Defiant Health Radio with Dr. William Davis
Defiant Health Radio with Dr. William Davis
Seven Reasons to NEVER Eat Wheat Again
Those of you who follow my discussions that started with the Wheat Belly series of books already know that there is a long list of reasons why humans made an enormous blunder when we first resorted to the consumption of the seeds of grasses, meaning wheat and related grains. We know this from the anthropological record of human disease, we know this from modern science that has exposed the many problems that arise with their consumption from tooth decay to arthritis.
But in my many conversations with people, I find that, because we are all bombarded with the opposite message from TV commercials, media reports, even doctors and dietitians, much of the rationale and science that tells us that wheat consumption is awful for health becomes diluted, or discounted, or ignored. My Wheat Belly arguments, for instance, have been dismissed as just another “gluten-free” message that has no bearing outside of celiac disease. Or that there are bad health consequences of banishing an entire category of food. Or that, if the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans tell us that grains must be a part of the human diet, it must therefore be true. Of course, this is all not true: misinterpretations, misrepresentations, sometimes outright lies, all to prop up continued consumption of a class of “foods” that accelerate disease, aging, and should have no place in the diet of humans.
So for this reason, I am going to be guilty of repeating myself and once again reiterating why the arguments against the inclusion of wheat and grains are overwhelming, the health impact of their consumption shockingly awful, and the health benefits of their abandonment huge and life-changing.
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Those of you who follow my discussions that started with the Wheat Belly series of books already know that there is a long list of reasons why humans made an enormous blunder when we first resorted to the consumption of the seeds of grasses, meaning wheat and related grains. We know this from the anthropological record of human disease. We know this from modern science that has exposed the many problems that arise with air consumption, from tooth decay to arthritis. But in my many conversations with people I find that because we are all bombarded with the opposite message from TV commercials, are all bombarded with the opposite message from TV commercials, media reports, even doctors and dieticians, much of the rationale and science that tells us that wheat consumption is awful for health becomes diluted or discounted or ignored. My wheat belly arguments, for instance, have been dismissed as just another gluten-free message that has no bearing outside of celiac disease, or that there are bad health consequences of banishing an entire category of food, or that if the US dietary guidelines for Americans tell us that grains must be part of the human diet, it must therefore be true. Of course this is all not true. They represent misinterpretations, misrepresentations, sometimes outright lies, all to prop up continued consumption of a class of food that accelerate disease aging and should have no place in the diet of humans. So for this reason, I'm going to be guilty of repeating myself and once again reiterating why the arguments against the inclusion of wheat and grains are overwhelming, the health impact of their consumption shockingly awful and the health benefits of their abandonment huge and life-changing. And later in the podcast let's talk about Defiant Health's sponsors Paleo Valley, our preferred provider for many excellent organic and grass-fed food products, and BioDequest, my number one choice for probiotics that are scientifically formulated, unlike most of the other commercial probiotic products available today. I'd like to also make you aware of a new source for our favorite microbe, lactobacillus roteri, and a skin formulation I designed that improves skin from the inside out, and a skin formulation I designed that improves skin from the inside out.
William Davis, MD:Can you believe that it's been 13 years since the initial Wheat Belly book came out? It made a splash. It upset a lot of people. It upset a lot of people in nutrition dieticians, even my colleagues, who adhered to guidelines that said you must eat healthy, whole grains and include grains in every meal. This went so far as to have teachers in schools sending children home or sending their lunches home if they didn't contain some kind of grain product. And because we're bombarded by this message over and over again from all sides from industry, from agriculture, from doctors, from health care people, I think even with if they read the book and understood the message, forgot or didn't stick to it, because that the the push to go back to consuming grains is very strong and it's sometimes hard to ignore. There's also peer pressure. You go to a party, you go to a neighborhood, get together, you go to an office party and they're going to serve foods made of wheat. Wheat, after all, like cornstarch and corn products, is cheap filler. It gives the appearance of plenty, that you're getting a lot of food, when really what you're getting is cheap filler. And so, with all these forces at work, people, even if they read the book, even if they heard it from me, even if they embraced the lifestyle at first, often forgot or backtracked and went back to consuming grains, and it's a big health price to pay.
