William Davis's Blog: Dr. Davis Infinite Health Blog, page 156

Diabetes Australia bungles dietary advice

A Wheat Belly Blog reader passed this exchange between his father and a dietitian representing the Australian Diabetic Association onto me. While nearly all of you are no strangers to the ignorance exhibited by defenders of the dietary status quo, it occasionally helps to hear their arguments articulated. You are readily reminded just how many “holes” there are in their arguments to consume more “healthy whole grains.”

My father was a very serious diabetic, but I slowly got him off the wheat last December. Now his diabetes is the best it’s been in 20 years!

He was so disappointed with Diabetes Australia for all the false information given to him over the years, that he wrote to them. Here is his email and their response:

Since I have give up eating bread and most wheat products, my sugar levels have never been so good.

If you really want to help diabetics, could you please let people know not to eat bread?

Jack

Dear Jack,

Thank you for your email comment regarding avoiding bread and wheat products to better manage diabetes. It is great that you have been able to better manage your blood glucose levels lately and this approach is working for you.

Most people with diabetes are able to tolerate eating bread that has a low glycaemic index (GI) if it is eaten in appropriate portions (i.e. 2 slices). Examples of low GI breads include wholegrain and sourdough breads. Most low GI wheat based products are also generally tolerated when eaten in appropriate portions, such as 1 cup of cooked pasta or ¾ cup All Bran cereal. People diagnosed with coeliac disease do need to avoid all gluten containing foods, including all wheat based foods.

Ultimately, the most important factor affecting blood sugar levels is the total amount of carbohydrate eaten at a time and therefore portion sizes are important. This carbohydrate could come from wheat based products such as bread or pasta or non-wheat based products such as sweet potato, milk or oats.

All types of high fibre/low GI carbohydrate foods are recommended as part of a balanced diet, so long as portion sizes are appropriate. Carbohydrates are the body’s preferred source of fuel and they also provide us with essential B-group vitamins and are usually a significant source of fibre to help with lowering cholesterol and maintaining good bowel health.

However, we do recognise that everyone has different needs for amounts and types of carbohydrate foods. The advice that we provide to people with diabetes is general and a guide only and we encourage people to seek individual advice from a dietitian, based on their own individual needs

Alright, let’s tear apart this dietitian’s defense of the diabetic diet and “healthy whole grain” status quo. By making arguments such as we “need” grains for their fiber and B vitamins and that eliminating a “whole food group” is unhealthy, she neglects to recognize a number of issues:

1) All whole wheat products are high glycemic index foods.

2) Foods such as multigrain bread, oatmeal, and millet bread raise blood sugars to very high levels, but lower than high-glycemic index foods like cornstarch and whole wheat. They are therefore designated “low-glycemic index” foods. There’s nothing wrong with the concept of glycemic index; but there is something desperately wrong with the cutoffs for high- vs. low-glycemic index. Low-glycemic index foods should more correctly be called “Less-high” glycemic index foods. Typical blood sugar 30-60 minutes after 6 teaspoons table sugar: 170 mg/dl. Typical blood sugar after 2 slices of whole wheat bread: 175 mg/dl. Typical blood sugar after bowl of oatmeal: 167 mg/dl–less high, but still awful.

3) This is not just about the amylopectin A of grains. It’s also about gliadin derived peptides that act as opiates and stimulate appetite; it’s about intact gliadin, partially resistant to digestion, that initiates the first step in autoimmune diseases by increasing intestinal permeability; it’s about wheat germ agglutinin that blocks the cholecystokinin receptor and thereby leads to gallstones, pancreatic insufficiency, and dysbiosis; it’s about phytates that block absorption of iron, zinc, and magnesium.

4) Grain consumption leads to poor dental health. This was the first experience of grain-consuming humans: explosive tooth decay, periodontitis, tooth loss, crooked teeth in children.

5) Grain consumption changes oral and bowel flora. Changes in oral flora caused by grains contribute to the above changes in oral health. The implications of grain induced changes in bowel flora are only now coming to light.

