William Davis's Blog: Dr. Davis Infinite Health Blog, page 62

Coming Wed Oct 12th: A Bigger and Better Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox Challenge!

We are planning our next Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox Challenge that starts on Wednesday, October 10th. And this Detox Challenge will be bigger and better than ever before.

In addition to our Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox Private Facebook page that provides videos, success stories, and plenty of feedback and answers to your questions, the next Detox Challenge will also include:

1) LIVE Facebook sessions with Dr. Davis and April Duval, our main Facebook page administrator. I will personally kick off the Detox Challenge on Oct 12th. And because April is herself an example of a fabulous Wheat Belly Detox success, she knows the ins and outs of this lifestyle like the back of her hand.

2) Free access to the Suggestic smartphone app for the entire 10 days–The Suggestic app helps you navigate the Wheat Belly Detox with even more recipes, ingredient search, daily suggested recipes, a restaurant locator to identify eating places consistent with our lifestyle with suggested menu items, the ability to track health measures such as water intake and sleep, and all personally customizable. It is your chance to get acquainted with the useful Suggestic app, while helping you succeed on your Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox.

Our goal: to help you succeed in turning around your life and health and achieve all your health goals including weight loss, getting off prescription medications, and turning back the clock 10 or 20 years.

 

Why the Detox Challenge?

Through my New York Times bestseller, Wheat Belly, millions of people learned how to reverse years of chronic health problems by removing wheat from their daily diets. But, after reading the original Wheat Belly or the Wheat Belly Total Health book, or even using the recipes from the Wheat Belly Cookbook and Wheat Belly 30-Minute Cookbook, people still said: “I’ve read the books, but I’m still not sure how to get started on this lifestyle.”

That’s why I wrote the Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox  and now help readers along in this Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox CHALLENGE. This is the quickest, most assured way to get started on regaining magnificent health and slenderness by adopting the Wheat Belly lifestyle.

This next CHALLENGE begins Wednesday, October 10th to give you plenty of time to fit into a new slender wardrobe and reclaim control over numerous health conditions so that you can really enjoy this summer.

We are kicking this one off on Facebook LIVE on Day 1: Wednesday October 10th, 12pm EST. Come join us on the main Wheat Belly Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialWhea.... 

You will also be given free access to the Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox Suggestic smartphone app for the entire 10 days of the Detox!

The Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox supplies you with carefully designed meal plans and delicious recipes to fully eliminate wheat and related grains in the shortest time possible. Perfect for those who may have fallen off the wagon or for newcomers who need a jump-start for weight loss, this new addition to the Wheat Belly phenomenon guides you through the complete 10-Day Detox experience. And we will kick off this next Challenge with a live Facebook session with Dr. Davis!

In addition to this quick-start program, I’ll teach you:

How to recognize and reduce wheat-withdrawal symptoms,
How to avoid common landmines that can sabotage success
How to use nutritional supplements to further advance weight loss and health benefits

The Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox also includes:

Inspiring testimonials from people who have completed the program (and have now made grain-free eating a way of life)

Exciting new recipes to help get your entire family on board

To join the Detox Challenge:

Step 1

Get the book. And read it (at least the first 5 chapters).

Detox Challenge participants should be informed and active in order to get the most out of the challenge and private Facebook group. READING THE WHEAT BELLY DETOX BOOK IS REQUIRED TO PARTICIPATE. PLEASE DO NOT PARTICIPATE IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK or else the conversations will not make sense and you will not enjoy full benefit. It is a very bad idea to try and piece the program together just from our conversations. (Note that the Wheat Belly Detox program is NOT laid out in the original Wheat Belly book.)

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1JqzMea

Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/wheatbelly10daygraindetox-bn

Indiebound: http://bit.ly/1KwcFTQ

Step 2

Come join the Private Facebook Group.

http://bit.ly/WheatBelly-PrivateFBGroup

Step 3

Head back to the Private Facebook Group starting Tuesday, October 9th (the day before the official start of the Challenge) and onwards for tips, videos, and discussions to help you get through your detox and reprogram your body for rapid weight loss and health. Dr. Davis and site administrator, April Duval, will be posting video instructions and answers to your questions.

 

The post Coming Wed Oct 12th: A Bigger and Better Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox Challenge! appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Does your poop float?

There are a number of explanations for poops that float, some benign, some not.

If you talk to your doctor or explore online discussions about this, you will encounter talk of malabsorption (i.e., inadequate digestive breakdown of various components of diet), pancreatic insufficiency (e.g., inadequate production of pancreatic digestive enzymes due to prior pancreatitis), lactose or fructose intolerance, or excessive consumption of sugars and/or carbohydrates that increase gas content of stools.