William Davis, MD:It's hard to overstate how destructive wheat and related grains are. Now, when I say wheat, I'm really referring to wheat and all the related grains, like rye, barley, triticale, corn and some others. So because wheat and grains are seeds of grasses, and you may not think of grains this way, but they're very promiscuous they're grass, they come from grass plants and grass plants share their genetics quite readily. So, for instance, rye was really. It evolved as the weed in wheat fields and thereby overlaps almost completely with the genetics of wheat. There are some differences and that's why you can smell, for instance, or taste a difference in rye bread versus whole wheat bread, but the genetics are largely the same. They share a lot of properties, such as that gliadin protein that's in wheat, that's the gliadin protein within gluten. The gliadin protein of wheat is virtually identical to the gliadin protein of rye. That's because they share genetics.
William Davis, MD:So let's run through the basic arguments. I'll try to keep this simple because I fear when you're challenged in some way let's say you ask for the gluten-free menu at a restaurant or you turn away the rolls or the bread, or you're at the store and you're having to account, your, your buying behavior or someone in your family challenges you you want to have these arguments kind of at the tip of your tongue so that you can tell them why you do this. I do see people get tongue-tied and they've forgotten. So let's keep it as simple as possible, so that you have this information at the tip of your tongue.
William Davis, MD:Let's start with the gliadin protein. So recall that gliadin, it's the real problematic protein within gluten. There's also glutenin, but it's the gliadin protein within gluten that provides a lot of the problems associated with wheat. One of the things that happens with the gliadin protein is that this protein is very poorly digestible for humans. We're not able to break it down into single amino acids like we are other proteins. If you eat an egg, for instance, or a piece of beef, your digestive system breaks that protein down into single amino acids, and that's how your body obtains the building blocks for manufacturing your organs and skin and other things. Well, the gliadin protein cannot be fully digested. We lack the enzymes to break certain amino acid sequences down in the gliadin protein, and so we're left with four or five amino acid long peptide fragments. Now these peptide fragments are very unique in that they're small enough to be able to cross into the blood-brain barrier and obtain access to the brain, where they bind to the opioid receptors in the brain.
William Davis, MD:Now, unlike, say, oxycontin or morphine that makes you high or dulls pain, the gliadin protein doesn't do that. Instead, it triggers appetite, it stimulates appetite. So the gliadin protein in wheat is a very potent appetite stimulant and most people are thereby consuming several hundred calories more per day, mostly in the form of carbohydrates and sugars. So the glide-in protein in wheat, via appetite stimulation, is a major factor in causing obesity and weight gain. Now it has other effects in other people that don't concern us, but they are still concerned with some people. That is, the gliadin protein of wheat can also trigger food obsessions in people who are prone to bulimia and binge eating disorder. It can trigger depression and suicidal thoughts in people prone to those conditions. It can cause behavioral outbursts in people with ADHD or autistic spectrum disorder and it can also trigger hallucinations and paranoia in people with paranoid schizophrenia. In other words, the gliadin protein has very potent brain or mind effects and those of us without those conditions, it triggers appetite.
William Davis, MD:That same protein, gliadin, is also known with good science, good evidence, to increase intestinal permeability in such a way that it initiates the autoimmune process. We know this with confidence, that rheumatoid arthritis, for instance, and type 1 diabetes are both initiated by the gliadin protein of wheat. That's Dr Alessio Fasano's research when he was at University of Maryland, now at Harvard, and he did very elegant work showing that it's the gliadin protein of wheat that initiates the separation of the barriers between intestinal cells, allowing foreign substances, such as byproducts of food or byproducts of microbes, to enter the body and trick your body into launching an autoimmune attack against some organ. So we know that a lot of autoimmune diseases are initiated by the gliadin protein. That alone, you'd think would be enough to turn people off and keep them away from wheat, but this message has not been propagated enough. We have to talk about this and let people know. These autoimmune diseases can be very destructive.
William Davis, MD:Another problem with wheat the amylopectin A carbohydrate is unique to wheat and grains and it is highly digestible. The enzyme amylase in your saliva and in your stomach breaks it down immediately and sends your blood sugar sky high, higher than an equivalent quantity of table sugar. And every time you have that kind of high blood glucose it obliges your pancreas to respond with high blood insulin. That's the process that generates insulin resistance. That is, your body's cells, like your muscle, your brain, your liver, no longer respond properly to insulin. So your pancreas compensates by producing huge quantities of insulin. Tenfold more, thirtyfold more, a hundredfold more, not ten percent more. 30-fold more, 100-fold more, not 10% more, but 10-fold, 100-fold more.
