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

by William Davis

Grains such as wheat account for 38 percent of the average American’s acid load, more than enough to tip the balance into the acid range.

One way to gauge acid-induced extraction of calcium from bone is to measure urinary calcium loss. A University of Toronto study examined the effect of increasing gluten consumption from bread on the level of calcium lost in the urine. Increased gluten intake increased urinary calcium loss by an incredible 63 percent, along with increased markers of bone resorption—i.e., blood markers for bone weakening that lead to bone diseases such as osteoporosis.

The same inflammation that issues from the visceral fat of the wheat belly and results in diabetes, heart disease, and cancer also yields inflammation of joints.

The sequence of events leading to formation of AGEs goes like this: Ingest foods that increase blood glucose. The greater availability of glucose to the body’s tissues permits the glucose molecule to react with any protein, creating a combined glucose-protein molecule. Chemists talk of complex reactive products such as Amadori products and Schiff intermediates, all yielding a group of glucose-protein combinations that are collectively called AGEs. Once AGEs form, they are irreversible and cannot be undone. They also collect in chains of molecules, forming AGE polymers that are especially disruptive.2 AGEs are notorious for accumulating right where they sit, forming clumps of useless debris resistant to any of the body’s digestive or cleansing processes. Thus, AGEs result from a domino effect set in motion anytime blood glucose increases. Anywhere that glucose goes (which is virtually everywhere in the body), AGEs will follow. The higher the blood glucose, the more AGEs will accumulate and the faster the decay of aging will proceed.

With repetitive high blood glucose levels in diabetes, you’d also expect higher blood levels of AGEs, and indeed, that is the case. Diabetics have 60 percent greater blood levels of AGEs compared to nondiabetics.4 AGEs that result from high blood sugars are responsible for most of the complications of diabetes, from neuropathy (damaged nerves leading to loss of sensation in the feet) to retinopathy (vision defects and blindness) to nephropathy (kidney disease and kidney failure). The higher the blood sugar and the longer blood sugars stay high, the more AGE products will accumulate and the more organ damage results.

AGE formation is therefore a continuum. But while AGEs form at even normal blood glucose levels (fasting glucose 90 mg/dl or less), they form faster at higher blood sugar levels. The higher the blood glucose, the more AGEs form. There really is no level of blood glucose at which AGE formation can be expected to cease entirely.

Being nondiabetic does not mean that you will be spared such fates. AGEs accumulate in nondiabetics and wreak their age-advancing effects. All it takes is a little extra blood sugar, just a few milligrams above normal, and—voilà—you’ve got AGEs doing their dirty work and gumming up your organs. Over time, you too can develop all the conditions seen in diabetes if you have sufficient AGE accumulation.

HbA1c—i.e., glycated hemoglobin—therefore provides a running index of glucose control. It also reflects to what degree you are glycating body proteins beyond hemoglobin. The higher your HbA1c, the more you are also glycating the proteins in the lenses of your eyes, in kidney tissue, arteries, skin, etc.32 In effect, HbA1c provides an ongoing index of aging rate: The higher your HbA1c, the faster you are aging. So HbA1c is much more than just a feedback tool for blood glucose control in diabetics. It also reflects the rate at which you are glycating other proteins of the body, the rate at which you are aging. 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, taking you closer to the great nursing home in the sky.

So what sets the entire process in motion, causing increased VLDL/triglycerides that, in turn, trigger the formation of small LDL particles that cause atherosclerotic plaque? Simple: carbohydrates. Chief among the carbohydrates? Wheat, of course.

Think of it this way: Anything that provokes an increase in blood sugar will also, in parallel, provoke small LDL particles. Anything that keeps blood sugar from increasing, such as proteins, fats, and reduction in carbohydrates such as wheat, reduces small LDL particles.

The antigliadin antibodies triggered by gluten can bind to Purkinje cells of the brain, cells unique to the cerebellum.5 Brain tissue such as Purkinje cells do not have the capacity to regenerate: Once damaged, cerebellar Purkinje cells are gone . . . forever.

One study of 104 people with cerebellar ataxia also revealed impaired memory and verbal abilities, suggesting that wheat-induced destruction may involve cerebral tissue, the seat of higher thought and memory.

Only limited recovery of neurological function occurs with wheat gluten elimination due to the poor capacity of brain tissue to regenerate. Most people simply stop getting worse once the flow of gluten stops.8 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. This can be the toughest hurdle of all, since much of the medical community continues to embrace the notion that wheat is good for you.

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. Halting all wheat and gluten ingestion at this point is only likely to keep you out of the assisted living facility. All of this due to the muffins and bagels you so crave.

Unlike cerebellar Purkinje cells’ inability to regenerate, peripheral nerves have limited capacity to undergo repair once the offending wheat and gluten are removed, with the majority of people experiencing at least partial reversal of their neuropathy.

The effect of wheat on the brain is more than just influence over mood, energy, and sleep. Actual brain damage is possible, as seen in cerebellar ataxia. But the cerebral cortex, the center of memory and higher thinking, the storehouse of you and your unique personality and memories, the brain’s “gray matter,” can also be pulled into the immune battle with wheat, resulting in encephalopathy, or brain disease. Gluten encephalopathy shows itself as migraine headaches and stroke-like symptoms, such as loss of control over one arm or leg, difficulty speaking, or visual difficulties.13, 14 On MRI of the brain, there is characteristic evidence of damage surrounding blood vessels in cerebral tissue. Gluten encephalopathy will also show many of the same balance and coordination symptoms as those that occur with cerebellar ataxia.

Wheat can exert age-advancing skin effects, such as wrinkles and lost elasticity, through the formation of advanced glycation end products.

In other words, cultures without acne consume little to no wheat, sugar, or dairy products. As Western influence introduced processed starches such as wheat and sugars into groups such as the Okinawans, Inuits, and Zulus, acne promptly followed.5-7 In other words, acne-free cultures had no special genetic protection from acne, but simply followed a diet that lacked the foods that provoke the condition. Introduce wheat, sugar, and dairy products, and Clearasil sales skyrocket.

The means by which insulin triggers acne formation is beginning to yield to the light of day. Insulin stimulates the release of a hormone called insulin-like growth factor-I, or IGF-I, within the skin. IGF-1, in turn, stimulates tissue growth in hair follicles and in the dermis, the layer of skin just beneath the surface.9 Insulin and IGF-1 also stimulate the production of sebum, the oily protective film produced by the sebaceous glands.10 Overproduction of sebum, along with skin tissue growth, leads to the characteristic upward-growing reddened pimple.

In the world of grains, one grain stands apart, since it consists entirely of protein, fiber, and oils: flaxseed. 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.