French fries. Hash browns. Potato chips. Taters- American dietary staples that are very likely making you sick. Potatoes have a naturally occurring component (glycoalkaloids) that can compromise the health of the bowel, specifically the epithelial barrier. The epithelial barrier in your intestine is essential to life. It helps support the movement of water and nutrition and also helps prevent microbial contamination in the intestinal tissue. A study investigating IBD revealed that even normally occurring levels of glycoalkaloids can adversely affect the intestine and aggravate IBD. Frying said potatoes only increases the harmful component, thereby making matters manifold more worse. We’ve catered to our tongues enough. Let’s begin catering to our colons. Here’s to your health! Read the study for more in-depth analysis.
Patel B, Schutte R, Sporns P, Doyle J, Jewel L, Fedorak RN. Potato glycoalkaloids adversely affect intestinal permeability and aggravate inflammatory bowel disease. Inflamm Bowel Dis. 2002 Sep;8(5):340-6. PubMed PMID: 12479649. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12479649/
