Lysine Butyrate: Ozzi watermelon pouch and stick pack on a light wood desk beside a glass of the prepared drink and a printed scientific paper

Lysine Butyrate (BIOMEnd): Why We Chose It Over Every Other Form (2026)

By Brandon, founder of Ozzi · Published August 15, 2026 · Updated October 31, 2026

TL;DR: Lysine butyrate (BIOMEnd) is butyrate bound to the amino acid lysine instead of to sodium or a glycerol backbone. In the only published head-to-head human trial, it hit peak blood levels 2.5x faster than tributyrin with roughly 5x the peak concentration. It also carries no sodium and smells dramatically better. That combination is why it's in every Ozzi stick.

In January 2025 a research team finally ran the comparison nobody had run: three commercial butyrate products, same dose of butyric acid, same people, blood drawn at six timepoints.

What is lysine butyrate?

  • Lysine butyrate: butyric acid paired with L-lysine, an essential amino acid. Sold as BIOMEnd, and this is what we use in our BIOMEnd butyrate supplement.

It's an ionic compound, so it dissociates in water the same way sodium butyrate does, but the counter-ion you swallow is an amino acid rather than a mineral.

What did the head-to-head trial actually find?

In the 2025 head-to-head trial, in which 10 healthy men took 786 mg of butyric acid from each product, lysine butyrate beat tributyrin on peak concentration, time to peak and total exposure, with statistically significant gaps, and did not statistically beat sodium butyrate. The study is A Pharmacokinetic Comparison of Three Butyrate Products, published in the Journal of Exercise and Nutrition in January 2025 and registered on ClinicalTrials.gov as NCT06700785.1

Measure Lysine butyrate (BIOMEnd) Sodium butyrate Tributyrin
Peak concentration (Cmax) 4.53 µg/mL 2.51 µg/mL 0.91 µg/mL
Time to peak (Tmax) 20.0 min 22.5 min 51.5 min
Total exposure (AUC₀₋₂₁₀) 189 144 108
Sodium delivered None Meaningful None

Against tributyrin, lysine butyrate won on every measure, and the gaps were statistically significant. Roughly 5x the peak concentration (p=0.007), 1.75x the total exposure (p=0.023), and peak reached at 20 minutes instead of 51.5 (p=0.004).

Line chart of serum butyrate over 210 minutes showing lysine butyrate and sodium butyrate spiking sharply at 20 minutes and clearing by 45 minutes, while tributyrin stays flat

Both salts spike fast and clear fast. Note how quickly everything returns to baseline: this is a 30-minute window, not a sustained elevation.

Where the data doesn't say what the marketing says

Lysine butyrate did not statistically beat sodium butyrate. The raw numbers favor it, 4.53 against 2.51 on peak concentration, but the p-values were 0.340 for Cmax, 0.660 for total exposure, and above 0.999 for time to peak. In plain terms, the two forms performed comparably and the difference between them could be noise.

Lysine butyrate's peak was 4.53 ± 7.56 µg/mL. The variation is bigger than the average. The authors flag exactly this: a few participants were "hyper responders" whose blood butyrate spiked far above everyone else's, which drags the mean up without moving the whole group.

So if you see anyone claim BIOMEnd delivers more circulating butyrate than sodium butyrate, that claim is running ahead of this trial. It delivers comparably.

One more caveat while we're here: this was 10 participants, all men, a single dose, tracked for 3.5 hours. The authors call it a pilot, and it is one. It tells you how the forms absorb. It doesn't tell you what that absorption does for your health over months.

So why did we pick it over sodium butyrate?

We picked lysine butyrate over sodium butyrate because absorption was never the only thing on the scorecard, and on a tie you decide with everything else: sodium, smell and taste, and the carrier.

1. Sodium. This is the big one for a daily drink. The trial authors put it bluntly: even a small amount of sodium butyrate "provides a high sodium intake which can be problematic for individuals at risk for hypertension, those who are following a low sodium diet, and/or those at high risk of cardiovascular disease."

2. Smell and taste. If you've ever opened a bottle of sodium butyrate capsules, you know why this decides products. We wrote more about this in why butyrate smells the way it does.

