This post covers the benefits of butyrate when you have MCAS and other chronic illnesses.
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Who is Betsy Leighton?
I’m a writer, blogger, and healer dedicated to helping individuals reconnect with their innate peace and wholeness by healing nervous system dysregulation. My personal experience with chronic illness called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) shapes my work, and my content offers tools to empower those with chronic illness to improve their well-being and take charge of their health.
I created the Sacred Self-Healing Method and am a trained and certified Safe and Sound Protocol provider, an author, blogger, and A Course in Miracles Teacher. I hold a Master of Divinity in Spiritual Counseling and am a trained spiritual mentor, with certificates in sound healing, aromatherapy, nutrition, and Sacred Deathcare. I offer a self-study certificate program in the Sacred Self-Healing Method, provide spiritual counseling and coaching, courses, and supported subscriptions for the Safe and Sound Protocol.
What is MCAS?
Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) is a chronic condition that affects all organ systems. It can cause severe, disabling symptoms every day, including potentially fatal anaphylaxis.
The common triggers for MCAS are infections, toxic exposures including mold exposure and EMFs, trauma, concussions, and stress.
MCAS often occurs with other chronic conditions like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). Managing MCAS is challenging because many healthcare providers are unaware of it, and diagnostic tests can be unreliable. Treatments include antihistamines and mast cell stabilizers in the form of medications and supplements, along with avoiding triggers. Check out this post on managing MCAS.
What is butyrate?
Butyrate (also called butyric acid or butyrate salts) is a short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) produced in your colon when beneficial gut bacteria ferment certain fibers—especially resistant starch and other prebiotic fibers. It plays a significant role in gut and immune health.
My favorite brand of butyrate is Healthy Gut Tri-Butyrin-X. It’s processed in a way that doesn’t cause histamine issues for me, tasteless, odorless, and extremely effective. Tributyrin-X helps to reinforce the blood-brain barrier and keep toxins out of the brain, modulate the release of inflammatory mediators from mast cells, and promote memory consolidation.
Butyrate is helpful for concussions, sulfur cycle dysfunction, and SIBO.
What butyrate does in the body
1. Feeds and protects the gut lining
Butyrate is the primary fuel source for colonocytes (the cells lining your colon). It helps:
- strengthen the gut barrier
- reduce intestinal permeability (“leaky gut”)
- promote mucosal healing
2. Reduces inflammation
Butyrate has potent anti-inflammatory effects. It can:
- downregulate inflammatory cytokines
- promote T-regulatory immune cells (immune “calming” cells)
- help balance overactive immune responses
3. Supports metabolism and blood sugar
Butyrate supports metabolism and blood sugar. It influences:
- insulin sensitivity
- fat storage
- appetite regulation
4. Modulates the gut-brain axis
Butyrate may support:
- mood regulation
- reduced anxiety
- improved stress resilience through its effects on inflammation and the vagus nerve.
Butyrate and MCAS
Butyrate is often helpful for MCAS because it can:
- Strengthen the gut barrier (reducing mast-cell triggers)
- Lower local gut inflammation
- Calm immune overactivation
However, supplements can sometimes cause symptoms when introduced too quickly, whereas food-derived butyrate (via fiber fermentation) is typically gentler.
Main ways to increase butyrate
I take Healthy Gut Tri-Butyrin-X twice a day, and it has helped heal my gut, reduce MCAS symptoms, and regulate my sulfur pathways. You can also get butyrate naturally from these foods:
- Resistant starch (green banana flour, cooked-then-cooled potatoes, plantain flour, etc.)
