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Welcome to the Wonderful State of Wheatlessness

If modern wheat is associated with addictive behaviours, appetite stimulation, and so many abnormal health conditions, then removing it completely from the diet should result in reversal of the whole kit and kaboodle.

And indeed it does. The contrast is so dramatic that I give the wheat-free lifestyle a name: I call it wheatlessness.

Say goodbye to wheat and you say goodbye to the appetite-stimulating protein, gliadin, that acts as an opiate on your brain. You say sayonara to the altered forms of gliadin that cause coeliac disease, such as the Glia-α9 sequence, now found in nearly all modern forms of wheat. Say adios to the lectin, wheat germ agglutinin, that directly damages the intestinal lining and acts like a Trojan horse for foreign substances to gain access to your bloodstream and organs. Say arrivederci to amylopectin A in wheat that provokes a roller-coaster ride of high blood sugar, followed by plummeting blood sugar and the mental ‘fog’ of hypoglycaemia and insatiable hunger. Say au revoir to unique alpha amylase inhibitors in wheat and lose many wheat allergies.

Remove onions and . . . you remove onions – nothing more, nothing less. There is no withdrawal process, no weight loss, no relief from any pain, no religious epiphany, nothing except no onions with your fried liver or bratwurst.

But remove wheat . . . and it’s like removing a poison from your body. After withdrawal subsides, health transformations result.

Critics of Wheat Belly have argued that these ideas represent nothing more than a low-carbohydrate diet for weight loss in disguise. But they’ve missed the essential point: Eliminating modern wheat, this product of genetics research, is about so much more than weight loss. Sure, you lose weight – often a lot of weight – but it’s all the other stuff that results from wheatlessness that makes this approach such a powerful and life-changing concept. (For those of you interested in maximizing weight loss in as short a time as possible, or trying to undo severe carbohydrate intolerance, as in diabetes or pre-diabetes, we will discuss how going beyond elimination of wheat and restricting all carbohydrates provides additional benefits.)

It’s part of what I call wheat’s ‘whole is greater than the sum of the parts effect’. Despite all we know about this destructive high-yield, 24-inch mutant, the benefits of removing it from diet exceed expectations. Although we already know plenty about the destructive health effects of gliadin, lectin, amylopectin A and other components of wheat, get rid of the whole package and health benefits enjoyed by the majority are greater than you’d ever anticipate.

Let’s be clear: This is not about gluten elimination for gluten-sensitive people. Given wheat’s effects that spare no one, I am advocating wheat elimination for everybody.

Downside: Tell this to the average wheat-eater and they find it a bit difficult to swallow, to say the least. You may be on the receiving end of yelling, swearing, sobbing and physical confrontation. No other food elicits such forceful reactions because no other food has such a hold over the consumer’s mind. Imagine taking a trip into the inner city and swiping the stash from a heroin addict – it wouldn’t be pretty. Remember: You are, in effect, trying to persuade a wheat-eating opiate addict that their source of comfort in times of good and bad is really undoing health, making them the unwitting victim of a ‘food’ that gains access to the brain to influence behaviour.

So what can modern wheat-consuming individuals expect when they rid themselves of this thing? Let’s discuss that next.

Happier Joints, Happier Bowels, Happier Minds

Your body is healthier and happier when all things wheat are removed.

But before we get to the ‘hard’ observations, the effects on various diseases and conditions that we can expect with elimination of wheat, let’s talk about the many ‘soft’ – but not to say insignificant – effects that develop, the subjective experiences many or most people report on saying goodbye to modern high-yield, semi-dwarf wheat. Subjective effects are tougher to measure but are nonetheless consistent and reproducible. I’ve personally witnessed these subjective effects unfold many thousands of times.

Typical subjective observations that emerge with elimination of wheat include:

Thinking is clearer. Most people describe a lifting of mental ‘fog’. (I personally experienced this effect to a dramatic degree.) The constant struggle to maintain concentration is replaced by the ability to focus for prolonged periods.

Mood is improved, dark moods lessened. People are happier and less depressed. I’ve witnessed many people with lifelong struggles with depression who were able to reduce or stop antidepressant drugs.

Energy increases. Not only is energy increased throughout the day, but the cycles of ups and downs diminish or disappear.

Sleep is deeper. It becomes closer to the profound, restful sleep that children experience.

