English corner: Is starch truly a slave food?

Is starch truly a slave food?
Main ideas
- Starch could cause an insulin spike if you don’t burn fuel very well, even with a usual amount.
- Starch is good as long as you go easily to stools twice a day, to avoid stagnation in the second part of the colon. A good source but not necessarily the recommended one. As long as you can manage it, it’s suitable. Mind the disagreement when you don’t vary much the kind (starch, sucrose, lactose, etc.). Excess of lectin if potato with peel. 
- If you dress your carbs, you’ll tolerate them easier, provided you don’t exagerate the amount and if you don’t suffer from 2 lacks. A lack of digestive enzymes and a poor energy metabolism.
- If you have problem with white rice, potatoes or bread, consider the following improvements to bring:
·         The problem is often linked to the progressively insensibility of beta-cells of the pancreas.
·         The lower rate of absorption of different types of sugars leads to a change of the microbiota and a hormonal dysfunction.
-  Stored PUFA makes the blood vessels weaker, damages the mitochondria and suppress thyroid functions.
- Lipid peroxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids produces the protein damage about 23 times faster than the simple sugars do.
- These damages reduce the ability to oxidize sugar and to produce energy.
- The oxidation of fats (for fuel) implies there will be less protective carbon dioxide.
- When glucose can't be oxidized, for any reason, there is a stress reaction that mobilizes free fatty acids (FFA). Lowering FFA can restore glucose oxidation. It takes some time…
- Providing hormone T3 and well-assimilated sugar tend to shift energy metabolism away from the oxidation of fats, back to the oxidation of sugar.
- Adopt the kind of sugar your body can tolerate. Do it consciously, without remorse but with the objective to take the control back towards an optimized metabolism.

Is starch truly a slave food, asked Ecstatic_Hamster (EH) on Bioenergetic forum
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EH posted:
Starch is far, far better for us, than sugar. Most of us will get fat and have blood sugar problems on sugar, but well-cooked starch, with a little fat, works very well. That is how most of the not-fat world eats. We can augment and improve with dairy. Starch is not slave food. It is very healthy and how virtually everyone who lives a long time eats. WITH dairy.
LucH comments:
Everyone won't agree on this subject.
RP (Ray PEAT) found both OK as long as the quality is present and you listen to your body. I can develop this last point if desired.
Shortly said: starch is good as long you go easily to stools twice a day, to avoid stagnation in the second part of the colon. Otherwise, dysbiosis will come soon.
Of course you manage well with counter-arguments: oxalates or arsenic in some cases.
Yes, dress your carbs and it will be fine, provided you have no problem with digestive enzymes.
For fruits, you avoid most of the time seeds and vary (...).
For vegetables, you have to manage well legumes (anti-proteinase) and you take into account the specifities: like sulfur for kale or other cruciferous, or oxalates / lectines.
Vary and adapt oneself to the situation / to the tolerances.
And don't tell me you have problem with insulin if you drink OJ (orange juice) or eat yoghurt, whenever you do it in the wrong way. I don't drink 20 cl OJ after a pancake with syrup or 200 gr Greek yogurt with a tbsp. sugar and 2 slices of bread.
Have you ever heard of Jessie Inaupsché? => Dress your carbs! And eat by listening to your body sensations. If you're still / if your liver is still recoverable. 
Yerrag comments:
I knew it. Someone would talk sense.            
People that don't do well on high glycemic carbs would have no choice but to go with starch that is less processed and have fiber to make these starches lower in the glycemic index. Or if they simply reject starch for no good reason, they would have no choice but turn to keto or carnivore, which would not produce better health outcomes in the long term.
When I had poor sugar metabolism, I found eating brown rice and sweet potatoes helped me manage my blood sugar to such extent that my blood sugar became stable and my health improved. After I improved my sugar metabolism to optimal, I went back to eating white rice and white bread (and my meals became more enjoyable) and I came to enjoy sugar, both white and muscovado, as I use them liberally. I came back to drinking and enjoying the satisfying yet guilt-free taste of original Coke.
Life is good when you can make it better by taking advantage of the good properties of starch as you heal and improve your sugar metabolism towards the pinnacle of optimal metabolic health where you can enjoy what you eat what was previously restricted and enjoy it and become healthier as well.
