Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health

by William Davis

For years, this simple fact eluded nutrition scientists. After all, dietary fats, maligned and feared, are composed of triglycerides. Logically, increased intake of fatty foods, such as greasy meats and butter, should increase blood levels of triglycerides. This proved true—but only transiently and to a small degree. More recently, it has become clear that, while increased intake of fats does indeed deliver greater quantities of triglycerides into the liver and bloodstream, it also shuts down the body’s own production of triglycerides. Because the body is able to produce large quantities of triglycerides that handily overwhelm the modest amount taken in during a meal, the net effect of high fat intake is little or no change in triglyceride levels.15 Carbohydrates, on the other hand, contain virtually no triglycerides. Two slices of whole grain bread, an onion bagel, or sourdough pretzel contain negligible triglycerides. But carbohydrates possess the unique capacity to stimulate insulin, which in turn triggers fatty acid synthesis in the liver, a process that floods the bloodstream with triglycerides.16 Depending on genetic susceptibility to the effect, carbohydrates can send triglycerides into the hundreds or even thousands of mg/dl range. The body is so efficient at producing triglycerides that high levels, e.g., 300 mg/dl, 500 mg/dl, even 1,000 mg/dl or more, can be sustained twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for years—provided the flow of carbohydrates continues.