But an extremely common and important cause is rarely mentioned: small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or SIBO. Recall that SIBO is an unhealthy condition in which bowel microorganisms have ascended up from the colon where they are normally confined and colonize the ileum, jejunum, duodenum, and stomach, a 30-foot infection. The organisms that characterize SIBO are mostly undesirable Enterobacteriaecea species such as E. coli and Campylobacter. Among the consequences of this are increased intestinal permeability and thereby appearance of new food intolerances, increased lipopolysaccharide entry into the bloodstream that potently triggers body-wide inflammation (e.g., fibromyalgia, autoimmune diseases), as well as intestinal symptoms such as bloating, excessive gas, and diarrhea.

But another effect of SIBO organisms is interference with bile acids. Bile acids are produced by the liver, stored in the gallbladder, then released upon consumption of fats in the diet under direction of the hormone cholecystokinin, or CCK. (CCK is blocked by wheat germ agglutinin in wheat, rye, barley, and rice, by the way, another cause of fat malabsorption, ineffective digestion, and SIBO.) Various bacterial species “deconjugate” bile acids, i.e., break them down and prevent normal reabsorption in the ileum. This means that fats are not efficiently digested and bile acid breakdown products can be visible in the stools (sometimes visible as green discoloration).

Because oils and fats are lighter than water, undigested fats in the stools can cause them to float, just as oil rises to the top when you mix oil and vinegar to pour on a salad. In addition to stools that float, you can also see other signs of fat malabsorption such as:

Fat droplets floating in the water
A rim of oil around the edge of the toilet water
If not corrected over a long period, signs of fat soluble nutrient deficiencies such as vitamins A, D, E, and K1/K2.

Fat malabsorption is among the several telltale signs of SIBO along with intolerance to prebiotic fibers (gas, bloating, diarrhea, especially within 60 minutes of consuming them), unexplained skin rashes, new food intolerances, irritable bowel syndrome symptoms, fibromyalgia, psoriasis, restless or aching legs, struggles with sleep and mood.

And SIBO is surprisingly common. In my conversations with people, a day does not go by that someone doesn’t describe how their bloating, gas, diarrhea, and muscle/joint aches is unexplained by numerous doctors, or how their child can’t eat legumes or fruit without days of abdominal distress and diarrhea—it’s everywhere.

Once you suspect that you have SIBO, there is a logical and ordered way to deal with and manage it, including terribly common recurrences. If you’d like a deeper dive into how you can manage SIBO on your own and not subject yourself to the pooh-poohing comments of the doctor who doesn’t know what SIBO is, then consider joining our frequent conversations on SIBO in our Undoctored Inner Circle.

 

 

The post Does your poop float? appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Better Sleep . . . With Benefits

There are a handful of strategies that can augment or improve sleep quality while remaining consistent with the Wheat Belly lifestyle. Many people who banish all wheat and grains from their diet experience improvement in sleep duration and quality, further enhanced by our efforts to cultivate bowel flora. (Bowel flora metabolites have a major influence on sleep and dreams.) But, given life stress, transitional changes as you get further into this lifestyle, bad habits, and other factors sometimes make additional efforts necessary. But getting sufficient quality sleep can take you further down the path of health.

Melatonin should be the first nutritional supplement choice for restoring sleep patterns.

Melatonin is not a sleeping pill, as it does not share the characteristics of prescription sleeping pills: It does not adversely modify sleep patterns, it does not become habit-forming, and there is no withdrawal process when stopped. It simply “resets” your circadian clock to make your brain and body receptive to sleep. Numerous other benefits have been identified, including 70 percent reduction in tension headaches, 50 percent reduction in migraine headaches, reduction in chronic pain, and reduction in symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome and other gastrointestinal effects of stress. Melatonin has also been shown to improve prediabetic measures, such as reduction in triglycerides, reduction in blood pressure during sleep (reducing an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease called nondipping, in which blood pressure fails to drop during sleep, like it normally should), and modest reduction in waist size. Accumulating data also suggest advantages in preventing, even treating, breast, prostate, and ovarian cancers.

Because insufficient or disrupted sleep contributes to weight gain, you’d expect that improved sleep via melatonin supplementation would result in weight loss, and it does, though the effect is modest, about 5 pounds over 4 months. No sleeping pill can accomplish the range of positive health effects achieved by this potent hormone of circadian rhythms.

Melatonin, available at health food stores and drugstores, is easy to use. Start with a small dose (e.g., 0.5 milligram) about 1 hour prior to bedtime, and increase the dose with every use until you achieve the desired effect. Doses can range as high as 12 milligrams per day or more. If you manage to fall asleep but struggle to stay asleep, consider either a higher dose and/or converting to a time-release preparation. If you experience a “hangover” effect that persists upon awakening, take your dose earlier in the evening.

The younger you are, the earlier you should take your melatonin dose. Adolescents, for instance, who wish to fall asleep at 10:00 p.m. may need to take it as early as 7:00 p.m., while people over 60 years old generally do fine by taking it 30 minutes before the desired sleep time.