This is what I consider having your cake and eating it too. Isn't life good?
(...)
Note (LucH): See also the developped answer about impaired sugar metabolism on the link from the Bioenergetic forum (Yerrag’s answer).

RP on carbs and starches
*) Glycemia, starch, and sugar in context. Ray Peat
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*) How to heal your metabolism. Kate DEERING (book) (summary on the link, in French) (translator needed).
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Article
Common problems when dealing with sugars
First of all, if you encounter glycemia problems to deal with sugars, we have to precise which kind makes a problem and how it affect the metabolism.
Why can't I handle sugar anymore?
Glucose intolerance – a type of sugar intolerance – is linked to diabetes and prediabetes. Symptoms can include dry mouth, tiredness, the frequent need to urinate, drowsiness and blurred vision. If you suspect you have glucose intolerance or diabetes, you should seek medical advice.
For type two diabetes (DT2) – lack of insulin secretion – the problem is often linked to the progressively insensibility of beta-cells of the pancreas. The liver is surrounded by fat and the work becomes harder and harder, until the pump runs out: Insufficient production and insensibility of the cells, combined.
Why do I react badly to sugar?
Sugar is found in many parts of our diets, both in natural foods (with cofactors present for the assimilation) and in manufactured foods (with the lack of cofactors). The last source making it harder for the metabolism. Empty calories, we call this kind of sugar, causing exhaustion of useful nutrients / essential cofactors for fuel assimilation.
Figure: Useful nutrients for sugar assimilation     
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Source: Dr. Schwartz
True allergy to sugar does not exist, but sugar intolerances do, which can result in adverse reactions. Cells in the body use sugar for energy, so an adverse reaction to sugar can cause serious complications.
Why does sugar make me mad?
Our brains are programmed to see sugar as something we enjoy and want, this is because eating sugar stimulates feel-good endorphins associated with reward, when this wears off we may become irritable, grumpy and perform less well at cognitively demanding tasks.
How does sugar affect my mood?
It’s not only because we associate the feeling of feel-good (emotions and feelings) when eating sweet cakes or chocolate, it triggers a brain reaction through our gut and our brain, known as the gut-brain axis. If you want to go deeper in this direction, have a look at the connection to our brain’s reward system.
Why do I feel so bad when I eat sugar?
In addition, as your body attempts to handle a blood sugar spike, it may overcorrect — resulting in a brief state of low blood sugar, called reactive hypoglycemia. This, in turn, can cause symptoms of lightheadedness, shakiness, irritability, sweating, anxiety and palpitations…
So, an excess of sugar arrives in the blood flood and reverses the electrolyte balance: and it may cause bloating and gas when not well assimilated. Too much fuel at the same time or a lack of enzymes to assimilate the fuel.
Dopamine “hits” from eating sugar
On an evolutionary basis, our primitive ancestors were scavengers. Sugary foods are excellent sources of energy, so we have evolved to find sweet foods particularly pleasurable. Foods with unpleasant, bitter and sour tastes can be unripe, poisonous or rotting — causing sickness.
So to maximize our survival as a species, we have an innate brain system that makes us like sweet foods since they’re a great source of energy to fuel our bodies.
When we eat sweet foods the brain’s reward system — called the mesolimbic dopamine system — gets activated. Dopamine is released by neurons, signaling a positive event. When the reward system fires, thanks to a take of sugar, it reinforces behaviours — making it more likely for us to carry out these actions again.
Excess intake of sugars correlated to a lack of enzymes. Question of enzymes?
We are not talking about an attenuate glucose uptake in skeletal muscle due to a secretion problem of insulin or glucagon (too short or in excess).
There are three main definitions of dietary sugars (1):
1. “added sugars”, including all mono- and disaccharides that are added to foods during processing and preparation;
2. “free sugars” which, according to the definition of the World Health Organization (WHO), comprise all mono- and disaccharides that are added to foods by the manufacturer, cook or the consumer as well as the sugars that are naturally present in honey, syrups, and fruit juices; and
3. “total sugars”, which include all mono- and disaccharides that naturally occur in food as well as added mono- and disaccharides . These three definitions naturally include all monosaccharides (e.g., glucose, fructose, and galactose) as well as all disaccharides (e.g., sucrose, lactose, and maltose).
