How butyrate helps to reduce weight and prevent obesity

Butyrate is a short-chain fatty acid made by the health-promoting bacteria in our gut on the breakdown of dietary fibre from plant foods. It has many functions including helping to stabilise and regulate blood sugar levels, protecting our brain from diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, protecting against cancer, and preventing obesity and Type 2 diabetes. 

The fibre we digest from plant foods travels to our gut where it feeds the good bacteria that make butyrate. By increasing prebiotic foods such as fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and pulses we're feeding our gut bacteria. So a diet containing plant foods such as almonds, apples, barley, chickpeas, garlic, kiwifruit, maize, oat, wheat bran, and soy, will help our gut butyrate levels while increasing our daily intake of fibre and providing us with healthful antioxidants.

As well as eating the right foods to increase butyrate we can avoid foods and diets which decrease it. We should avoid dieting, for example adopting a low carb, high fat or high protein diet, as these can lower butyrate production by depriving gut bacteria of essential dietary fibres and contribute significantly to disease and disorder.