Given the substantial health benefits of melatonin, should everyone take measures to increase it, regardless of whether sleep/circadian issues are present? This is not yet clear. But even if you don’t struggle with sleep issues, melatonin supplementation should be considered for any form of endocrine disruption—such as thyroid disease, adrenal dysfunction, or infertility— given that this regulator of circadian rhythm modulates numerous hormonal levels. It should also be considered as you age, as over age 50 or so, circadian hormonal rhythms are blunted, leading to dysfunction of several hormonal systems, such as reductions in testosterone and growth hormone, partially restored by melatonin supplementation.

You can add to the melatonin effect by supplementing tryptophan, an amino acid that also triggers melatonin release from the brain and increases serotonin levels, making it useful for improving mood over time, as well.

 

Tryptophan or 5-Hydroxytryptophan Supplements

Serotonin levels in the brain can be increased by taking tryptophan or its closely related 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP).

Brain serotonin levels can drop with weight loss, resulting in food cravings, low mood, irritability, anger, and argumentativeness. While the conventional medical answer is to prescribe brain serotonin– increasing antidepressant drugs, you can increase serotonin levels a natural way and reduce the negative emotions and carbohydrate cravings. Some people like the effects of these supplements so much, especially the favorable effects on mood, that they continue taking them long after the wheat and grain withdrawal is nothing more than a bad memory.

Tryptophan can be taken alone or, even better, with melatonin. Tryptophan can also be taken during the day, e.g., 500 to 1,000 mg three times per day. Alternatively, it can be taken at a higher dose once per day at bedtime to encourage sleep at a dose of 1,000 to 3,000 mg. Supplementation increases brain serotonin and melatonin, which benefits sleep at night and mood during the day. Tryptophan can be taken by itself or in combination with melatonin and tends to not leave any residual effects upon awakening. Tryptophan is most effective taken on an empty stomach.

5-Hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) In addition to its helpfulness in reducing cravings during grain withdrawal, 5-hydroxytryptophan can also be used to enhance sleep. Supplementation has been shown to extend deep REM sleep, suggesting that sleep is deeper and more restorative with its use. As with melatonin, dose needs vary; most people take between 25 and 200 mg at bedtime.

Note that 5-HTP should not be used in combination with antidepressant medications, especially anyone taking a prescription antidepressant or carbidopa for Parkinson’s disease. This may cause an excess in serotonin levels. 5-HTP however, be used in combination with melatonin.

 

Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt

While anecdotal, I am receiving feedback from users of the L. reuteri yogurt that deep, child-like sleep is experienced by some.

Unlike accelerated skin healing, reduced skin wrinkle depth, increased strength and muscle mass, and anorexigenic effects that are experienced by most on the yogurt, deeper sleep seems to be enjoyed by less than half of people following this idea. I don’t have an explanation for the variability of this effect. But I can tell you that I have personally experienced it.

Stress, bad habits (reading or working late), decades of sleep deprivation through medical training and practice all contributed to many years of bad sleep for me, often necessitating high-dose melatonin and/or tryptophan. But, with consumption of the L. reuteri yogurt, my sleep is scary wonderful: Deep, dream-filled sleep, minimally interrupted by awakenings (very unusual for me), the kind of profound sleep I last remembered having when I was a kid. And this is with no melatonin or tryptophan.

So I cannot predict whether you will enjoy this benefit like I and some others have but, even without it, you can still enjoy all the other benefits of cultivating L. reuteri in your gastrointestinal tract.

The post Better Sleep . . . With Benefits appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

The Best Natural Sleep Aides

Melatonin should be the first nutritional supplement choice for restoring sleep patterns.

Melatonin is not a sleeping pill, as it does not share the characteristics of prescription sleeping pills: It does not adversely modify sleep patterns, it does not become habit-forming, and there is no withdrawal process when stopped. It simply “resets” your circadian clock to make your brain and body receptive to sleep. Numerous other benefits have been identified, including 70 percent reduction in tension headaches, 50 percent reduction in migraine headaches, reduction in chronic pain, and reduction in symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome and other gastrointestinal effects of stress. Melatonin has also been shown to improve prediabetic measures, such as reduction in triglycerides, reduction in blood pressure during sleep (reducing an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease called nondipping, in which blood pressure fails to drop during sleep, like it normally should), and modest reduction in waist size. Accumulating data also suggest advantages in preventing, even treating, breast, prostate, and ovarian cancers.

Because insufficient or disrupted sleep contributes to weight gain, you’d expect that improved sleep via melatonin supplementation would result in weight loss, and it does, though the effect is modest, about 5 pounds over 4 months. No sleeping pill can accomplish the range of positive health effects achieved by this potent hormone of circadian rhythms.

Melatonin, available at health food stores and drugstores, is easy to use. Start with a small dose (e.g., 0.5 milligram) about 1 hour prior to bedtime, and increase the dose with every use until you achieve the desired effect. Doses can range as high as 12 milligrams per day or more. If you manage to fall asleep but struggle to stay asleep, consider either a higher dose and/or converting to a time-release preparation. If you experience a “hangover” effect that persists upon awakening, take your dose earlier in the evening.

The younger you are, the earlier you should take your melatonin dose. Adolescents, for instance, who wish to fall asleep at 10:00 p.m. may need to take it as early as 7:00 p.m., while people over 60 years old generally do fine by taking it 30 minutes before the desired sleep time.