Lack of enzymes
RP said:
“Although the dietetic association now feebly acknowledges that sugars don't raise the blood sugar more quickly than starches do, they can't get away from their absurd old recommendations, which were never scientifically justified” (…). David Jenkins, in 1981, did a series of measurements that showed that starch is more “glycemic” than sucrose. (…) But the simply amount of increase in blood glucose, during the first two hours after ingesting the food sample in the experiment, doesn’t reflect the reality. We should have taken into account the presence or not, of fibbers, the percentage of fructose to glucose, and the way the sugars are dressed / accompanied, etc.
Moreover, evidence suggests that processed, simple sugars also reduce white blood cell phagocytosis and possibly increase inflammatory cytokine marker levels in the blood.^{[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]} In contrast, fiber consumption seems to protect against inflammation.^{[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]}
Subsequently, the accumulation of sugar in the colon increases the osmotic load, as well as the fermentation rate by the colonic microbiota, and promotes abdominal pain and intestinal dysfunctions.^{[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]}
The way our microbiota handles the intake of sugars impacts 50 % of people. (4)
Type of enzymes to digest carbs
Digestion of carbohydrates (starch) is performed by several enzymes. Starch and glycogen are broken down into glucose by amylase and maltase. Sucrose (table sugar) and lactose (milk sugar) are broken down by sucrase and lactase, respectively. For most people, nutritionists advise to eat according to the pH required for digestive enzymes, in case of pathology or bad digestion.
For Ray PEAT
Many things affect blood sugar rises, not only the type of sugar.
Excerpt (3)
Many things condition the rate at which blood sugar rises after eating carbohydrates, and affect the way in which blood glucose is metabolized, making the idea of a “glycemic index” highly misleading.  However, it is true that blood sugar and insulin responses to different foods have some meaningful effects on physiology and health.
Starch and glucose efficiently stimulate insulin secretion, and that accelerates the disposition of glucose, activating its conversion to glycogen and fat, as well as its oxidation. Fructose inhibits the stimulation of insulin by glucose, so this means that eating ordinary sugar, sucrose (a disaccharide, consisting of glucose and fructose), in place of starch, will reduce the tendency to store fat.
Eating starch, by increasing insulin and lowering the blood sugar, stimulates the appetite, causing a person to eat more, storing the excess of calories in fats into the adipocytes.
The obesity itself then becomes an additional physiological factor; the fat cells create something analogous to an inflammatory state. There isn't anything wrong with a high carbohydrate diet, and even a high starch diet isn't necessarily incompatible with good health, but when better foods are available they should be used instead of starches. For example, fruits have many advantages over grains, besides the difference between sugar and starch. Bread and pasta consumption are strongly associated with the occurrence of diabetes, fruit consumption has a strong inverse association. (…)
Unsaturated fatty acids, adrenaline, and cortisol cause insulin resistance
Polyunsaturated fatty acids cause insulin resistance and damage the pancreas.
Ray PEAT (RP) has mentioned (3):
If the stored fats happen to be polyunsaturated, they damage the blood vessels and the mitochondria, suppress thyroid function, and cause “glycation” of proteins. They also damage the pancreas, and impair insulin secretion.
A repeated small stress, or overstimulation of insulin secretion, gradually tends to become amplified by the effects of [an excess of] tryptophan and the polyunsaturated fatty acids, with these fats increasing the formation of serotonin, and serotonin increasing the liberation of the fats.
Lowering free fatty acids can restore glucose oxidation (3)
RP has mentioned (3):
Lipid peroxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids produces the protein damage about 23 times faster than the simple sugars do (Fu, et al., 1996). And the oxidation of fats rather than glucose means that the proteins won't have as much protective carbon dioxide combined with their reactive nitrogen atoms, so the real difference in the organism is likely to be greater than that seen by Fu, et al.
These products of lipid peroxidation, HNE, MDA, acrolein, glyoxal, and other highly reactive aldehydes, damage the mitochondria, reducing the ability to oxidize sugar, and to produce energy and protective carbon dioxide. (…)
When glucose can't be oxidized, for any reason, there is a stress reaction, that mobiles free fatty acids. Drugs that oppose the hormones (such as adrenalin or growth hormone) that liberate free fatty acids have been used to treat diabetes, because lowering free fatty acids can restore glucose oxidation.