6) Diabetes is about blood sugar. If someone starts with a blood sugar prior to a meal of 100 mg/dl, then eats a big piece of pork chop: blood sugar 100 mg/dl. If they eat a piece of multigrain bread: blood sugar 163 mg/dl or somewhere in that range, higher the more insulin-resistant and beta cell-challenged they are. In other words, eat foods that don’t raise blood sugar and you likely no longer need drugs to reduce blood sugar. Why would any diabetic association tell people to eat foods that raise blood sugars to such high levels? Could this have something to do with generous support from Cadbury Schweppes (the world’s largest soft drink and candy maker), AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk, or Sanofi Aventis, manufacturers of diabetes drugs and insulin preparations?

In my view, the various diabetes associations of the world have made substantial contributions to the epidemic of overweight, obesity, and worsening diabetes in millions of people, all while helping grow billions of dollars in revenues and profits for the food and diabetes industries.

I say thumb your nose or make some other meaningful gesture in their direction. Then go have a 3-egg spinach mushroom omelet oozing with olive oil.

Ishi: The Last Hunter-Gatherer

One of the last true hunter-gatherers in North America was believed to be a man called Ishi, with a fascinating tale of the clash between indigenous cultures and early 20th century America. But a study of this man provides some insights into the lives of people living something close to a pre-Neolithic lifestyle, i.e., a life without agriculture.

I wrote this piece for my upcoming book, Wheat Belly Total Health, due for release in September, 2014.

“An aboriginal Indian, clad in a rough canvas shirt which reached to his knees . . . was taken into custody last evening by Sheriff Webber and Constable Toland at the Ward Slaughter-house on the Quincy road. He had evidently been driven by hunger to the slaughter-house, as he was almost in a starving condition . . .

Where he came from is a mystery. The most plausible explanation seems to be that he is probably the surviving member of the little group of uncivilized Deer Creek Indians who were driven from their hiding place two years ago.

In the Sheriff’s office he was surrounded by a curious throng. He made a pathetic figure crouched upon the floor . . . His feet were as wide as they were long, showing plainly that he had never worn either moccasins or shoes. . . Over his shoulder a rough canvas bag was carried. In it a few Manzanita berries were found and some sinews of deer meat. By motions, the Indian explained that he had been eating these.”

The Oroville Register

August 29, 1911

Such was the reception a lone Indian received upon being trapped by turn-of-the-20th century Californians. As details were pieced together, it appeared that Ishi—-a Yahi Indian word for “man,” a name assigned to him, since it was customary to not use personal names in their culture else risk insult and invite bad magic—-was as close as anyone could come to a true primitive in a modern world, someone entirely unfamiliar with all the modern developments around him, having lived a life of virtually pure hunting and gathering his entire life. Yet the story of Ishi encapsulates many of the same phenomena we witness over and over again in the collision of primitive Homo sapiens with modern diet.

Following Ishi’s recovery, in an unprecedented decision, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs acquiesced to a peculiar request made by two University of California anthropologists, Drs. Alfred L. Kroeber and Thomas T. Waterman, to release the “wild man” to the charge of the University’s Museum of Art and Anthropology. Kroeber and Waterman then proceeded to provide Ishi with food, shelter, and protection, while studying his every habit and behavior.

As he learned to speak broken English and his anthropologist attendants learned to understand bits and pieces of Ishi’s native tongue, several details became clear: Ishi was the last surviving member of the Yahi Indian tribe, nearly exterminated during a massacre by marauding settlers eager for land in 1865, leaving only five survivors. Of those five were Ishi, his mother, sister, his sister’s husband, and a child. After many years of living in the wild, Ishi was the lone survivor. He continued to live much as his tribe’s ancestors had by hunting animals and fish and gathering wild vegetation.

