Wheatophobia: Will avoiding wheat really improve your health?

[HuckleB]

http://health.universityofcalifornia.edu/2012/07/24/wheatophobia-will-avoiding-wheat-really-improve-your-health/

"Wheat has long been a dietary pariah for the millions of people who have jumped on the low-carb-diet bandwagon or who think they’re allergic (or at least sensitive) to the grain. Now even more people are hesitating about eating wheat after reading the claims made by Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist and author of the bestseller Wheat Belly, which is subtitled “Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health.” Not only does wheat make us fat, he says, it is addictive and causes everything from heart disease, diabetes and obesity to arthritis, osteoporosis, cognitive problems and cataracts. In fact, it has caused “more harm than any foreign terrorist can inflict on us.”

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a single villain behind the chronic health problems plaguing us, and if all it took to reverse them was to stop eating wheat? Don’t bet on it.

..."

FYI...

[HuckleB]

1. Wheat Belly, Busted

http://noglutennoproblem.blogspot.com/2012/03/wheat-belly-busted.html

[Lex]

9. It's interesting that it's written by a gluten-free person who says he is angry.

I like that he acknowledges that there are valid parts to book.

[cbayer]

2. I live in awe of those who propose illnesses that everyone essentially has.

Irritable bowel syndrome. Chronic fatigue syndrome. Dysfunctional family. Gluten sensitivity.

They are truly the medical entrepreneurs of our time.

[jeff47]

3. His book is a demonstration of the poor science education we hand out in our schools

The slightest bit of scientific thinking would cause people to realize just how wrong this guy is.

How long have we had these widespread health problems? About 40 years.
How long have we been eating wheat and wheat products? About 4000 years.

It becomes blatantly obvious that this guy's theory is designed to sell books, not make people healthy.

I eagerly await his supporters who will claim it is magic new wheat that causes these problems, yet fail to notice that said magic wheat is either too new or too old.

[Lex]

6. Not the same wheat as we ate 400 years ago.

That is the interesting part. But I don't think it is the answer to all ill-health.

[jeff47]

16. And here it is, magic wheat!!

Not the same wheat as we ate 400 years ago.

That's nice.

How come that "new" wheat was benign for 360 years? Was it supplied with a calendar so it would know when to start causing problems?

[Lex]

19. I'm sorry, I don't follow. It's not magic.

It was hybridized multiple times in the 70's to come up with a high-yield product.

Einkorn wheat was one of the earliest cultivated forms of wheat and later, emmer wheat. You can look those up. Now we eat hybridized high-yield, semi-dwarf wheat which became the industry standard in the late 1970's and has differences than earlier wheat.

I'm not sure why you seem so personally incensed.

[lunasun]

26. +1 Most people do not understand this

"It's an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the '60s and '70s," he said on "CBS This Morning." "This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there's a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It's not gluten

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505269_162-57505149/modern-wheat-a-perfect-chronic-poison-doctor-says/

I wont discuss it anymore than to post a laymen friendly article above

everyone eat what you will

[Lex]

31. Thanks

for the article.

[NoOneMan]

28. 40 years of health problems?

I've seen numerous paleopathological studies comparing health between foraging and agrarian populations, which illustrate that agriculturalists have suffered significant health problems for about....well...10 thousand years.

Quick handy links:

http://www.uic.edu/classes/osci/osci590/6_1Paleopathology%20Disease%20in%20the%20Past.htm
http://ebookbrowse.com/biological-changes-in-human-populations-with-agriculture-pdf-d152518935
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X11000402

[Scootaloo]

4. If your ancestors are from a grain-eating agricultural society, you're fine

If your ancestors were Nenets from Siberia, well, you might have a bit of a wheat issue, sure...

It's like lactose tolerance, some ancestral lines have it, some don't, with various degrees in between.

The trick is just not to overindulge. Which is a real tricky proposition, with the way the food industry is these days.

[Ilsa]

12. I know what you mean. I have a friend

Whose 25 year old daughter went gluten free and has had some health issues (minor) clear up. Now the mom, who was fine for 50 years, is strictly GF and sometimes is an ass about it. And the rest of us roll our eyes.

[Scootaloo]

13. One lady on-staff where I work insists she's allergic to MSG and wheat

And then at dinner, asks for cake to do with her gravy-smothered chicken fried steak. With whole-wheat toast

She can't have bread, see, 'cause bread is wheat, but cake, oh, cake is made of flour. And the whole-wheat bread has oats on the top, so it must just be a name, see?

This is the effect that medical-sounding bullshit published in Readers Digest has on our society.

[NoOneMan]

30. Who were the grain-eater's ancestors?

One quick note...the cultivation of grain didn't cause rapid expansion because it was incredible healthy for the people growing it, but because it is a great way to rapidly generate surplus calories and increase food security without constantly moving. Being from a long line of grain-eaters may have more to do with the success of the grain-growing civilization (and its expansion) than its compatibility with your body. It may be shit actually, but useful shit for raising and feeding expanding armies. Food for thought.