Appetite is reduced. The predictable 2-hour cycle of hunger is replaced by eating followed by many hours of no interest in food. When you redevelop hunger, it seems to match physiologic need, providing interest in just obtaining what you need to live and function – not the bizarre excess of calories typical of modern habits and exemplified by such phenomena as all-you-can-eat buffets and food bars. The effects are especially fascinating in people who’ve been labelled with eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia and binge eating disorder, many of whom experience normalization of appetite and food perceptions.

People feel younger. Twenty years younger is the most common observation. (I truly don’t fully understand why this happens – reduced inflammation, shifts in hormones – but it is incredibly consistent.) At the very least, the perceived sense of youthfulness seems to be the combined result of increased energy, deeper sleep and reduced stiffness and pain.

Menstrual cycles are milder. Women experience reduced cramping and moodiness.

The ‘heartburn’ of acid reflux improves or disappears in the majority of people. Those labelled with irritable bowel syndrome typically experience less bloating, less gas and less unpredictability in bowel habits.

Less joint pain and swelling. Most characteristically, this involves reduced pain and swelling in the joints of the fingers, hands and wrists, but also in the elbows and shoulders. Tenderness and swelling of the shins and ankles also recede, as do leg and ankle swelling.

Naysayers, of course, jump on unquantifiable subjective benefits as mass hysteria, a group placebo effect that develops because I have such incredible powers of persuasion. But the experience that counts is yours and that of your family and friends. The wonderful thing about this is that you can decide for yourself: Just eliminate all things wheat. There are no prescription drugs, no nutritional supplements, no meetings to attend – just no wheat.

But there is a complicating factor, because when you deny your body all things wheat, there is . . .

Wheat Withdrawal

Removing wheat, for many people, is downright terrifying.

If the gliadin protein of modern wheat acts as a morphine-like opiate, then halting the flow of wheat can generate withdrawal. Aside from alcohol, I know of no other food that has a genuine addiction – and I mean actual physical addiction, not just intense desire – and withdrawal associated with it, certainly no food that you share with friends and serve your children.

The addictive property of wheat is a very real phenomenon. Most people intuitively know that when deprived of their opiate of choice, they will begin to experience unpleasant effects within hours. They experience overpowering hunger that leaves them foggy and shaky. They feel the unpleasant low mood of lacking wheat, the desperation that causes you to seek relief, leading you to eat stale crackers from a year-old box, eat your children’s food or snap at the waitress because you’ve been waiting more than 5 minutes for your food. Like all addictions, it recedes with a sigh of relief when the next ‘hit’ of wheat arrives, at least for the next few hours.

But what if that next hit never comes? What happens when you commit yourself to doing away with all things wheat and trigger wheat withdrawal on purpose?

It means that many of the short-term phenomena of withdrawal – fatigue, shakiness, low mood, cravings for wheat and sugar – will be sustained and worsen over time. Wheat withdrawal closely resembles withdrawal from other opiates like morphine, Oxycontin and heroin, just less severe. The effect generally lasts from 24 hours to several days, occasionally weeks. But it does not last forever. I’ve witnessed it in men, women (who seem to get wheat withdrawal worse than men), Republicans, Democrats, young, old, even children. When it recedes, it can do so quite dramatically, with many describing a palpable surge in energy and mood and the disappearance of cravings. The drop in energy with wheat elimination is also partly due to the delayed conversion of metabolism from a constant flow of easily burned carbohydrates, like the amylopectin A of wheat, to that of fat oxidation, or the mobilization of fat stores. This conversion is necessary to lose weight, which generally proceeds rapidly and is mostly lost from the abdomen.

Some disruption of bowel habits is also typical, with some people experiencing loose stools, others constipation. This is most likely the result of the change in bowel flora that results from depriving the bacteria in the intestinal tract of the components of wheat, amylopectin A, gliadin and lectins. (More on this later.)

Not everyone is subject to wheat withdrawal. The wheat withdrawal syndrome affects around 35 to 40 per cent of people who stop consuming wheat products. Thankfully, while I won’t minimize its severity in some people, it is not as traumatic as withdrawal from, say, heroin. The process of wheat withdrawal, aside from the emotional turmoil and aches, is harmless. Everyone has survived.