William Davis, MD:That level of insulin to compensate for insulin resistance causes weight gain in your abdomen primarily. That's why people who eat a lot of grains get an increase in abdominal visceral fat. That's the fat that encircles the abdominal organs like your liver and your pancreas and intestines. That is very inflammatory and causes a vicious cycle. High blood glucose, high blood insulin, insulin resistance provokes abdominal visceral fat to expand, provokes inflammation, makes insulin resistance worse and around and around in a vicious cycle.
William Davis, MD:So you can't stop it with drugs. It does not stop this vicious cycle. So you can't stop it with drugs. It does not stop this vicious cycle. You stop it by removing the initiating factor, the amylopectin A, carbohydrate of wheat and related grains. That same amylopectin A also causes glycation of proteins. So every time your blood glucose goes above 100 milligrams per deciliter, you glycate proteins, that is, you glucose modify proteins. That leads to the acceleration of the phenomena of aging, skin aging, deterioration of joint cartilage, coronary disease, heart disease, because the small LDL particle the real cause for heart disease, not LDL cholesterol small LDL particles are very glycation prone. You also glycate the components of your brain, such as glial proteins that surround neurons or brain cells, and this process of glycation is irreversible. You cannot undo it.
William Davis, MD:So, for instance, if you glycate the collagen in your skin, collagen is very prone to glycation. So there's a lot of collagen in the dermal layer of skin. That's the layer of skin that's biologically active and produces new skin all the time. Well, it's filled with collagen, but collagen is very glycation prone. So every time your blood glucose goes above 100 milligrams, you glycate the proteins, the collagen in the dermal layer of your skin. And when you glycate collagen, it becomes brittle and then fragments and then it's reabsorbed. There's an enzyme called matrix metalloproteinase that reabsorbs your collagen and that's why you get crepey, thinned skin and wrinkles when you experience glycation repeatedly. Same process in your joint cartilage. If you glycate the collagen in your joint cartilage because joint cartilage is 70% collagen you glycate the collagen, it becomes brittle and it erodes or fragments and that's how you get bone-on-bone arthritis. So this is true for all the proteins of the body. You can glycate the proteins in the lenses of your eyes that cause opacities or cataracts. You can glycate proteins in your brain that causes debris to develop and that pushes you closer to dementia. So this happens body-wide and it is irreversible.
William Davis, MD:Now let's pause for a moment to talk about Defiant Health sponsors Paleo Valley and BioDequest. The Defiant Health podcast is sponsored by Paleo Valley, makers of delicious grass-fed beef sticks, healthy snack bars and other products. We're very picky around here and insist that any product we consider contains no junk ingredients like carrageenan, carboxymethylcellulose, sucralose or added sugars and, of course, no gluten nor grains. One of the habits I urge everyone to get into is to include several servings of fermented foods every day in your diet, part of an effort to cultivate a healthy gastrointestinal microbiome. Unlike nearly all other meat sticks available, paleo Valley grass-fed beef, pork and chicken sticks are naturally fermented, meaning they contain probiotic bacterial species. Paleo Valley has also launched a number of interesting new products, including extra virgin olive oil, spice mixes, organic coffee, strawberry lemonade, super greens and essential electrolytes in a variety of flavors. And if you haven't already tried it, you've got to try their chocolate-flavored bone broth protein that makes delicious hot chocolate and brownies. See the recipes for the brownies in my drdavisinfinitehealthcom blog. Listeners to the Defiant Health podcast receive a 15% discount by going to paleovalleycom.
William Davis, MD:Backward slash defiant health and, in case you haven't yet heard, biotiquest probiotics are my first choice for intelligently, purposefully crafted probiotics. I've had numerous conversations with BiotiQuest founders Martha Carlin and academic microbiologist Dr Raul Cano. They have formulated unique probiotic products that incorporate what are called collaborative or guild effects, that is, groups of microbes that collaborate with each other via sharing of specific metabolites, potentially providing synergistic benefits. They have designed their sugar shift probiotic to support healthy blood sugars. Simple slumber to support sleep. Ideal immunity to support a healthy immune response. Heart-centered that supports several aspects of heart health. An antibiotic antidote designed to support recovery of the gastrointestinal microbiome after a course of antibiotics. The BioDequest probiotics are, I believe, among the most effective of all probiotic choices you have. Enter the discount code UNDOC15, all caps, u-n-d-o-c-15, for a 15% discount.