Brief exposures to polyunsaturated fatty acids can damage the insulin-secreting cells of the pancreas, and the mitochondria in which oxidative energy production takes place. Prolonged exposure causes progressive damage, namely progressively the leakiness of capillaries. (…)
When blood vessels are damaged by stress and the induced-secreted hormone cortisol, by chronic exposure, the leakiness increases. Thus when the leakiness of vessels increases, albumin occurs in the urine, as proteins leak out of the blood vessels. The retina and brain and other organs are damaged too, by the leaking capillaries.
Shifting from FFA oxidation to glucose oxidation
RP has mentioned (3):
Sugar and thyroid hormone (T3, triiodothyronine) correct many parts of the problem. The conversion of T4 into the active T3 requires glucose, and in diabetes, cells are deprived of glucose. Logically, all diabetics would be functionally hypothyroid. Providing T3 and sugar tends to shift energy metabolism away from the oxidation of fats, back to the oxidation of sugar.
Niacinamide, used in moderate doses, can safely help to restrain the excessive production of free fatty acids, and also helps to limit the wasteful conversion of glucose into fat. There is evidence that diabetics are chronically deficient in niacin. Excess fatty acids in the blood probably divert tryptophan from niacin synthesis into serotonin synthesis.
Note LucH: Niacinamide, not niacin. Moderate dose = maxi 20 - 25 mg B3.
Sodium, which is lost in hypothyroidism and diabetes, increases cellular energy. Diuretics, that cause loss of sodium, can cause apparent diabetes, with increased glucose and fats in the blood. Thyroid, sodium, and glucose work very closely together to maintain cellular energy and stability.
Eating the right kind of protein
RP has mentioned (3):
Protein of the right kind, in the right amount, is essential for reducing stress. Gelatin, with its anti-inflammatory amino acid balance, helps to regulate fat metabolism.
Aspirin's anti-inflammatory actions are generally important when the polyunsaturated fats are producing inflammatory and degenerative changes, and aspirin prevents many of the problems associated with diabetes, reducing vascular leakiness. It improves mitochondrial respiration (De Cristobal, et al., 2002) and helps to regulate blood sugar and lipids (Yuan, et al., 2001). Aspirin's broad range of beneficial effects is probably analogous to vitamin E's, being proportional to protection against the broad range of toxic effects of the polyunsaturated “essential” fatty acids. (5)

Sources and references
1) The role of dietary sugars, overweight, and obesity in type 2 diabetes mellitus: a narrative review. 2022, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
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2) Sugars and Gastrointestinal Health
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Both hyperglycemia and excessive sugar intake disrupt the intestinal barrier, thus increasing gut permeability and causing profound gut microbiota dysbiosis, which results in a disturbance in mucosal immunity that enhances infection susceptibility. 
Excerpt 1: The Western diet – The wrong target? (High-fat intake)
The Western diet (WD) is characterized by increased intake of red and processed meat, saturated fat, high-fat dairy products, eggs, refined grains, white potatoes, and high-sugar drinks. Fast food, processed food, and ultra-processed food (UPF) are now extensively consumed, while the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables has decreased. (…)
Excessive consumption of sugars has been linked with poor oral health, obesity, cardiovascular disorders, metabolic syndrome, and chronic diseases (type II diabetes mellitus, chronic inflammation, cancer, kidney dysfunction, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease). At the intestinal level, sugars and hyperglycemia strongly affect the gut microbiota and the intestinal barrier by increasing permeability and sensitivity to infections, and they seem to be aggravating factors for CRC. Given the ongoing controversies related to sugar in the diet, a symposium entitled "Sugars and Health Controversies: What Does the Science Say?" was held in 2014 during the American Society for Nutrition Scientific Sessions annual meeting and concluded that more research trials are needed in many areas regarding sugar consumption and health. For a long time, the WD has been implicated in triggering intestinal inflammation, focusing on the specific role of a high-fat diet on intestinal homeostasis, while a high-sugar diet has been poorly studied. Here, we reviewed the different dietary sugar types, their metabolism, and the effects of excessive intake on intestinal homeostasis, the gut microbiota, and gastrointestinal diseases.