Despite the low mood and emotional turmoil, most people choose simply to grin and bear the process, allowing their bodies to adjust to the loss of this opiate on brain function and the slow activation of fat oxidation. Because the withdrawal process can be disruptive and unpleasant, it is worth not triggering again with a return to wheat and repeated withdrawal, thus my motto: Once wheat free, always wheat free.

The Wonderful State of Wheatlessness

Life without wheat is, for so many of us, so utterly different from our former wheat-consuming lives. It’s America after the Revolution, race relations after Martin Luther King, Kirstie Alley after Dancing with the Stars. The transfiguration is that dramatic.

Wheatlessness means eating to meet your body’s needs, not submitting to the perverse appetite-stimulating effects of wheat gliadin. It means enjoying mental clarity and the capacity for sustained concentration unclouded by the opiate of wheat. It means being slender, happier, with fewer body aches, better bowel health and fewer rashes. It means ridding yourself of the grotesque metabolic distortions that develop in wheat-consuming people and instead enjoying marked improvements in metabolic health reflected by lower blood sugar, reduced measures of inflammation, reduced triglycerides and improvement of an entire host of other health parameters.

In short, life is transformed when you say goodbye to wheat and join in the Wonderful State of Wheatlessness. Let’s consider each of these effects in greater detail.

Weight Loss and the Magical Shrinking Wheat Belly

What happens when you reduce calorie intake – and hunger – by 400 or more calories per day?

You lose weight. Multiple studies have demonstrated weight loss of 1 stone 12 pounds, on average, in the first 6 months of being wheat free. And that is what I have witnessed over and over again (some people less, others more, but an average of 1 stone 12 pounds during the first 6 months) in people who say goodbye to the appetite-stimulating effects of wheat gliadin. The weight lost exceeds the quantity of wheat calories lost.

The weight is lost primarily from the abdomen, with typical reductions of 2 to 3 inches in waist circumference within the first 4 weeks of wheatlessness. Although the reasons for such a selective, specific process around the waist are not entirely clear, it is at least partly due to the absence of amylopectin A that had previously been responsible for extravagantly high jumps in blood sugar and insulin that stimulate visceral fat accumulation. I also have to believe that receding inflammatory responses – removal of wheat germ agglutinin, restoration of leptin sensitivity – in visceral fat cells have to play a central role in the exaggerated loss of waist size.

So, no, you are not overweight because you failed to eat a sufficient quantity of ‘healthy whole grains’. Chances are that you are also not overweight because you are lazy and gluttonous, as many official sources claim. If I were to peek in your family room some day, I doubt I’d catch you lying flat on your back watching Survivor re-runs, snacking on a bag of crisps and drinking Coca-Cola by the litre bottle. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if instead I caught you walking on your treadmill or riding your stationary bike, frantically trying to work off the excess pounds.

You and many others are overweight because you were given bad advice – advice that actually causes weight gain. Reject that advice, remove the appetite-stimulating effects of wheat gliadin and amylopectin A, and weight loss can finally proceed without effort.

But, as powerful as wheat elimination is, I can’t say that you will lose all the weight you want if you eliminate all wheat but then eat all the sweets and drink all the fizzy drinks you want, or consume ‘healthier’ equivalents of these insulin-provoking foods. Add to this the fact that the majority of adults are now diabetic or pre-diabetic (you may not even know it), meaning they have abnormal resistance to insulin, have disordered leptin signalling and are unable to properly metabolize carbohydrates. If weight loss and reversal of diabetes/pre-diabetes are on your agenda, then restricting total carbohydrates will accelerate your success (see ‘Can I Eat Quinoa? Carb-counting Basics’).

Diabetes: Kiss ‘Healthy Whole Grainitis’ Goodbye

Type 2 diabetes and ‘healthy whole grains’ are so tightly tied to one another that they are nearly one and the same: Eat ‘healthy whole grains’, become diabetic or pre-diabetic. Reject ‘healthy whole grains’, and diabetes and pre-diabetes improve or disappear in the majority. But that, of course, is not what you are told by ‘official’ sources of nutritional advice.

Type 1 diabetes, incidentally, is also increasingly looking like a disease of wheat consumption. This is not to say that all type 1 diabetes is caused by wheat exposure, but an important minority of children who develop this lifelong condition do so because of wheat exposure if genetically susceptible. Note that children with type 1 diabetes have ten- to twentyfold greater likelihood of developing coeliac disease, and children with coeliac disease have tenfold greater likelihood of type 1 diabetes.

