant to feed bacteria. Babies drinking cow milk formula do fine without the 'huge' amount of oligos, which the original poster inflated a lot also. Human milk has around 3g per cup of oligo like sugars, and they definitely aren't drinking 64oz+ a day
 

pboy

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im not trying to be rude but like...some people actually want to heal and become knowledgable, and it doesn't help when people come in and confuse the whole thing. Sometimes I wonder why is jump in though, alas. To be honest if I was to say eat 50g of soluble fiber or something today or tomorrow, it would absolutely ruin my entire day and so much about it, I guess that's why I step in, I know the consequences of bad advice.

Stuart, Ive avoided mostly or entirely soluble fiber for over a year now and have been improving the whole time. Instead of living in the colon (literally) and wild theories that have no tangible sensibility, live via actual experience
 
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Stuart

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@Janelle525
I'm not sure if grains are a healthy food for all sorts of reasons, although Asian cultures thrive on white rice because the anti nutrients have been removed. I've no doubt humans are designed to eat all three macronutrients, including carbohydrate. But most sources of starch, except tubers, are full of anti nutrients, most of which can only be partially removed by careful processing - grains are probably the worst- so fruit and honey seem far better ways to get carbohydrate. And I personally find fruit far more delicious anyway. But straining the fiber out of it seems unwise nutritionally, although I can understand someone doing it for taste.
You don't mention eating any soluble fiber? Perhaps that's why you've got irritable bowel.
'But let's be clear, I'm only talking about the way the human body is designed to be nourished. If you suffer from some degree of gut dysbiosis from some post weaning history of inadequate soluble fiber consumption it will perhaps be difficult for you to resurrect your gut. And perhaps the dietary approach you are using is working for you. I hope it is!
Btw. the probiotics in kefir or kombucha, or in fact any fermented food, cannot populate your gut. They're healthy for lots of other reasons, but they are the wrong species to multiply in the colon. It must be SBO's (Soil based organisms). Gut bacteria evolved milenia before land animals even existed. Humans were millions of years in the future. Don't be afraid of dirt. Apart from the lack of soluble fiber intake, the reason so many kids develop allergies is because modern humans are obsessed with hygiene. Which certainly prevents a lot of infectious disease, but has opened a Pandora's box of other health problems.
Stuart
 

4peatssake

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Amazoniac said:
Stuart, please measure your words in your response. The entity that just posted has the title of a lord in here. It's impossible to question him because if you look for the meaning of the word truth in a dictionary, you'd find: pboy.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion - even pboy :mrgreen:

Jokes aside, please discuss ideas, don't attack people for having one and raising questions.
 

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