[Scootaloo]

33. Grasses actually contain components that, while not poisonous, aren't very human-friendly

This the cause of celiac "disease." It's not a disease, any more than lactose intolerance is - from another perspective, wheat and milk tolerances are the weird, mutant genes, they just happen to both be extremely common in Europe.

Those better-able to tolerate wheat and milk benefited more from having those products in their diet, and were better-able to exploit those foodsources in the way you described

[Odin2005]

38. That's my thinking, too.

[Lex]

5. I don't think there is "a single villain" behind our chronic health problems

but I do think it's worth knowing what you're eating and how it feels to your own body.

[Moonwalk]

7. Just the latest in magic-bullet-diet-fads...

Every five years or so a new diet doctor tells us something is what we should all eat and/or something is what we should not all eat and magically we'll all be slim and healthy. But somehow nothing ever appears that really does cure us all of whatever is making us less than perfectly healthy. I recall a point where everyone was supposed to eat pasta--then a time when everyone was supposed to eat sushi Remember the renewed Atkin's diet back in 2002 when everyone was carb-free and chowing down on bacon and eggs?

All such a diet usually does is create a new market for new products for a while--in this case, gluten-free products.

[Lex]

10. Actually he specifically doesn't promote gluten-free products.

[Moonwalk]

24. I didn't say he did. I said was that the popularity of such a diet creates and promotes--

--new products for those on such diets. Doesn't matter if the one who started the diet promotes them or not.

[Scootaloo]

14. I LOVE gluten-free product marketing!

I bought some cherry juice the other day. It advertises itself as "gluten free!" I was like, "finally! I am no longer shackled by chewy cherry juice!"

[Moonwalk]

25. LOL!

I had no idea what I was missing out on in the juice aisle.

[PoliticAverse]

27. Yes but is your cherry juice "caffeine free!" ? n/t

[get the red out]

8. Thank you

I am always turned off by so-called super-diets that abolish whole classes of foods. Eating too much of anything can certainly be unhealthy, and eating a bunch of processed carbs isn't very healthy. But the trends we have to live with of cherry picking data to demonize particular foods are getting on my nerves.

[JustAnotherGen]

11. There is no single villain

My AI disease is directly related to carrying the HLA-B27 gene, and a great grandfather that had it. I follow his diet in the days before NSAIDS and enbrel. He went into remission until his early 90's when he went full throttle hunch back.

I know longer take NSAIDS or enbrel - because I stick to raw veggies and fruits about 85% of my diet. The rest is mostly fish and meat and cooked veggies with home made yogurt.

The fact is the doctors just want to slap chronic fatigue syndrome on anything and everything. When one has given 17 vials of blood to find nothing (I have) one starts looking to the way they did things 80/90 years ago. The reality is - you really don't need a cookie to live. You only think you need it. Or a bagel. And you shouldn't have to shoot yourself up with a drug that makes you more susceptible to infections and cancers to stand up straight.


I have Ankylosing Spondylitis. TRY walking a day in my shoes - in a full flare - you can't. No - I'm serious. Well, you can but it's excruciating to take a step, and you can barely hold a toothbrush. Forget about trying to pull on a pair of tights. Or bend over to zip up your boots. Oh? You think you can close your hands around the zipper? Try it. It sucks.

If a no starch diet helps me get over a flare and rare starch diet keeps it away - let me do what I want - wheat belly book or not. Check out the Kick AS forums and you'll see how we are kicking it. Food is key. Filtered water. Reduction of chemicals. Reduction of additives. Nothing processed.

[BanzaiBonnie]

15. I can only speak for myself and my experience

Some people will probably call it anecdotal.

I've been wheat free (mostly) for almost two years. Last fall, in the interest of testing myself... I had something with flour. Within two days, I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach about 18 times. I was hurting.

My health is improved by not eating wheat. It's not in my head.

I've also learned that commercial bread makers add extra gluten because it shortens mixing time for bread products.


It's like Colony Collapse Disorder with bees. It's probably not entirely one single insult on the organism, but which one is the final straw and how much can we take. I'm unwinding the whole puzzle and this is a piece of it for me.

[jeff47]

17. Actually, it is anecdotal

Since it's just your story. You aren't testing a bunch of people. Nor is your test terribly good.

If you want to test it, have someone prepare identical meals, one that is "gluten free" and one that is not and try both. Without you knowing if it's the gluten free version or not.

So, one week they make a dish with 'gluten free' pasta, and the next a duplicate that has both 'gluten free' and 'gluten full' pasta. You shouldn't know which one you are getting, so use both types in the latter dish to avoid texture issues. Maybe have 'em flip a coin out of your sight to see which one they prepare. Then see what happens.