You’ve likely heard the argument that if whole grains replace white flour products, the likelihood of diabetes is reduced. That is indeed (a little bit) true. The next step – elimination of all things wheat, especially modern wheat – is not talked about. But that is when the real magic happens and appetite drops, visceral fat recedes and waist circumference shrinks, inflammation that drives insulin resistance drops, blood sugar drops and haemoglobin A1c (a common measure that reflects the prior 60 to 90 days of blood sugars) plummets.

Credit the absence of gliadin that stimulates appetite and the amylopectin A that drives blood sugar higher for improvements in diabetic blood sugars. Over time, improvements are compounded by dropping body weight and shrinkage of inflammatory visceral fat. That’s when most pre-diabetics become non-pre-diabetic and many, if not most, diabetics become nondiabetic, or at least experience marked improvements in blood sugar and reduced reliance on diabetes medication.

Wheat elimination represents the exact opposite of the advice offered by the American Diabetes Association and other purveyors of health advice, who advocate that people with diabetes cut consumption of fat and, yes, eat more ‘healthy whole grains’. I’ve witnessed countless diabetics follow this advice and watched them gain weight, experience increasing blood sugars and HbA1c, resulting in increased need for diabetes drugs, then insulin, not to mention experience leg oedema, hypertension, acid reflux and the myriad other effects of wheat consumption. (And just who profits from such advice? That’s an entire conversation of its own. Suffice it to say that one of the biggest contributors to the American Diabetes Association over the years has been Cadbury Schweppes, the world’s largest sweet and soft drink manufacturer. Diabetes drug manufacturers have been quite generous, too.) It is an exceptionally common progression, one that is predicted to ensnare one in three Americans in the diabetic category in coming years. I have no question in my mind that this blunder constitutes one of the biggest nutritional crimes of the century.

Can I Eat Quinoa? Carb-counting Basics

It’s a frequent question: Can I eat quinoa, beans, brown rice or sweet potatoes? Or how about amaranth, sorghum and buckwheat? Surely corn on the cob is okay!

These are, of course, non-wheat carbohydrates. They lack several undesirable ingredients found in wheat, including:

Gliadin – The protein that degrades to exorphins, the compound from wheat digestion that exerts mind effects and stimulates appetite.

Gluten – The family of proteins that trigger immune diseases and neurological impairment.

Amylopectin A – The highly digestible carbohydrate that is no better – worse, in fact – than table sugar.

Wheat germ agglutinin – The protein that is directly disruptive in the intestines and can generate coeliac-like destructive changes, as well as piggyback foreign substances into the bloodstream.

So why not eat all the non-wheat grains you want? If they don’t cause appetite stimulation, behavioural outbursts in children, addictive consumption of foods, skin rashes, dementia, etc., why not just eat them willy-nilly?

Because they still increase blood sugar and insulin.

Conventional wisdom is that these foods have a lower glycaemic index than, say, table sugar, meaning they raise blood glucose less. That’s true, but misleading. Oats, for instance, with a glycaemic index of 55 compared with table sugar’s 59 to 65, will still send blood sugar through the roof. Likewise, quinoa, with a glycaemic index of 53, will send blood sugar to, say, 150 milligrams/decilitre compared with 158 milligrams/decilitre for table sugar – yeah, sure, it’s better, but it still stinks. And that’s the result in people who don’t have diabetes. It’s worse in people with diabetes and pre-diabetes. You can be wheat free and lose the appetite-stimulating effects of gliadin, but consuming larger servings of oatmeal, quinoa and rice will serve to stall or reverse your weight loss. Because it is gluten free, quinoa in particular has acquired a reputation for being problem free. Not true. Consume 177 grams (6¼ oz) of cooked quinoa containing 34 grams of ‘net’ carbs, for instance, and you will trigger insulin and stall weight loss.

Of course, John Q. Internist will tell you that, provided your blood sugars after eating don’t exceed 200 milligrams/decilitre, you’ll be okay. What he’s really saying is ‘There’s no need for diabetes medication right now. You will still be exposed to the many adverse health consequences of high blood sugar similar to, though less quickly than, a full diabetic, but that’s not an urgent problem. You’re probably lazy and gluttonous, anyway, and can’t follow a diet programme. We’ll just keep an eye on you until you need medication’.