Dr. Saxton T. Pope, a physician, recorded a thorough physical examination of him: “He was born probably about 1860 in northern California, consequently is approximately 54 years of age, but appears about 45. . . Musculature is well developed, with an even distribution of subcutaneous fat. . . The teeth are all present, strong, colored slightly brown, no evidence of decay or pyorrhea. . . His breath is sweet and free from the fetor common to the average white man . . . “

As Ishi’s time in Western society progressed, Dr. Pope made a number of other interesting observations: “He fed at the nearby Hospital and had at least two full meals daily, besides a luncheon of his own preparation. This was greatly in excess of any dietary heretofore possible to him. In consequence he increased in weight rapidly and became ungracefully fat.” Through it all, surely an unsettling shift from his hunter-gatherer origins to that of laboratory specimen, though civilly treated, Ishi was “always calm and amiable. . . he had the most exacting conscience concerning the ownership of property. He was too generous with his gifts of arms, arrowheads, and similar objects of his handicraft. . . With those whom he knew and liked he was remarkably talkative, rambling off into stories, descriptions, humorous episodes, and many unintelligible tales.” In short, despite the traumatic excision from his life and culture suffered at the hands of modern people, Ishi maintained a sense of humanity that charmed the people around him until his death from tuberculosis (a disease of the “white man”) in 1916.

The tragic and fascinating tale of Ishi is about as close as we get in our time to viewing what a nearly pure North American hunter-gatherer was like prior to the dietary acculturation that has now come to touch virtually every other human on earth.

Reference:

Ishi: The Last Yahi: A Documentary History. Heizer RF, Kroeber T, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.

Wheat Belly in Woman’s World

Woman’s World, Man’s World, Child’s World . . . if you remove something that was changed using peculiar, often extreme and bizarre ways, by geneticists, well, it’s EVERYBODY’s World!

Wheat Belly did little more than pull back the curtain on this “wizard” promising all sorts of magic through “healthy whole grains,” which are nothing of the sort.

The #WheatlessMarch Challenge is underway!

Introducing the Wheatless March Challenge!

Take the #WheatlessMarch Challenge on the Wheat Belly Facebook page and join me every day for tips, giveaways, success stories, recipes and more to help you lose the wheat and lose the weight.

For even more resources, grab your copy of Wheat Belly and the Wheat Belly Cookbooks wherever books are sold or at one of these online retailers:

IndieBound: http://www.indiebound.org/book/978162...

Amazon: http://bit.ly/WheatBellyCB

Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/NFHeM6

Canada: Amazon Canada at http://amzn.to/1mMbQvx

Chapters/Indigo: http://bit.ly/1htilym

Wheat Belly success stories keep on pouring in!

In my public talks, I point out that the enormous success of the Wheat Belly message has little to do with me, but succeeds because 1) it works, and 2) people share their extravagant successes nowadays via social media and word spreads like wild fire. That’s what has caused the Wheat Belly message to turn the nutritional world topsy-turvy, upsetting dietitians accustomed to talking about “healthy whole grains,” and terrorized people in the grain and milling industries.

I never tire of hearing these stories. Not just do people lose the weight they’ve struggled with for years, but they also experience relief from a list of ailments that is quite literally many hundreds of health conditions long. So here are a few more wonderful stories of success of the sort that continue to keep the Wheat Belly message front and center in the public consciousness.

Renee:

Your book Wheat Belly has been life changing for me.

I have lost over 30 pounds in just 2 months. I have a long way to go, but I know the weight will come off following the wheat-free food plan. For the first time in over 20 years, the gnawing wheat driven hunger is gone! The miraculous part is that my physical symptoms have all improved or are gone completely. I don’t suffer from headachse (which I had every day), stomach pain, sinus problems or that all-over feeling of despair. My joint pain and inflammation has gotten so much better.

I’ve already had a left knee replacement and was headed for a right knee replacement. I’m not tired, cranky or depressed, and I sleep soundly at night. All this because I eat delicious, natural foods. 25 years ago I belonged to a diet program that did not include carbohydrates or sugars. The diet worked wonderfully: I lost over 100 pounds. What went wrong ? Foods like shredded wheat cereal, All Bran, popcorn, oatmeal. I could fight the cravings for awhile, but I lost the battle and struggled with weight since then, including gastric bypass.

Wheat Belly is truly liberating, not to be driven by the next snack/meal/binge. Thank you Dr. Davis for putting 2 and 2 together and coming forward with the Wheat Belly book.

