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

by William Davis

Stay at 5 percent or less, and you are aging at the normal rate; over 5 percent, and time for you is moving faster than it should,

This is likely a good part of the reason why nonfasting triglycerides, i.e., triglycerides measured without fasting, are proving to be an impressive predictor of heart attack, with as much as five- to seventeen-fold increased risk for heart attack with higher

levels of nonfasting triglycerides.

The standard lipid panel that your doctor relies on to crudely gauge risk for heart disease uses a calculated LDL cholesterol value—not a measured value. All you need is a calculator to sum up LDL cholesterol from the following equation (called the Friedewald calculation): LDL cholesterol = total cholesterol – HDL cholesterol – (triglycerides ÷ 5)

Such a dietary pattern means that de novo lipogenesis can proceed to such extreme degrees that the excess fat created infiltrates the liver. That’s why so-called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, NAFLD, and nonalcoholic steatosis, NAS,

have reached such epidemic proportions that gastroenterologists have their own convenient abbreviations for them. NAFLD and NAS lead to liver cirrhosis, an irreversible disease similar to that experienced by alcoholics, thus the nonalcoholic disclaimer.

This makes sense: Carbohydrates are the foods that encourage fat storage, a means of preserving the bounty from times of plenty. If you were a primitive human, satiated from your meal of freshly killed boar topped off with some wild berries and fruit, you would store the excess calories in case you failed to catch another boar or

other prey in the coming days or even weeks. Insulin helps store the excess energy as fat, transforming it into triglycerides that pack the liver and spill over into the bloodstream, energy stores to be drawn from when the hunt fails.

The more wheat consumed, the higher the body weight.

The greater the daily wheat intake, the higher the BMI.

Between 10 and 22.5 percent of people with celiac disease have nervous system involvement.

The majority of people with ataxia triggered by wheat gluten have no signs or symptoms of intestinal disease, no celiac-like

warnings to send the signal that gluten sensitivity is at work.

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recently, it has become clear that brain and nervous system involvement results from a direct immune attack on nerve cells.

The first hurdle in diagnosing ataxia that develops from wheat exposure is to have a physician who even considers the diagnosis in the first place.

The painful reality of cerebellar ataxia is that, in the great majority of cases, you won’t know you have it until you start tripping over your own feet, drifting into walls, or wetting your pants. Once it shows itself, your cerebellum likely is already shrunken and damaged.

I suspected there was a wheat issue just by looking at Meredith. Beyond the obvious difficulty she had walking into the room, her face was puffy and red. She described her struggles with acid reflux and the abdominal cramping and bloating diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome. She was about sixty pounds overweight and had a modest quantity of edema (water retention) in her calves and ankles.

wheat can indeed trigger hair loss.

The insulin-glucose roller coaster caused by wheat, along with brain-addictive exorphin effects, makes it difficult for some people to gradually reduce wheat, so abrupt cessation may be preferable.

These include hydrogenated (trans) fats in processed foods, fried oils that contain excessive by-products of oxidation and AGE formation, and cured meats such as sausages, bacon, hot dogs, salami, etc. (sodium nitrite and AGEs).

You can’t overdo nuts, provided they’re raw. (Raw means not roasted in hydrogenated cottonseed or soybean oils, not “honey roasted,” not beer nuts or any of the other endless variations in processed nuts, variations that transform healthy raw nuts into something that causes weight gain, high blood pressure, and increases LDL cholesterol.)

Because it is essentially free of carbohydrates that increase blood sugar, ground flaxseed is the one grain that fits nicely into this approach (the unground grain is indigestible). Use ground flaxseed as a hot cereal (heated, for instance, with milk, unsweetened almond milk, coconut milk or coconut water, or soymilk, with added walnuts or blueberries) or add it to foods

such as cottage cheese or chilis. You can also use it to make a breading for chicken and fish.

A similar cautionary note that applies to nonwheat grains also applies to legumes (outside of peanuts). Kidney beans, black beans, Spanish beans, lima beans, and other starchy beans have healthy components in them such as protein and fiber, but the carbohydrate load can be excessive if consumed in large quantities. A 1-cup serving of beans typically contains 30 to 50 grams of carbohydrates, a quantity sufficient to substantially im...

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osteoarthritis: a prospective cohort study.