Butyrate: where it comes from and what it does in the gut

The cells lining the colon, called colonocytes, take most of their energy from butyrate rather than from glucose. A 2011 review in the World Journal of Gastroenterology describes butyrate as the major energy source for colonocytes and summarizes decades of laboratory work on its role in maintaining the colon lining.

In laboratory models of the intestinal lining, butyrate at low concentrations has been shown to reduce permeability and to promote assembly of tight junctions, the protein seals between neighboring cells. These are cell-culture findings. They explain why researchers are interested in butyrate; they are not evidence about what a supplement does in a person.

The most reliable way to raise butyrate in the colon is to feed the bacteria that make it. Fermentable fibers and resistant starches from vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and cooled cooked starches are the raw material. Most adults in the United States eat well under the recommended amount of fiber, which is one reason direct butyrate sources have attracted interest.

Open Origin considered putting fiber in Formula 01 and set it aside. Meaningful fiber doses are measured in grams, and a capsule holds a fraction of a gram. A fiber that pretends to matter at capsule size is a label decoration. If we offer fiber, it will be a powder sold as its own product.

Butyrate is sold as sodium butyrate, calcium butyrate, magnesium butyrate, and as tributyrin, a fat molecule that carries three butyrate units. The salts deliver butyrate directly and have the longest research history, but they are difficult to take: the 2011 review describes the unpleasant taste and odor of available oral butyrate products as a barrier to their use. Tributyrin carries the butyrate inside a triglyceride, which changes how and where it is released and how it smells.

Formula 01 uses tributyrin. The reasoning, and the study behind the branded form we selected, are on the tributyrin page.