Jennifer:

I recently challenged myself to do Wheat Belly for 30 days. I’ve tried everything, including popular diets that worked for me in the past. Admittedly, I’ve had a rough last year. I hardly slept, thanks to my new daughter, and stress at work was higher than the norm. I started working out and did see physical differences, but the poundage going down on the scale was negligible. My mom saw this diet on the Dr. Oz show, and we decided to try it for 30 days.

I’m currently on day 20. I’ve lost roughly 6 lbs, my stomach is noticeably flatter, and my stomach always feels calm, and just lighter somehow. I have more energy and my cravings are slowly diminishing.

Perhaps more interesting is the fact that my migraine status also seems to have changed. Mine are typically more ocular in nature and are very prominent. Over the last 10 days, my headaches have noticeably improved. My migraine status is better than it’s ever been. This is probably one of the most surprising things I’ve noticed since I began.

I’ve already read up on how to handle things should my weight loss stop. It’s been a long journey, so I’m looking around the corner at how to handle things should the loss stagnate. I’m looking forward to good things, though!

Cindy:

THANK YOU DR DAVIS YOU HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE!

I have been wheat-free since reading your book 10 weeks ago and have lost 14 kilos [30.8 lbs] in those 10 short weeks! I have NEVER been able to lose more than a few kilos at a time and, when I did, it always came hurtling back, fatter than ever each and every time.

Before I read Wheat Belly, I was in constant turmoil over eating, I couldn’t understand how the educated, intelligent, strong-willed person I believed myself to be could be totally defeated by food and food cravings.

I was always bloated (huge wheat belly!), lethargic, anxious, angry, irrational, depressed and always hungry, a perpetual, desperate, and insatiable hunger that persisted despite being stuffed full (with wheat and wheat products!). I was completely exhausted by my preoccupation with eating, not eating, dieting, binging, crying, hating myself, dieting again, binging, hating myself–I was at the end of my rope. Until Wheat Belly . . .

After cutting out the wheat (and all processed junk) I could barely believe the feeling of calm that descended upon my life. The weight dropped off, depression lifted and I, too, experienced all of the amazing things everyone else has reported.

I now love food, but I rarely think about it anymore or, should I say, obsess about it anymore. I haven’t counted one calorie, have never considered the fat content of the organic meats and whole foods I am enjoying, and the weight continues to drop off. I have started exercising just because I have so much energy and I feel like jumping around. I feel amazing, like I can truly start living the rest of my life as it was meant to be lived, something I honestly thought I was (sadly) never going to be able to do. I am free.

Wheat Withdrawal Zinger

Here’s a smoothie that contains many of the ingredients helpful to get you through the process of wheat withdrawal, the unpleasant withdrawal process from the gliadin-derived opiates in wheat.

Once you remove the health disruptive effects of wheat, there are efforts necessary to regain full health. This will be a topic that I will discuss in a number of Wheat Belly Blog posts in coming months (as well as provide topics for another Wheat Belly book to be released September, 2014). We begin with this Wheat Withdrawal Zinger, a smoothie packed with nutrition that corrects some common nutrient deficiencies of former wheat-eaters and begins the process of restoring healthy bowel flora.

A blender or food processor/chopper with a strong motor is recommended, strong enough to handle the tough green, unripe banana. Note that the banana must be green and unripe. In it’s unripe form, the sugars are in a polysaccharide form that humans are incapable of digesting to sugar (and is thereby “low-carb”). Undigested polysaccharides (fibers) are then consumed by bowel flora, such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria, fermented to fatty acids, especially butyrate, essential for bowel health, helping suppress unhealthy bacterial species while cultivating healthy species, and even yielding metabolic benefits, especially reductions in triglycerides and blood sugar. One green, unripe banana yields 10 grams of indigestible fiber of the estimated ideal intake of 10-20 grams needed per day.