William Davis, MD:For Defiant Health listeners and due to demand for reliable, convenient sources of Lactobacillus roteri, our favorite microbe, I created two products MyRoteri that contains 20 billion counts of L-Roteri, our favorite microbe. I created two products my Roteri that contains 20 billion counts of L-Roteri alone, and Gut to Glow that, in addition to L-Roteri, has added marine source collagen, peptides, hyaluronic acid and the carotenoid astaxanthin, all combined to stack the odds in favor of beneficial skin effects. Of course, you can take these products as is or you can use either as a starter to make El Rotaray yogurt generate even higher counts of microbes for bigger effects. I'll provide a link for these products below in the show notes. So the amylopectin A I mentioned that causes glycation of proteins, also triggers formation of two lipoprotein particles by the liver very low density lipoproteins, vldl, which in turn lead to the formation of small LDL particles. Now, both of those things, the VLDL particles and small LDL particles, are very potent causes or triggers for the accumulation of coronary atherosclerotic plaque, as well as plaque in other areas like the carotid arteries. So those two things, vldl and small LDL those are the real causes of heart disease. They're both amplified by inflammation and insulin resistance and they have nothing to do with LDL cholesterol. The thing that everybody focuses on, as I often say, the real tragedy of statin cholesterol drugs and the focus on LDL cholesterol is that it takes everybody's attention away from the real causes of heart disease VLDL, small LDL and amplification through insulin resistance and inflammation.
William Davis, MD:So the first particle to be formed by the liver is the VLDL. Where does it come from? The amylopectin A of grains. So whenever you eat anything made of grains a sandwich, a bagel, breakfast cereals that amylopectin A is rapidly converted by the liver to VLDL particles. They're very low density because they're very rich in triglycerides. So the process the liver follows is called de novo lipogenesis, and all that means is the liver is very good at converting the amylopectin A of wheat and grains into triglycerides, which are then packaged as those VLDL particles.
William Davis, MD:The VLDL particles are then released into the bloodstream where they interact with LDL particles not LDL cholesterol, that crude indirect marker that we should have discarded decades ago but with LDL particles and through a series of enzymatic remodeling reactions. And through a series of enzymatic remodeling reactions, ldl particle becomes small, and that's the really bad thing. Small LDL particles are more readily able to penetrate into the walls of arteries and start the process of growing coronary atherosclerotic plaque. Small LDL is also more prone to glycation, also more prone to oxidation, which makes them more dangerous the glycoxidized LDL particle. And when that small LDL particle gains entry into the wall of the artery, it's much more adherent to structural tissues. It's much more likely to trigger an inflammatory response in the artery, which is the thing that causes the grow and rupture and that's what causes heart attack. And also that small LDL particle that results from the VLDL and consumption of amylopectin A persists in the bloodstream an unusually long time. So if you ate bacon or butter or olive oil, you would get some large, normal LDL particles that the liver recognizes readily and clears from the bloodstream within 24 hours. The small LDL particle caused by consumption of the amylopectin A of grains and worsened in number, increased in number because of insulin resistance and inflammation, is not recognized well by the liver because that small particle, the change in the surface characteristics of that particle make it hard for the liver to recognize the recognition protein on that small LDL particle and it circulates in the bloodstream around and around, having lots of opportunity to enter into the wall of those arteries because it circulates for five to seven days, so much longer. So small LDL particles are the driver of cardiovascular disease, of heart attacks, sudden cardiac death and the need for procedures like stent implantation and bypass surgery. And it all begins with the amylopectin A carbohydrate of grains. Sugar does the same thing, but sugar of course. We all know sugar is bad, but we're told by the US Department of Health and Human Services, the USDA, most doctors and dieticians and other agencies to eat more healthy, whole grains that trigger this cascade of events that leads to coronary disease.
William Davis, MD:Another problem with wheat are phytates. Now, phytates bind minerals. They're very good at binding minerals. Positively charged minerals Calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc are the most important. So you eat something that contains grain phytates, maybe a sandwich or a bowl of cereal. Whatever the phytate content binds most of those minerals and you pass them out into the toilet. So it leads to deficiencies of all those minerals.