- Fibers from vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes (if tolerated)
- Butyrate supplements (sodium butyrate, calcium/magnesium butyrate)
- Ghee contains small amounts of pre-formed butyrate
Benefits of butyrate for MCAS
Butyrate can support people with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) by calming gut inflammation and strengthening the intestinal barrier—two areas where mast cells are highly active and easily triggered. As a short-chain fatty acid produced when beneficial bacteria ferment fiber, butyrate fuels the cells that line the colon, helping repair and tighten the gut lining so fewer irritants, toxins, and partially digested proteins reach immune cells. This reduced “leakiness” lowers the number of signals that provoke mast-cell activation. Butyrate also directly promotes regulatory immune pathways and suppresses the production of inflammatory cytokines, thereby making mast cells less reactive overall. By improving gut health, balancing the microbiome, and modulating immune responses, butyrate creates a calmer internal environment that can decrease the frequency and intensity of MCAS flares.
The bucket theory
The bucket theory simplifies understanding symptom reactions with MCAS. Imagine your body as an empty bucket you don’t want to overflow. Reactions to various stimuli fill the histamine bucket at different rates, forming the total histamine level (how full your bucket is). More histamine means more symptoms. By managing triggers, reducing exposures, and taking medications and supplements, you can control your bucket’s level.
Know your typical symptom progression
Understanding your symptom progression during a flare is key to developing your rescue plan. This post discusses how to recognize symptom progression so you can be prepared to address them.
Get my free ebook, symptom log, and meal plan!
Want a tool to easily track your symptoms?
Check out these circadian health tools!
I’m an affiliate with Bon Charge, a company that makes tools for circadian health, and you can receive 15% off your order with my coupon code BETSYL.
Bon Charge offers tools such as yellow– and red-tone blue-blocking glasses, red light therapy devices, PEMF mats, infrared saunas, and EMF-blocking products.
Sign up for the SSP!
I’ve found the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) to be the most helpful bottom-up healing strategy if your nervous system has been overloaded with toxic exposures, including mold or non-native EMFs, chronic infections, concussions, stress, or trauma. The SSP is a passive listening therapy that helps heal nervous system dysregulation. Many people with MCAS and other chronic conditions have nervous system dysregulation stemming from infections, toxic exposures, concussions, and trauma. The SSP is an easy-to-use app that lets you listen to specially filtered music for 30 minutes each day as part of a 5-hour cycle. Studies show the SSP has a profound effect on mental health and chronic conditions. Here’s a short podcast describing the Safe and Sound Protocol.
You can sign up for the SSP here!
Heal your mind!
While the SSP is a bottom-up, somatic therapy for healing the nervous system, the Sacred Self-Healing Method I offer is a top-down nervous system-healing modality that focuses on cognition, attention, perception, and emotion, using the mind’s higher functions. The SSP and the Sacred Self-Healing Method complement each other and together produce lasting results. Here’s a short podcast on my self-healing practice.
I provide one-on-one in-person and remote chronic illness and caregiver coaching, as well as Sacred Self-Healing Sessions based on the Sacred Self-Healing Method, a proven, novel co-creative healing modality detailed in my Books.
Order my books!
Here’s a short podcast highlighting my five books.
My latest book, Living In The Light: Healing with Forgiveness, Sound, and Light, is all about the tools that have been most helpful for me to heal: forgiveness, sound, through nervous system retraining using the Safe and Sound Protocol, and light, through entraining my circadian rhythm with the energy of the sun. Living In The Light is available here!
Rocks and Roots chronicles my solo backpacking journey on the Superior Hiking Trail and my efforts to overcome nervous system dysregulation, gut dysbiosis, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome symptoms to complete the 328-mile hike successfully.
The Sacred Self-Healing Method ebook is available here and in most ebook retailers!
The Sacred Self-Healing Workbook is available for purchase here!
Betsy’s first book, Sacred Self-Healing: Finding Peace Through Forgiveness, is available here
Companion Recordings
The companion audio recordings of chants, guided meditations, and sound healing demonstrations that accompany the Sacred Self-Healing Method are available for free on my YouTube channel here
What do you think?
I’d love to have your reply below!
Disclaimer
The preceding material does not constitute medical advice. This information is for information purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, cure, or treatment.