For magnesium, I used the Cardiovascular Research brand mixture of magnesium chloride and acetate with 133 mg of elemental magnesium per teaspoon. If you find another liquid or powder source of magnesium, try to avoid magnesium oxide and citrate, as absorption is poor and diarrhea is common. The Vitamin D dose can be adjusted to suit individual needs; as 5000 units is a common need for adult men and women, I listed this as the quantity, at least to get started.

Although potassium is not added, the coconut and banana provide a generous quantity of potassium. (461 mg of potassium if carton coconut milk is used; 1053 mg if canned coconut milk is used.) 5-HTP, or 5-hydroxytryptophan, is included to help deal with the cravings that some people experience during wheat withdrawal. Because it raises brain serotonin, many people choose to continue this chronically for its mood-elevating effects. (Anyone taking a prescription antidepressant or carbidopa for Parkinson’s disease, however, should not use 5-HTP except under supervision to avoid excessive serotonin levels.)

Iodine addresses the re-emerging problem of iodine deficiency as a cause for mild hypothyroidism that can stall weight loss. (Consult your healthcare provider if you have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis before you supplement iodine.) Aloe vera is wonderfully soothing as the gastrointestinal turmoil of prior wheat consumption subsides.

All components can be modified–increased, decreased, omitted–to suit individual needs. If you are already taking vitamin D, for instance, there is no need to add to your Zinger. To alter flavor, replace ground nutmeg and cinnamon with, say, a handful of blueberries, raspberries, or several strawberries.

Wheat Withdrawal Zinger

Makes approximately 16 ounces (2 cups)

1 1/2 cups coconut milk (carton variety, or 8 oz canned + 4 ounces water)

2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted

1 green, unripe banana, skinned and coarsely sliced

2 ounces aloe vera juice (whole leaf, filtered)

Liquid magnesium, 150 mg (elemental magnesium)

Vitamin D3 liquid drops, 5000 units

Iodine (potassium iodide) drops, 250-500 mcg iodine

50 mg 5-HTP

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in blender. Blend until banana reduced to puree. Drink immediately.

Wheat Watch: Pam Baking

Wheat Belly Facebook follower, Stella, found this unexpected source of wheat: Pam Baking.

There are a number of different Pam products which do not contain wheat. But Pam Baking does.



Personally, I simply spread coconut oil on my pans to prevent sticking or use a coconut oil spray, given the superior qualities of this oil for baking. But, whatever you do, don’t let the Pam Baking product provide a source of unexpected exposure.

You don’t know your right from your left

Not knowing your right from your left in nutrition can get you into trouble.

In biological systems, there is an issue called “handedness,” or “chirality.” It means that there are right-handed (“Dextrarotatory”) and left-handed (“Levorotatory”) versions of compounds, or “D” and “L” versions, or isomers, much as we have right and left hands, mirror images of each other. But a right-handed glove does not fit on your left hand and vice versa. Likewise, enzymes only recognize one or the other isomer, not both. Mammals are largely L-isomer creatures, due to specificity of enzymes for L-versions of compounds.

Most foods–and I mean real food, foods that are instinctively recognized as food by humans, such as shellfish, organ meats, berries, nuts, and roots–have proteins made of L-amino acid isomers, not D.

Things that don’t belong in the human diet, such as grasses from the family Poaceae, have plenty of D-isomer amino acids. Because enzymes are subject to the rules of chirality, human digestive enzymes, such as trypsin and chymotrypsin, that digest proteins receive a “stop” signal when they encounter an indigestible D-isomer in a protein, leaving that protein or peptide fragment undigested.

Add D-amino acids to the other generally indigestible components of wheat and grains. Beyond D-isomer amino acids, other indigestible components of the seeds of grasses include:

–Gliadin–While some gliadin is degraded to small peptides that act as opiates on the human brain, a substantial proportion of gliadin remains undigested. The intact, undigested form is the form that initiates the zonulin mechanism that increases intestinal permeability, the first step in generating the diseases of autoimmunity.

–Wheat germ agglutinin (WGA)–The complex, 4-part protein present in wheat, rye, barley, and rice is completely indigestible. WGA that enters the mouth comes out the back end–except for the small quantity that penetrates intestinal barriers, causing direct intestinal toxicity and entering the bloodstream to activate antibodies, mimic insulin, and block leptin (the hormone of satiety).