Given the substantial health benefits of melatonin, should everyone take measures to increase it, regardless of whether sleep/circadian issues are present? This is not yet clear. But even if you don’t struggle with sleep issues, melatonin supplementation should be considered for any form of endocrine disruption—such as thyroid disease, adrenal dysfunction, or infertility— given that this regulator of circadian rhythm modulates numerous hormonal levels. It should also be considered as you age, as over age 50 or so, circadian hormonal rhythms are blunted, leading to dysfunction of several hormonal systems, such as reductions in testosterone and growth hormone, partially restored by melatonin supplementation.

You can add to the melatonin effect by supplementing tryptophan, an amino acid that also triggers melatonin release from the brain and increases serotonin levels, making it useful for improving mood over time, as well.

Tryptophan or 5-Hydroxytryptophan Supplements

Serotonin levels in the brain can be increased by taking tryptophan or its closely related 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP).

Brain serotonin levels can drop with weight loss, resulting in food cravings, low mood, irritability, anger, and argumentativeness. While the conventional medical answer is to prescribe brain serotonin– increasing antidepressant drugs, you can increase serotonin levels a natural way and reduce the negative emotions and carbohydrate cravings. Some people like the effects of these supplements so much, especially the favorable effects on mood, that they continue taking them long after the wheat and grain withdrawal is nothing more than a bad memory.

Tryptophan can be taken alone or, even better, with melatonin. Tryptophan can also be taken during the day, e.g., 500 to 1,000 mg three times per day. Alternatively, it can be taken at a higher dose once per day at bedtime to encourage sleep at a dose of 1,000 to 3,000 mg. Supplementation increases brain serotonin and melatonin, which benefits sleep at night and mood during the day. Tryptophan can be taken by itself or in combination with melatonin and tends to not leave any residual effects upon awakening. Tryptophan is most effective taken on an empty stomach.

5-Hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) In addition to its helpfulness in reducing cravings during grain withdrawal, 5-hydroxytryptophan can also be used to enhance sleep. Supplementation has been shown to extend deep REM sleep, suggesting that sleep is deeper and more restorative with its use. As with melatonin, dose needs vary; most people take between 25 and 200 mg at bedtime.

Note that 5-HTP should not be used in combination with antidepressant medications, especially anyone taking a prescription antidepressant or carbidopa for Parkinson’s disease. This may cause an excess in serotonin levels. 5-HTP however, be used in combination with melatonin.

The post The Best Natural Sleep Aides appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Rested and Thin–Or Overweight and Exhausted?

 

You already know that poor or abbreviated sleep makes you feel lousy and impairs daytime performance. It also amplifies appetite, particularly for snacks, making poor sleep a weight gain factor all by itself. People who chronically lack sleep can easily gain 10, 20, or 30 pounds over the course of a year just from this effect.

Sleep deprivation has numerous health implications beyond just crabbiness and daytime sleepiness. The physiologic disruptions of sleep deprivation include increased risk for high blood pressure, asthma, arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Poor sleep can even contribute to risk for dementia (with greater brain plaque deposition from sleep deprivation) and increase mortality. For example, people who habitually sleep less than 6 hours per night (except the occasional person who functions perfectly well on such quantities) experience increased likelihood of earlier death, particularly cardiovascular death. Sleep can literally be, at least over an extended time period, a life or death matter.

You have to face a basic health truth: If you compromise on quantity or quality of sleep, you will not lose weight. Sleep deprivation has numerous health implications beyond just crabbiness and daytime sleepiness. The physiologic disruptions of sleep deprivation include increased risk for high blood pressure, asthma, arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

Lack of sleep increases cortisol and insulin, impairs the effects of insulin, and effects appetite-regulating hormones such as leptin and ghrelin. Remember, the hormone leptin is meant to shut off appetite when the physical need to eat has been satisfied. This results in an increased calorie intake of 300 to 559 calories per day. Interestingly, increased calories tend to come not from increased portion sizes at meals, but from an increase in snacking.

Compound the increased appetite and caloric intake with the overlapping effects of opiates from grains, and you have a powerfully effective way to gain a substantial amount of weight very quickly. Adequate sleep after grain elimination is therefore crucial to gaining control over hormonal status and appetite and allows weight loss to occur.

And the less sleep you get, the worse it gets, starting with just a single night of reduced sleep. Several days per week of lost sleep can, therefore, yield a substantial impact on appetite and calorie intake. If you do the arithmetic, three nights a week of poor sleep can add 22 pounds of weight gain over the course of a year.

How much sleep is enough for overall health and to gain control overweight? It varies from individual to individual, but most people require 7 ½ hours every night. After several days of reduced sleep, a “sleep debt” accumulates that magnifies the metabolic distortions that contribute to weight gain and unhealthy effects. One night of adequate sleep does not fully pay down the sleep debt. Several days of full sleep beyond the usual 7 ½ hours may be required to normalize glucose, insulin, cortisol, and leptin distortions.