3. The carrier is doing something, not nothing. Sodium is inert cargo. L-lysine is an essential amino acid, and it's also one of the substrates your gut bacteria use to make butyrate in the first place. The trial authors call this out as a possible formulation advantage beyond plasma appearance, while being careful to label it speculative. It's not a proven benefit.

Is tributyrin just worse, then?

Tributyrin isn't just worse, and I don't think it's fair to frame it that way: it is built to deliver butyrate further down the gut rather than into the blood.

The catch is that it's a genuinely different strategy with a different evidence base, most of it preclinical or from cancer patient studies at pharmaceutical doses.3 We wrote the full comparison in sodium butyrate vs tributyrin.

What does butyrate actually do once it's in you?

Overhead view of hands at a kitchen counter holding a printed scientific paper marked up with a yellow highlighter, beside a mug of coffee and reading glasses

What's solid: butyrate is the primary energy source for the cells lining your colon. Those cells preferentially burn it over glucose.4 It also acts as a histone deacetylase inhibitor, which is a real and well-characterized mechanism.5

We sell a GLP-1 support product and I'm telling you the butyrate-to-GLP-1 link is a proposed mechanism, not a human finding. If that costs us a sale to someone who wanted a bigger promise, fine. The full version is in butyrate and GLP-1.

What has the research actually studied?

The citation trail behind butyrate marketing is mostly mouse and cell studies, plus one small human absorption trial and one human trial that found no change in GLP-1.

Claim you'll see Where it comes from Honest status
Lysine butyrate absorbs faster than tributyrin Human crossover trial, n=101 Supported. Small but well-designed.
Lysine butyrate beats sodium butyrate on absorption Same trial1 Not supported. No significant difference.
Butyrate fuels colon cells Established cell biology4 Solid.
Butyrate reduces appetite Mice, oral gavage7 Rodent only.
Butyrate raises GLP-1 Mouse cultures and knockouts9 Not shown in humans. One human trial found no change.10
Butyrate improves insulin sensitivity Mice on high-fat diet8 Rodent only.

Also worth stating outright: there are zero clinical outcome trials on lysine butyrate. Nobody has run a study where people took BIOMEnd for 12 weeks and researchers measured whether anything about their health changed. The pharmacokinetic trial tells you the delivery works. It doesn't tell you what the delivery buys you.

How much lysine butyrate is in Ozzi?

500mg of L-Lysine Butyrate as BIOMEnd per stick.

The butyrate is a postbiotic, meaning it's the finished compound your bacteria would otherwise have to make. More on that in how postbiotics differ from probiotics.

The rest of the stick is 8g allulose, 500mg glucomannan, 150mg African mango, and 300mcg chromium. No caffeine, no stimulants, no berberine, vegan. Full detail on the Crave Crusher page and in our butyrate forms breakdown.

Want lysine butyrate on its own? It now comes in capsules: Ozzi BIOMEnd Butyrate has 1,000mg of L-lysine butyrate per serving, twice what's in a stick, with zero sodium.

Frequently asked questions

What is BIOMEnd?

BIOMEnd is the branded trade name for L-lysine butyrate, a butyrate ingredient supplied by NutraShure that launched commercially in 2024. It's butyric acid paired with the essential amino acid L-lysine rather than with sodium or a glycerol backbone.

Is lysine butyrate better than sodium butyrate?

On absorption, the head-to-head trial found no significant difference between them. On everything else, lysine butyrate has the edge: no sodium load, better smell and taste, and an amino acid carrier instead of a mineral one. That's why we use it.

Is lysine butyrate safe?

In the trial, all three butyrate products were well tolerated with no adverse events and no impact on vital signs across 10 participants. That's a small sample over a short window. Talk to your doctor before starting any supplement, especially if you take medication.

Can I get enough butyrate from food?

You don't eat butyrate directly in any meaningful amount. Your gut bacteria make it when they ferment fiber, which is why fiber intake matters more than any single food. We cover the food routes in how to increase butyrate naturally.

The butyrate we'd want to take ourselves

Every Ozzi stick has 500mg of BIOMEnd L-Lysine Butyrate. No sodium load, no caffeine, vegan.