–Trypsin inhibitors–Trypsin inhibitors block–no surprise–trypsin, a protein required for protein digestion. This further reduces the digestibility of grain proteins, a fact that organizations, such as the World Health Organization, grapples with when starving nations are fed grains but then struggle with malnutrition despite the calories.

There is a digestible component of wheat and the seeds of other grasses: the amylopectin A carbohydrate, highly susceptible to digestion by the amylase enzyme of saliva and stomach. This explains why two slices of whole wheat bread raise blood sugar higher than six teaspoons of table sugar. If you were starving, no real food in sight, and found yourself in a field of wheat, you could indeed harvest the seed, pulverize it, and eat it as porridge or ground into flour. It would serve as a source of carbohydrates and a minor source of proteins and oils. But you would soon suffer poor health and malnutrition, then die, as Homo sapiens cannot survive on the mix of components in the seeds of grasses.

If it often seems that there are SO many problems with wheat and grains, well, that’s because they never belonged in the human diet in the first place. Yes, we have committed a 10,000-year long mistake that began in desperation when we ran low on real foods, turning to the wild fields of grasses and harvesting their seeds. The food of desperation is now the food celebrated by all official agencies.

Gluten-free cosmetics: Mirabella

One issue I have not addressed very well in this wheat-free world is the issue of gluten-free cosmetics.

I certainly do not regard myself as an expert in makeup. So I tracked down someone who is: John Maly, founder and CEO of Mirabella cosmetics. John answered a few questions for us.

WB: What motivated you to get involved in the gluten-free cosmetic line?

JM: Mirabella is sold in salons. Since I have been in the salon industry my whole life, I knew the people in the salon world are very ingredient sensitive. They want to know what is in a product and why.

So when we launched Mirabella. We wanted to make certain that it had good-for-you ingredients. Plus the line avoided ingredients that are harmful, like glutens. My son has Crohn’s disease and has found that diet is very important to him living a healthy life. So Mirabella is gluten-free, paraben-free, talc-free, and fragrance-free.

WB: What sort of feedback have you received regarding these products?

JM: The #1 consumer question that our company gets regarding our line is whether it is gluten-free. There are so many people who have decided for their health to eliminate glutens from their diet. Many of those same women then realize that they have makeup on all day and glutens could affect them here to.

WB: Can you share your philosophy on ingredient choice, i.e., parabens, phthalates, etc.?

JM: We want to help women enhance their beauty. We don’t want them to have to worry about what is in the products. We continue to listen and learn to make sure we keep our women safe and healthy and beautiful.

WB: Do you tailor products to a specific sort of woman, e.g., younger, mid-life, etc.?

JM: Our tag line is “Mirabella-makeup with personality.” So we want to help a woman for every personality she finds herself in: soccer mom, working woman, party girl, or the athlete.

Mirabella has makeup artists who teach salons about our brand. Several of these makeup artists have transformational stories, e.g. they had acne or other serious skin conditions before coming to the company. But, after using Mirabella, their skins issues cleared up. These women’s lives changed because of using Mirabella. And now they want to tell the world about our products. We are really proud that people like that represent us because their stories are so real and personal.

It is not entirely clear why wheat/rye/barley-containing cosmetics have potential for such skin reactions, as autoimmunity requires processing of proteins, e.g., gliadin, through the gastrointestinal tract. But there does indeed seem to be some sort of reaction in women who use grain-containing products–allergy, irritation, other local reaction? I don’t know, but I think that “gluten-free” cosmetics are an important part of an overall effort to regain grain-free health.

More information on John Maly’s Mirabella products can be found here.

Disclaimer: I (William Davis, MD) have no financial relationship with Mirabella or with John Maly. This is purely informational. Plus my wife wanted to know more about healthy, safe cosmetics!

Wheat Belly video FAQs: I lost the wheat, but didn’t lose the weight, part 3

Other issues to consider for weight loss: sleep deprivation, intermittent fasting, and, least important of all, exercise.