Normal, uninterrupted sleep occurs in 90-minute cycles (e.g., 6 hours, 7 ½ hours, 9 hours) that allow your brain to cycle through all sleep phases, from light sleep to the deepest phases, including rapid eye movement (REM) sleep filled with dreams. Because it’s best to adhere to this normal cycling of sleep, set your clock or alarm to a quantity of time that adheres to this rhythm, as it will increase daytime alertness and mood.

There are also several devices now available that can wake you gently at a set time using, for instance, increasingly bright light, sound, or vibration. Smartphone apps are also appearing, often coupled to a device (such as the Lark wristband or the UP system by Jawbone) to gently awaken you after tracking both your sleep behavior and quality over the preceding night.

The post Rested and Thin–Or Overweight and Exhausted? appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Rested and Thin or Overweight and Exhausted?

 

You already know that poor or abbreviated sleep makes you feel lousy and impairs daytime performance. It also amplifies appetite, particularly for snacks, making poor sleep a weight gain factor all by itself. People who chronically lack sleep can easily gain 10, 20, or 30 pounds over the course of a year just from this effect.

Sleep deprivation has numerous health implications beyond just crabbiness and daytime sleepiness. The physiologic disruptions of sleep deprivation include increased risk for high blood pressure, asthma, arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Poor sleep can even contribute to risk for dementia (with greater brain plaque deposition from sleep deprivation) and increase mortality. For example, people who habitually sleep less than 6 hours per night (except the occasional person who functions perfectly well on such quantities) experience increased likelihood of earlier death, particularly cardiovascular death. Sleep can literally be, at least over an extended time period, a life or death matter.

You have to face a basic health truth: If you compromise on quantity or quality of sleep, you will not lose weight. Sleep deprivation has numerous health implications beyond just crabbiness and daytime sleepiness. The physiologic disruptions of sleep deprivation include increased risk for high blood pressure, asthma, arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

Lack of sleep increases cortisol and insulin, impairs the effects of insulin, and effects appetite-regulating hormones such as leptin and ghrelin. Remember, the hormone leptin is meant to shut off appetite when the physical need to eat has been satisfied. This results in an increased calorie intake of 300 to 559 calories per day. Interestingly, increased calories tend to come not from increased portion sizes at meals, but from an increase in snacking.

Compound the increased appetite and caloric intake with the overlapping effects of opiates from grains, and you have a powerfully effective way to gain a substantial amount of weight very quickly. Adequate sleep after grain elimination is therefore crucial to gaining control over hormonal status and appetite and allows weight loss to occur.

And the less sleep you get, the worse it gets, starting with just a single night of reduced sleep. Several days per week of lost sleep can, therefore, yield a substantial impact on appetite and calorie intake. If you do the arithmetic, three nights a week of poor sleep can add 22 pounds of weight gain over the course of a year.

How much sleep is enough for overall health and to gain control overweight? It varies from individual to individual, but most people require 7 ½ hours every night. After several days of reduced sleep, a “sleep debt” accumulates that magnifies the metabolic distortions that contribute to weight gain and unhealthy effects. One night of adequate sleep does not fully pay down the sleep debt. Several days of full sleep beyond the usual 7 ½ hours may be required to normalize glucose, insulin, cortisol, and leptin distortions.

Normal, uninterrupted sleep occurs in 90-minute cycles (e.g., 6 hours, 7 ½ hours, 9 hours) that allow your brain to cycle through all sleep phases, from light sleep to the deepest phases, including rapid eye movement (REM) sleep filled with dreams. Because it’s best to adhere to this normal cycling of sleep, set your clock or alarm to a quantity of time that adheres to this rhythm, as it will increase daytime alertness and mood.

There are also several devices now available that can wake you gently at a set time using, for instance, increasingly bright light, sound, or vibration. Smartphone apps are also appearing, often coupled to a device (such as the Lark wristband or the UP system by Jawbone) to gently awaken you after tracking both your sleep behavior and quality over the preceding night.

The post Rested and Thin or Overweight and Exhausted? appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Track Your Wheat Belly Transformation

Health, weight, and appearance are transformed by living the Wheat Belly lifestyle. You can see it on the face with reduced puffiness and edema and smoother skin. You can see it on the waistline as inflammatory visceral fat recedes. You can perceive it as increased energy, reduced depression and anxiety, reduction or elimination of irritable bowel syndrome and acid reflux symptoms, reduced joint pain, reversal of leg/ankle edema, and in so many other ways.

But how about blood measures of health? You can witness the transformations there, too. And the transformations you see in blood markers of health can be just as dramatic and impressive as all the other changes. In my cardiology practice, we would obtain such measures prior to starting the program, then several months later and onward. Comparing starting values with later values revealed dramatic changes, attesting to the power of this lifestyle.