14-Day Ozzi Challenge: Take it for 14 straight days. If your cravings and food noise aren't quieter, we'll refund your first bag.

Try Crave Crusher

Prefer butyrate on its own? See the BIOMEnd butyrate supplement, 1,000mg of L-lysine butyrate per serving in capsules.

About the author

Brandon is the founder of Ozzi. He picked the butyrate form in Crave Crusher by reading the pharmacokinetics paper rather than the supplier's sell sheet, and he'll tell you which parts of that paper don't favor his own choice. He answers questions personally, including the skeptical ones.

References

  1. La Monica MB, Kirby T, Hartshorn SL, Gustat A, Grdic J, Sandrock J. A Pharmacokinetic Comparison of Three Butyrate Products. Journal of Exercise and Nutrition. 2025;8(1):4. Human randomized crossover trial, n=10. NCT06700785. Funded in part by the American Institute of Gastrointestinal Health. Full text (open access)
  2. Wang R, Cao S, Bashir MEH, et al. Treatment of peanut allergy and colitis in mice via the intestinal release of butyrate from polymeric micelles. Nature Biomedical Engineering. 2023;7(1):38-55. Mouse. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-022-00972-5
  3. Edelman MJ, Bauer K, Khanwani S, et al. Clinical and pharmacologic study of tributyrin: an oral butyrate prodrug. Cancer Chemotherapy and Pharmacology. 2003;51(5):439-444. Human, cancer patients under treatment. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00280-003-0580-5
  4. Donohoe DR, Garge N, Zhang X, et al. The Microbiome and Butyrate Regulate Energy Metabolism and Autophagy in the Mammalian Colon. Cell Metabolism. 2011;13(5):517-526. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2011.02.018
  5. Davie JR. Inhibition of Histone Deacetylase Activity by Butyrate. The Journal of Nutrition. 2003;133(7):2485S-2493S. https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/133.7.2485S
  6. Canfora EE, van der Beek CM, Jocken JWE, et al. Colonic infusions of short-chain fatty acid mixtures promote energy metabolism in overweight/obese men: a randomized crossover trial. Scientific Reports. 2017;7(1):2360. Human RCT, colonic infusion. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-02546-x
  7. Li Z, Yi CX, Katiraei S, et al. Butyrate reduces appetite and activates brown adipose tissue via the gut-brain neural circuit. Gut. 2018;67(7):1269-1279. Mouse. https://doi.org/10.1136/gutjnl-2017-314050
  8. Gao Z, Yin J, Zhang J, et al. Butyrate Improves Insulin Sensitivity and Increases Energy Expenditure in Mice. Diabetes. 2009;58(7):1509-1517. Mouse. https://doi.org/10.2337/db08-1637
  9. Tolhurst G, Heffron H, Lam YS, et al. Short-chain fatty acids stimulate glucagon-like peptide-1 secretion via the G-protein-coupled receptor FFAR2. Diabetes. 2012;61(2):364-371. Mouse and cell culture. https://doi.org/10.2337/db11-1019
  10. van Deuren T, Smolders L, Hartog A, et al. Butyrate and hexanoate-enriched triglycerides increase postprandial systemic butyrate and hexanoate in men with overweight/obesity: A double-blind placebo-controlled randomized crossover trial. Frontiers in Nutrition. 2023;9:1066950. Human RCT. GLP-1 was a secondary outcome and did not change. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.1066950
  11. Guilloteau P, Martin L, Eeckhaut V, Ducatelle R, Zabielski R, Van Immerseel F. From the gut to the peripheral tissues: the multiple effects of butyrate. Nutrition Research Reviews. 2010;23(2):366-384. Review. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954422410000247
  12. Recharla N, Geesala R, Shi XZ. Gut Microbial Metabolite Butyrate and Its Therapeutic Role in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Literature Review. Nutrients. 2023;15(10):2275. Review. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15102275

Peer-reviewed sources retrieved via PubMed. This article is general information, not medical advice. Ozzi is a dietary supplement, not a medication. Talk to your doctor before starting anything new.

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