Butyric Acid and Autism

Following on the previous posts about Tregs (regulatory T cells) and Short Chained Fatty Acids (SCFAs), today we get to the final steps and some more scientific data.

Butyric acid seems to be the best choice of an SCFA, as a possible anti-inflammatory autism therapy.

We have a research study that measured Butyric acid and compared the levels in people with and without autism.  It also splits out those with and without any GI issues.

We have another study showing that Butyric acid “attenuates novel object recognition deficits and hippocampal dendritic spine loss in a mouse model of autism.” This is as relevant as you want to believe.

Since Butyric acid is widely used worldwide for animals and in Asia for humans, we have a great deal of data available.

The research shows that moderately increasing the level of Butyric acid does do good, but go too far and you lose the benefit. (Farmers do not over feed your chickens)

In both humans and animals two different methods are used:-

1.     Supplement with sodium/calcium/magnesium butyrate

2.     Supplement with Clostridium butyricum, bacteria/probiotic to stimulate the natural fermentation process in the colon.

A problem with the first method is the taste and smell. Butyric acid can be used to make a stink bomb.  Also some people find magnesium acts as a laxative and some people do not want to use sodium.  Sodium acts counter to potassium in the body, and we have seen earlier that, possibly due to potassium channel dysfunction, we generally want more potassium and less sodium.

Taking this into account, I prefer the second option, which follows a well-trodden path.  In Japan alone, over 200,000 packages of the Miyairi 588 probiotic have been sold since commercial production began in 1940.  The product has been used in various forms, ethical and OTC drugs, veterinary drugs, feed and food supplements.

The research on Sodium Butyrate

This compound is used in both human and animal research.  It is sold in tiny quantities as an OTC supplement and in large commercial quantities as an animal feed additive.

It is sold to improve gut integrity and reduce inflammatory disease.  In animals the key selling point is faster weight gain.  In humans I do not expect weight gain, in fact quite the reverse.

A very easy to read presentation is for the animal version:-

Novyrate Gut Integrity Additive

The supplement sold to humans just says:- 

Butyrate is a short chain fatty acid that is a potent detoxifier of ammonia and neurotoxins. It encourages the formation of friendly bacteria in the gut.

 The Research on Miyairi 588

Miyairi 588, a form of Clostridium butyricum, is produced by a Japanese pharmaceutical company.  They have recently gained approval for its use in Europe for chickens, pigs and turkey.  Now they have applied to sell the human version.  So there is plenty of information available in English.

Probiotics are microorganisms and in or to know the potency you need to know the number of organisms in your pill.  The more potent tablet, Miyarisan Strong says it has at least 0.45 million.

  

CLOSTRIDIUM BUTYRICUM MIYAIRI 588 NOVEL FOOD APPLICATION

PROBIOTICFOOD SUPPLEMENT

Studies Related to Efficacy

Here is one example of the animal research which shows exactly what I expect, based on the research by Wendy Garrett at Harvard.  She found that raising SCFAs, raised Tregs which then lowered the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-6.

Wendy’s research was on mice, the following Chinese research was on chickens and my interest is humans.

Sodium butyrate maintains growth performance by regulating the immune response in broiler chickens.

Abstract

1. The experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary sodium butyrate on the growth performance and immune response of broiler chickens. In experiment 1, 240 1-d-old chickens were allocated into 4 dietary groups (0, 0·25, 0·50 or 1·00 g sodium butyrate/kg) with 6 replicates each. In experiment 2, 120 1-d-old chickens were fed a control diet (without sodium butyrate) or 1·00 g sodium butyrate/kg diet. Half of the chickens fed on each diet were injected intra-peritoneally with 0·5 g/kg body weight of Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) at 16, 18 and 20 d of age. 2. There was no effect of dietary sodium butyrate on growth performance. On d 21, serum interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) were decreased in chickens given 1·00 g sodium butyrate/kg, serum superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase activities were significantly increased, and malondialdehyde (MDA) was decreased by dietary sodium butyrate at 0·50 or 1·00 g/kg. On d 42, serum IL-6 was markedly decreased by dietary sodium butyrate, while 1·00 g sodium butyrate/kg greatly reduced MDA and increased catalase. 3. LPS challenge significantly reduced the growth performance of chickens. Serum IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, corticosterone, alpha-1 acid glycoprotein (AGP) and prostaglandin E(2) (PGE(2)) were increased in LPS-challenged chickens. Dietary sodium butyrate supplementation maintained the body weight gain and feed intake. Sodium butyrate supplementation inhibited the increase in IL-6 and AGP in serum at 16 d of age and TNF-α, corticosterone, AGP and PGE(2) at 20 d of age. Similar inhibitory effects of sodium butyrate in serum glucose and total protein concentrations were also found at 20 d of age. 4. The results indicated that dietary sodium butyrate supplementation can improve the growth performance in chickens under stress and that this may be used to moderate the immune response and reduce tissue damage.

  

Butyric Acid levels in Humans 

We all have Butyric Acid in our colons; it is produced there via fermentation of fibres in our diet.  Depending on what bacteria you have in your colon and what food you eat, you will have a different amount.

Elevated Fecal Short Chain Fatty Acid and Ammonia

Concentrations in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

In spite of the title of the above paper, when you look at the above chart, if you rule out 10% that are outliers, you can see that nothing correlates with anything (GI disturbance, gluten free diet, autism or not).

So who does currently benefit from extra Butyric Acid?

·        Humans with Ulcerative Colitis in clinical trials and the early adopters who read about the trials

·        Japanese people with GI disturbance

·        Farmers who feed it to their chickens, turkeys and pigs

Too much may not be good

There is some research showing that large amounts of Butyric acid may not be good and this likely holds true for animal and humans.  Note the very large variation in humans in the chart above.

The recent EU approval of animal version of Clostridium butyricum  called Miya-Gold® for use with turkeys notes that:

“…  a meta-analysis pooling data from these trials showed significant improvement in daily weight gain and feed to gain ratio when Miya-Gold® was supplemented at the minimum recommended dose of 1.25 108 CFU/kg feed.”

  

So a good starting point for humans is likely at the lower end of the suggested human dose. The suggested dose is 3 to 18 human tablets a day.

The good news is that these tablets are inexpensive.  630 tablets cost $17 including shipping from Japan.  If they do nothing for autism, they probably will do some good for the family pet, assuming you have no chickens.