But first a warning: NEVER have blood drawn while you are actively losing weight (unless, of course, some urgent health issue crops up that requires it, such as bleeding or infection). The reasons are simple: Weight loss means that your body is mobilizing stored energy from fat cells, energy stored as triglycerides. (All fats are triglycerides whether it’s fat on pork or bacon, olive oil, or fat in fat cells.) Triglycerides and the fatty acids that comprise triglycerides therefore flood the bloodstream as you lose weight, making them available to “burn” and clear from the bloodstream. If you spun your blood down in a centrifuge to remove red blood cells, you would actually see a milky layer—those are triglycerides. But it means that any blood drawn will be filled with triglycerides and fatty acids. This means that blood levels of triglycerides can rise substantially, a phenomenon that temporarily cascades into many other effects including a drop in HDL cholesterol, formation of small LDL particles, erratic blood sugars and blood pressures.  This whole process subsides as weight loss eventually plateaus, followed by gradual settling down of all these measures to far better values. HDL cholesterol, for instance, a useful index of overall health—the higher, the better—will rise over the ensuing two years, while triglycerides settle down over several weeks, reflecting the variable timeline in responsiveness of all these measures. So never have blood drawn during active weight loss. Have it drawn no sooner than 4 weeks after weight has plateaued, then expect further improvements to develop over time. 

Once your weight has plateaued for at least 4 weeks, consider chronicling your wheat/grain-free experience with measures that properly reflect the metabolic transformation that develops, here are measures to consider:

 

Weight—Of course. Even better, track body composition with a body fat analyzer (preferably a foot-to-foot or hand-to-foot bioimpedance device). This will more accurately reflect what is changing, since not only is fat lost, but muscle increases on this lifestyle.

Waist circumference—After all, the whole conversation started by talking about Wheat Bellies.

Blood pressure—Expect a drop in both systolic and diastolic values.

Fasting blood glucose, HbA1c—HbA1c reflects your prior 60-90 days of around-the-clock blood glucose values. I aim for blood glucose 90 mg/dl or less and HbA1c 5.0% or less. Blood sugars and HbA1c plummet on the Wheat Belly lifestyle, especially after weight loss has subsided and you add all the other components of the Wheat Belly program such as vitamin D and efforts to cultivate bowel flora (as discussed in Wheat Belly Total Health and the Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox books). HbA1c drops slowly, given that it relies on red blood cells dying off before it reflects drops in blood sugar.

NMR lipoproteins—This provides real measures of LDL particles—not the crude and useless marker, LDL cholesterol, that serves as an indirect gauge of LDL particles yet is the basis for the multi-billion dollar statin drug and cholesterol industry; we actually measure LDL particles’ number and size. By obtaining NMR lipoproteins (especially if compared to a prior panel before undertaking your Wheat Belly lifestyle), you would see that small LDL particles plummet. A typical response would be a drop from, say, 1800 nmol/L (particle count per volume) to zero or other very low value. Recall that small LDL is the #1 most common cause for heart disease in the U.S., not “high cholesterol.” Wheat/grain consumption increases small LDL particles; wheat/grain elimination is the most powerful tool available for reduction of small LDL particles, particularly when combined with weight loss. You will also see that HDL cholesterol rises and HDL particles increase in size and number, reflecting their greater protective potential. Triglycerides and the VLDL particles that carry triglycerides also plummet. (VLDL particles cause formation of small LDL particles; if VLDL particles are reduced to a minimum, they no longer contribute to creating small LDLs.)

C-reactive protein—The reason why so many people talk about c-reactive protein (CRP) is because the pharmaceutical industry has fueled the discussion about it in the media with clinical trials like the JUPITER trial of Crestor in people with high CRP. But CRP and other measures of inflammation drop to the floor with wheat/grain elimination along with other Wheat Belly lifestyle efforts. A value of zero mg/dl is the rule.

Those are the essentials. But if you want to track some other factors once you are on the program and get a handle on overall health, consider:

Thyroid panel—That includes TSH, free T3, free T4, reverse T3, and thyroid antibodies. If thyroid antibodies are abnormally high, you have a thyroid autoimmune disease, most commonly Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, with at least half of cases triggered by prior wheat (gliadin) consumption. Now that you are wheat/grain-free, have restored vitamin D, and are cultivating healthy bowel flora, you can watch your thyroid antibody levels drop over time (typically months).

25-hydroxy vitamin D—This is the test to assess the adequacy of vitamin D supplementation with some contribution from sun exposure if you are young and allow substantial skin surface area to be exposed to the sun. We aim for 60-70 ng/ml for ideal vitamin D status.

RBC magnesium—A better measure than the more common serum magnesium, but even RBC magnesium underestimates tissue deficiencies. We therefore aim for the very top of the reference range.

Vitamin B12, methylmalonic acid—Because some people develop B12 deficiency from prior wheat/grain consumption and the various gastrointestinal distortions they introduce, it would be important to identify this and take steps to correct (discussed in Wheat Belly Total Health and Undoctored). Hypochlorhydria, or low stomach acid, for instance, often a consequence of autoimmune damage to the stomach’s acid-producing parietal cells, typically does not recover and B12 supplementation is usually necessary for a lifetime. (My preferred form is methyl B12 to sidestep MTHFR genetic variants that can impair absorption of other forms).