William Davis, MD:It's not uncommon, for instance, for someone to have iron deficiency anemia. They look for a source of bleeding, like colon cancer or stomach ulcer, don't find any and they don't know why. This person is anemic, has a hemoglobin maybe of 7 rather than 12 normal, and they're always cold, they're always tired, they're breathless. They're getting blood transfusions. They're getting iron injections as well as oral iron, and it hardly works at all. They stop eating grains and typically within two weeks their hemoglobin is back to normal and they feel they recover. That's phytates. Now the phytate content of modern wheat has been increased. Because farmers love phytates, because they cause the wheat plant to be pest resistant. You know pests like molds and insects are a problem for farmers. Well, the higher phytate content of modern strains of wheat makes it more resistant to those pests. They did not know that the phytates are bad for human consumption because they bind those minerals and lead to mineral deficiencies.
William Davis, MD:Another problem wheat germagglutinin. It sounds like gluten but it's unrelated. It's agglutinin, which means it causes blood to clot when wheat germagglutinin comes in contact with red blood cells. Agglutination Wheat germagglutinin, like phytates, have been enriched in modern strains of wheat because, like phytates, it also provides modern strains of wheat. Because, like phytates, it also provides pest resistant properties. So farmers and agribusiness and agricultural scientists have cultivated strains of wheat with increased wheat germagglutinin content for its pest resistance.
William Davis, MD:But they weren't aware that wheat germagglutinin is known to be a toxic compound in the gastrointestinal tract. If you feed even a milligram, just a little speck, of purified wheat germagglutinin to a lab rat, it denudes the entire gastrointestinal tract. That is, there are little absorptive hairs or villi that line the gastrointestinal tract. It eliminates them, it wipes them out. Of course that causes pain and inflammation and makes you very sick, but then you recover. Well, modern wheat if you eat a diet rich in healthy whole grains, you typically get about 18 to 19 milligrams of wheat germagglutinin in your diet per day. So it's a very powerful irritant of the entire length of the GI tract. You may or may not be aware of it, but anybody who has any kind of ongoing problem, say ulcerative colitis, crohn's disease, irubelicin. This can be a very toxic compound and it increases endotoxemia, that is, the entry of bacterial breakdown products into your bloodstream. That causes weight gain. Insulin resistance, increases the likelihood of autoimmune diseases and other problems.
William Davis, MD:I hope you now appreciate. It's not just about gluten, it's not just about carbs, it's about the entire package of harmful effects that comes from consumption of wheat. This was true even in ancient or traditional strains of wheat. But what modern agribusiness has done is made it much worse, introducing all sorts of changes, making the gliadin protein more toxic, increasing the phytate and wheat germagglutinin content, in many instances also increasing the amylopectin A content of grains. I don't know of any way to make wheat and grains healthy, any more than I know how to make a cigarette healthy, that is, we can put a filter on it, we can take out tar so you can have a filtered low tar. It's still a cigarette, still exerts all kinds of bad effects. Likewise here. There's just no way to disable all the adverse or unhealthy components of wheat and grains, so we choose to eliminate it.
William Davis, MD:And you know what Spectacular, magnificent things happen in health. Beyond weight loss, there's loss of abdominal fat, abdominal visceral fat, which is a very powerful effect. There's change in your skin. You'll see your skin appearance improves. You'll see your blood pressure, blood sugar, drop. You'll see small LDL particles drop to the floor. You'll see triglycerides and, if you measure them, vldl also drop to the floor. You have an improvement in gastrointestinal health. In other words, you have numerous effects by going wheat and grain free.
William Davis, MD:Don't confuse this with being gluten free. It's fine to get naturally gluten free foods like an avocado or an egg, but don't fall for those gluten free processed foods like baking mixes and bagels and baked products, because those are made with cornstarch, rice flour, tapioca starch and potato flour. That are horrible. They don't have all the components of wheat, but they're super carbohydrates that raise blood glucose sky high and, like the amylopectin A of wheat, also trigger the small LDL particles that cause heart disease. They also cause extravagant weight gain and I've seen too many people become type 2 diabetics on those gluten-free processed foods. So please don't fall into that trap. Be wheat and grain-free. Know that you are on a path that mimics the diet of humans that were hunter-gatherers, who never had access to any kind of wheat or grain product, and you'll enjoy the same kind of beautiful health and appearance. Now, if you learned something from this episode of the Defiant Health Podcast, I invite you to subscribe to your favorite podcast directory. Post a review. Post a comment. Thanks for listening.
