{"id":70191,"date":"2025-08-16T01:52:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T01:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/70191\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T01:52:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T01:52:06","slug":"potatoes-may-be-good-for-your-gut-especially-cold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/70191\/","title":{"rendered":"Potatoes May Be Good For Your Gut (Especially Cold)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love spuds? Well, researchers behind a 2023 study<\/a> have given you a science-backed reason to adore them even more.<\/p>\n

The research found that when consumed daily<\/a>, 3.5g of resistant potato starch worked as a probiotic, appeared to reduce gut-irritating histamines, and even could help with leaky gut (woah).<\/p>\n

Resistant starch is starch that your body cannot digest.<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s more plentiful in cold potatoes<\/a> (and pasta) than hot ones, and has been linked<\/a> to better blood sugar management and gut health.<\/p>\n

How did the study work?<\/p>\n

In this study, participants ranged in age from 18 to 69. They were divided into three groups, and were either given<\/a> 7g or 3.5g of potato starch or a placebo to take for four weeks.<\/p>\n

The placebos and starches were randomly assigned.<\/p>\n

After four weeks, researchers compared the participants\u2019 bowel movements and overall gut health with those at the start of the study. They also looked at the participants\u2019 histamine levels. <\/p>\n

All participants were told to maintain the same dietary and activity habits they normally had throughout the study.<\/p>\n

So, what did they find?<\/p>\n

Researchers found that the group that consumed 3.5g of potato starch daily \u201cdemonstrated significantly higher increases in the relative abundance of Bifidobacterium compared to the placebo arm\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bifidobacterium is a beneficial group of bacteria<\/a> also known as probiotics.<\/p>\n

The 3.5g group <\/a>also saw a rise in beneficial Akkermansia<\/a> bacteria. This degrades harmful mucin in the gut and is also a probiotic.<\/p>\n

The bowel movements of those who took 3.5g of the potato starch daily tended towards the healthier end of the Bristol stool chart <\/a>when compared to the placebo group (lovely).<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the 7g group did see boosts<\/a> in beneficial bacteria, but \u201cwhile the relative abundance of bifidobacterium increased in response to 7 g of RPS, the average increase was approximately 33% lower than what was observed in the 3.5g arm.<\/p>\n

\u201cCuriously, this was also the case for Akkermansia.\u201d <\/p>\n

Researchers think that external factors, like the participants\u2019 diet, could have played a role in the outcome.<\/p>\n

Why might potatoes be good for your gut?<\/p>\n

\u201cRPS [resistant potato starch] significantly increased Bifidobacterium and Akkermansia levels and decreased diarrhoea- and constipation-associated bowel movements compared to the placebo, meeting the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) consensus criteria for the definition of a prebiotic,\u201d the researchers concluded<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the scientists admitted \u201cThere are limitations to this study, including the short duration\u201d \u2013 such as the short study period and small sample size. <\/p>\n

Still, experts say that<\/a> eating more resistant starch (like that in cold potatoes) is a great way to make your starches far healthier for your gut and blood sugar levels. <\/p>\n

More reason than ever to devour my beloved Spanish potato salad<\/a>…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love spuds? Well, researchers behind a 2023 study have given you a science-backed reason to adore them even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1991,59,102,36328,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-70191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-food","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-regular","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}