Serum iron, ferritin, CBC—Because prior wheat/grain consumption (via grain phytates) blocks nearly all dietary iron absorption, some people begin their Wheat Belly lifestyle with iron deficiency or iron deficiency anemia. While this usually corrects simply itself with wheat/grain elimination, an occasional person, especially menstruating females or those with severe symptomatic anemia, may need iron supplementation.

Serum zinc—Like iron, magnesium, and other positively-charged minerals, grain phytates block zinc absorption that can lead to a variety of zinc deficiency phenomena such as skin rashes and impaired immune responses. Like magnesium testing, we aim for levels at the high end.

 

I am a big believer in tracking your experiences. But you’ve also got to choose the right values to track. No sense in tracking the speed you are driving by looking at the odometer. There are many other measures you can make that are less relevant to the Wheat Belly experience, but the ones listed above can give you a comprehensive survey of the improved metabolic landscape that develops on this lifestyle.

The post Track Your Wheat Belly Transformation appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Aspirin: Panacea or Piffle?

Aspirin is once again in the headlines, prompted by New England Journal of Medicine reports suggesting that people aged 70 years and older obtain no benefit and perhaps experience harm in the form of increased bleeding and increased death from cancer on low-dose aspirin. This adds to the decades-long debate on whether aspirin is beneficial as a preventive measure against cardiovascular events such as heart attack in which a blood clot forms on top of inflamed atherosclerotic plaque in the coronary arteries. Unlike many other studies that are observational and therefore virtually useless, these studies are prospective and randomized against placebo, studies that bear greater weight with conclusions that are more certain to establish cause-effect relationships.

There is no question that people who have stents implanted in their coronary arteries, have bypass grafts, or have suffered a heart attack experience reduced risk of recurrent coronary events with aspirin, so-called “secondary prevention.” The tougher question comes in whether aspirin provides any benefits in primary prevention, i.e., lower-risk people without stents, bypass grafts, or prior heart attack.

The three reports originated with the ASPREE trial of 19,000 Australians and Americans age 70 years or older, randomized to aspirin 100 mg per day vs. placebo: no difference in cardiovascular death or cardiovascular events (fatal heart attack, non-fatal heart attack, stroke) over nearly 5 years, with about a 1.5% increase in bleeding (e.g., intracranial bleeding, gastrointestinal hemorrhage).

Previous clinical trials (prospective, randomized to aspirin vs. placebo) in broader populations examining whether low-dose aspirin (typically 81-100 mg, a baby aspirin) likewise mostly suggest no benefit, much in line with these recent reports in people 70 years or older. The recent ARRIVE trial of 12,000 participants, for instance, randomized to aspirin 100 mg vs. placebo, showed no benefit and a modest increase in bleeding from aspirin.

People who are hypercoagulable, i.e., have more platelet activation, higher levels of the blood clotting protein fibrinogen, have greater inflammation and insulin resistance, do indeed appear to gain a teensy-weensy benefit by taking low-dose aspirin, as shown in the recent ASCEND Study of 15,000 people with type 2 diabetes (i.e., people we know are inflamed, insulin resistant, nearly all overweight or obese, have greater platelet activation and fibrinogen levels) randomized to aspirin 100 mg per day or placebo: about a 1% reduction in cardiovascular events over 7 1/2 years (i.e., 0.13% reduction per year) and 1% increase in bleeding—hardly headline-worthy.

Let’s step back for a moment and take a look at the broader landscape. National dietary guidelines advocate limiting total and saturated fat, increased consumption of whole grains, and sugar in moderation, a lifestyle that has been associated with a dramatic surge in weight gain/overweight/obesity, epidemic levels of type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes, autoimmune inflammation, hypercoagulability, and other “diseases of lifestyle.” In other words, dietary guidelines have created a population-wide hypercoagulable state with the most hypercoagulable obtaining about 1/10th of one percent per year reduction in cardiovascular events on aspirin and about the same risk of hemorrhage into the brain or gastrointestinal tract.

These most recent reports involving treatment randomization, large numbers of participants, with extended follow-up periods also counter a handful of previous observations suggesting a very small reduction in colorectal cancer on low-dose aspirin. ASPREE suggested about a 1% increase in cancer deaths (though no difference in cancer incidence).

Is aspirin a miracle drug for preventing cardiovascular events? Hardly. A 1/10th of one percent per year reduction in cardiovascular events in higher-risk hypercoagulable people at the cost of serious hemorrhage, sometimes fatal, is, in my mind, no benefit at all. And, putting all the evidence on cancer incidence together, it looks like aspirin likewise has little to no benefit in reducing colon cancer risk.

So much time and effort has been devoted to exploring a drug that yields so little in the way of preventive effects in the broad population. My advice: Eat healthy, as we do in the Wheat Belly and Undoctored lifestyles, address common nutritional deficiencies remaining in the wake of grain elimination and caused by modern lifestyles, and make a concerted effort to cultivate healthy bowel flora. Now THERE’s a package of life- and health-changing strategies, unlike the little to no protection afforded by low-dose aspirin.