There are a stunning number of physical effects that turn out to be all in our heads. Placebos are stunningly effective in studies. They've cured infections, heart disease, high blood pressure, and a host of other problems that shouldn't be all in our heads.

[Lex]

20. I'm glad you tried it for yourself and are happy with

your own results.

[Confusious]

29. It is ancedotal

And also common.

If you stop eating something, your body is going to adjust. Going back to it, your body has to adjust again.

I used to eat fried foods, then stopped. For a long time. Years later, I thought I would get some Popeye's fried okra.

Needless to say, my body didn't like it, and I had to run to the bathroom for the squirts.

Starving people shouldn't eat until they're full. It'll kill them. They have to be reintroduced to food.

It's not that it's bad for you, you body just needs time to adjust.

[xchrom]

18. Du rec. Nt

[HuckleB]

36. Thanks!

[djean111]

21. Don't know why some people get all fired up over what other people choose to eat. Or not eat.

I feel wonderful sticking to an Atkins-type diet - and by diet I mean this is what I eat; by definition, to me, a "diet" is whatever I am eating.
But I don't go around Publix grabbing baguettes out of other people's carts and flinging them down the aisle. (The bread, not the person.)
Just because someone writes about about their own particular eating regimen doesn't mean anyone else has to do it.
If I eat bread, I get a bit of intestinal upset. Euphemism.
If I eat ice cream or any other sugary thing, my feet sort of swell and I get foot cramps at night.
I am totally uninterested in why that happens, really. And totally uninterested in any theories or naysayers - that's silly to care.
I just skip that kind of food. I don't need it.

Just books! Just theories! That being said, I wouldn't trust any geometrically- or plate-shaped formula for eating put together by our government, no matter who is titular head. Everyone has an agenda, and I just want to be happy with what I eat.
Maybe I would feel differently about that stuff if I dabbled in wheat futures or whatever.

[kestrel91316]

32. Nobody cares what you eat. It's when some people with little or no nutrition or

medical background try to convince the uneducated and gullible that THEY shouldn't eat something that it crosses the line into lying for profit, because those folks are usually SELLING something.

[djean111]

35. Oh, I agree.

I put Monsanto and other industry-supported scientists at the top of that particular pyramid, is all.
And everybody is usually selling something. All the time. TV, radio, movies, books, food, clothing, religion, whatever. For profit.
To uneducated and gullible people.

Anyway, I feel better if I don't eat wheat. No scientific input needed. Of course no one cares what I eat. (unless, I noticee, I say I don't want to eat GMO stuff or whatever).
The guy that wrote that book is only selling books, not selling wheat substitutes. On the other hand, wheat has given us that wonderful Wheat Thins commercial (Hwheat Thins. No, Weet Thins.)

[HuckleB]

37. It is certainly lying for profit, and it's malpractice, under any sane system.

The guy is giving advice that is not consistent with good practice. It's ludicrous and despicable, and I'm being kind when I say that.

[Warpy]

22. I think it's a fad now

Wheat allergy is extremely rare, so rare that wheat was literally the last thing I tried eliminating when I was trying to track down the cause of a persistent, full body rash.

Wheat was it. Dammit. I'd rather avoid nearly anything else because I loved baking.

A lot improved besides the rash, so I do think wheat allergy is likely under reported and under diagnosed.

However, most of the people who have quit eating wheat and claimed it cured their flat feet are kidding themselves.

(and yes, I'd have gone to an allergist if I'd had health insurance at any time since 1987)

[Demo_Chris]

23. I think the NEW thing is not health problems, but thinking that they are new

[Celebration]

34. I have a friend who was very seriously ill with cardiac problems

He was in and out of the hospital for an entire year--er visits, etc. He was under the care of a cardiologist of course. He even want to Mayo about his heart issues. Finally he made an appointment with a local internist who was getting good results with simple diet changes. The doctor gave the guy a glucose tolerance test, and he was "pre-diabetic". Nobody else had bothered to give him that test. He avoids sugar and wheat, and rice, made very few other changes to his diet, and is a completely different person--back getting exercise, and he lost thirty plus pounds. He looks and acts like a new person. He is completely fine. And do you think he is a bit evangelical about his diet success? You bet he is.

It isn't that something like this will happen to everyone who avoids wheat--it won't! But he had sought help from a bunch of doctors who did NOT tell him that it *could* make a differences.

Therefore, it is worth writing about in a book.

Yes, he had a "wheat belly."

Cardiologists are now just beginning to realize that this isn't exactly a tiny subset of people...........................

It isn't that this is a one size fits all approach, of course. But I have no problem with a person writing a health book aimed towards a subset of people. Books would be pretty boring if their content had to apply to everybody on the planet.