Excerpt 2: Digestion of Carbohydrates
Digestible carbohydrates (eg, sucrose, lactose, and some starch) need to be degraded into monosaccharides (glucose, fructose, and galactose) to be absorbed in the small intestine. This digestion involves specific enzymes secreted by the pancreas and the intestinal mucosa. Starch and sucrose are degraded by pancreatic amylase, sucrase-isomaltase (small intestine), and maltase-glucoamylase, while lactose is degraded into glucose and galactose by lactase (Figure 3). In most mammals, in contrast with sucrase and maltase activities, lactase activity declines after weaning, a condition known as lactase nonpersistence. Mammalian genomes do not encode most enzymes needed to degrade the structural polysaccharides present in plant material. In particular, fibers are nondigestible carbohydrates: some are part of cell wall components (eg, cellulose and hemicellulose) or other structural and nonstructural compounds (eg, resistant starch, inulin, chitin, pectin, β-glucan, and oligosaccharides) (Table 1). The contribution of the gut microbiota to carbohydrate degradation is necessary because humans produce only 17 carbohydrate-active enzymes, whereas some bacterial species in the gut have more than 200 carbohydrate-active enzymes.
3) Glycemia, starch, and sugar in context Ray Peat
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4)  Microbiota in health and diseases
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For energy and nutrient extraction from food, microbiota plays crucial roles due to the versatile metabolic genes which provide independent unique enzymes and biochemical pathways.[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] Moreover, the biosynthesis of bioactive molecules such as vitamins, amino acids and lipids, are also highly dependent on the gut microbiota.[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]  Regarding the immune system, the human microbiota not only protects the host from external pathogens by producing antimicrobial substances but also serves as a significant component in the development of intestinal mucosa and immune system.
In healthy conditions, the gut microbiota exhibits stability, resilience, and symbiotic interaction with the host.  (…)
5) Protective effects of aspirin
Quote: "Aspirin is an antioxidant that protects against lipid peroxidation, but it also stimulates mitochondrial respiration. It can inhibit abnormal cell division, but promote normal cell division. It can facilitate learning, while preventing excitotoxic nerve injury. It reduces clotting, but it can decrease excessive menstrual bleeding. These, and many other strangely beneficial effects of aspirin, strongly suggest that it is acting on very basic biological processes, in a coherent way."
Ray Peat, Ph. Dr
6) Low-dose aspirin
It's best to take it with or just after food. This will make it less likely to upset your stomach. Or you can take white willow bark extract, preferably with the totum of the plant (not obligatory).
A baby aspirin once a day with the evening meal. Maxi 100 mg. Low-dose aspirin is between 75 and 100 mg, though aspirin 81 mg is the most commonly used dose (for heart attack and stroke). Enteric-coated aspirin does not dissolve immediately in the stomach; therefore, this form of aspirin causes fewer gastrointestinal adverse effects such as nausea and stomach upset.
7) Need for potassium
When the blood glucose level is elevated, potassium moves outside of the cell into the extracellular fluid (ECF), causing the potassium level to decrease.
Researchers in one [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine linked low levels of potassium with high levels of insulin and glucose in people who were otherwise healthy.
The incidence of diabetes among study participants went up as potassium levels went down.
Low levels of potassium with high levels of insulin and glucose are both traits doctors associate with diabetes.
*) Dr. Peat has said potassium is far more important than insulin in regulating blood sugar.
The effect of potassium I think is to speed up osmotic uptake by cells.
When diabetics go into ketoacidosis, they frequently have very high blood potassium levels. It is from osmotic pressure drawing potassium out of the cells and of course [it] is very dangerous.
By Yerrag, forum member of Ray PEAT Forum. Sept 21, 2018.
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Useful info :
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In one study, it was found that the insulin molecule itself, immune-reactive insulin, accounted for only about 8% of the serum's insulin-like action. The authors of that study believed that potassium was the main other factor in the serum that promoted the disposition of glucose. Since potassium and glucose are both always present in the blood, their effects on each other have usually been ignored.