 

 

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The Wheat Belly One-Way Street

There’s a practical reality to the Wheat Belly grain-free lifestyle, one that I believe some followers of the lifestyle fail to recognize. Understand these simple facts that I’ve discussed in the Wheat Belly books and your life will be simplified.

By living the Wheat Belly grain-free lifestyle, you will find that:

You cannot consume grain-containing foods without becoming ill. Many of you have learned this lesson the hard way and found, for instance, that eating a handful of French fries fried in oil also used to prepare fried chicken will have you sitting on the toilet while your gastrointestinal tract forcefully evacuates its contents. We therefore choose grain-free foods such as eggs, beef, cucumbers, and blueberries, and recreate familiar foods such as grain-free pizza, cookies, and muffins.

Grain-consuming people can consume your grain-free pizza, cookies, and muffins without becoming ill and find them tasty and filling.

You, as a grain-free human, have lost your partial (never total) tolerance to the toxic components of grains and cannot consume grains or foods contaminated by grain residues without suffering bloating, diarrhea, joint pain, anxiety, appetite stimulation, or other ill effects. In other words, re-exposure to the toxic components of grains yields undesirable health effects that can last anywhere from hours to months (as in reprovocation of autoimmune or neurological effects). At a social event, for instance, you cannot eat foods containing wheat flour, cornstarch, or other grain-based ingredients without having to make a run to the bathroom, nursing aching hands or knees for several days, or enduring re-provocation of rheumatoid joint pain and swelling for 3 months.

But people who continue to consume wheat and grains and suffer the long-term consequences—high blood sugars/type 2 diabetes, joint pain, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome symptoms, skin rashes, plantar fasciitis, ulcerative colitis, migraine headaches, hormonal disruptions, etc.—can eat the foods you choose or prepare without ill effect. They can have a slice of your grain-free pizza, cookies, or muffins without any adverse consequences.

Say you bring a plate of grain-free blueberry muffins to a gathering, while others have brought typical grain-filled hamburger buns, pasta salad, and sandwiches. You will have to eat your hamburger without a bun, can’t touch the pasta salad or sandwiches, but can enjoy your muffins. Everyone else can likewise eat your muffins without regrets.

It is a vivid illustration of the differences in food choices, a dietary one-way street: Other people can consume your grain-free foods while talking, laughing, and enjoying their time while you cannot eat their foods without some pretty awful health consequences.

In your own family, it means that you can prepare foods compatible with your lifestyle and serve it to your family. They may notice that the pizza crust is not as crisp or tastes somewhat different, but they can still enjoy the pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, and tomato sauce. They can have a generous and delicious slice of grain-free chocolate cake and not worry about gaining weight or other adverse effects. They can safely enjoy heaping servings of your Mediterranean “Pasta” Salad made with olives, zucchini, and olive oil but no noodles.

In other words, you can prepare foods that are safe for you and safe for everyone else to consume. There is no need to prepare grain-free foods for yourself and grain-based foods for everyone else. Just make grain-free foods for everyone.

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Hot chocolate for skin, joint, and brain health

Here’s a variation on the High-Fat Hot Chocolate recipe I’ve posted previously, this version replacing coconut oil with medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) oil and adding collagen hydrolysates. (I used the Great Lakes brand sourced from pasture-raised, grass-fed livestock.)

MCT oil reduces appetite, accelerates loss of visceral inflammatory fat, and improves energy and cognition (though we don’t know whether MCTs and ketones yield a nootropic or a neurotrophic effect). Recall that collagen hydrolysates gradually increase dermal collagen, thereby smoothing skin and reducing wrinkle depth, while also increasing joint lubrication and slowly increasing cartilage volume. And follow this recipe and you obtain all those benefits in a thick, rich hot chocolate.

If you like the added richness of including butter from the original recipe, go right ahead. Other ingredients can also be increased for added richness except for the MCTs, as more than one tablespoon at a time can yield loose stools.

Makes one 12-ounce serving

12 ounces water

1 tablespoon cocoa powder, unsweetened

1 tablespoon MCT oil

1 tablespoon collagen hydrolysates

1/4-1/2 teaspoon Virtue Sweetener or other sweetener equivalent to 1-2 teaspoons sugar

Microwave method:

In large mug, combine 4 ounces (1/2 cup) water or milk, cocoa powder, MCT oil, collagen, sweetener and microwave for 40 seconds. Blend with immersion/stick blender for 20-30 seconds. Pour remaining liquid into mug and microwave for additional 60 seconds.

Stovetop or electric kettle method:

Boil water or milk in saucepan or electric kettle.

Pour 4 ounces (1/2 cup) into large mug, followed by cocoa powder, MCT oil, collagen, and sweetener. Blend with immersion/stick blender for 20-30 seconds. Pour remaining liquid into mug.

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