In reality, most people can get away with consuming some of these non-wheat grains, provided portion size is limited. Limit portion size and you better manage carbohydrates to ensure that metabolic distortions, such as high blood sugar, glycation (glucose modification of proteins associated with conditions like cataracts, hypertension, heart disease and arthritis), and small LDL particles (the worst LDL particles of all, the bad of the bad), are not triggered.

These non-wheat carbohydrates, or what I call intermediate carbohydrates (for lack of a better term; low glycaemic index is falsely reassuring), still trigger all the carbohydrate phenomena of table sugar. Is it possible to obtain the fibre, B vitamins and antioxidant benefits of these intermediate carbohydrates without triggering the undesirable carbohydrate consequences?

Yes, by using small portions. Small portions are tolerated by most people without triggering all these phenomena. Problem: Individual sensitivity varies widely. One person’s perfectly safe portion size is another person’s deadly dose. For instance, I’ve witnessed extreme differences, such as blood sugar 1 hour after eating 175 grams/6 ounces of unsweetened yogurt of 250 milligrams/decilitre in one person, 105 milligrams/decilitre in another. So checking 1-hour blood sugars is a reliable means of assessing individual sensitivity to carbs.

Many people don’t like the idea of checking blood sugars, however. Or there might be times when it’s inconvenient or unavailable. A useful alternative: Count carbohydrate grams. (Count ‘net’ carbohydrate grams, i.e., total carbohydrates minus fibre grams to yield ‘net’, or ‘effective’, carbs, i.e., the carbs that are actually digested, not just passively passing through like fibre.) Most people can tolerate 14 to 15 ‘net’ grams of carbohydrates per meal and deal with them effectively. Only the most sensitive people, for example, people with diabetes or individuals with an inherited tendency for high triglycerides, are intolerant to even this amount and do better with no more than 10 grams per meal. Then there are the genetically gifted from a carbohydrate perspective: people who can tolerate 20, 40, 50 or more grams at a sitting.

People will sometimes say things like ‘I eat 200 grams of carbohydrate per day, and I’m normal weight and have perfect fasting blood sugar and lipids’. As in many things, the crude measures made are falsely reassuring. Glycation, for instance, from postprandial blood sugars of ‘only’ 140 milligrams/decilitre – typical after, say, a bowl of organic, stoneground, unsweetened oatmeal in a slender person – still works its unhealthy magic and over the long term will lead to cataracts, arthritis and other conditions.

Humans were not meant to consume an endless supply of readily digestible carbohydrates. Counting carbohydrates is a great way to ‘tighten up’ a carbohydrate restriction.

Reject this advice – eat more fat and eat no ‘healthy whole grains’ – and diabetes powerfully recedes. I’ve watched this happen many times.

However, if you have diabetes, there is the potential for dangerous hypoglycaemia (low blood sugars) when you eliminate all things wheat and are taking diabetes medications. The risks of hypoglycaemia are even greater if you eliminate wheat and restrict other carbohydrates, regardless of the source. In other words, as you become less diabetic and consume fewer foods that raise blood sugar, you may experience low blood sugars, much as a non-diabetic person taking diabetes medication might experience. For this reason, several pre-cautions should be taken (see ‘Caution: If You Have Diabetes . . . ’).

The Happy Wheat-free Gastrointestinal Tract

Ever notice how having a happy gastrointestinal tract is central to feeling good overall? If you are plagued by gas, cramps, abdominal discomfort and having to make panic runs to the toilet while making apologies to friends, it’s tough to feel good. Being free from these torments, on the other hand, with well-adjusted, happy bowels, makes all-around health more likely. Well, those of you in the former category, take heart: Relief from common gastrointestinal complaints is among the most common experiences in those who enjoy wheatlessness.

Remove wheat gliadin, gluten and lectins from your diet, and gastrointestinal health improves in a number of important ways. The dramatic relief from cramps, discomfort and bowel urgency provided by elimination of wheat, followed by prompt recurrence with re-exposure in the majority of people, is a frequent and consistent phenomenon. In other words, eat wheat and struggle with abdominal cramps and intermittent diarrhoea; eliminate wheat and experience relief for extended periods. Have a re-exposure to wheat products, purposely or inadvertently, and all the cramps, urgency and embarrassment rush back with renewed intensity, only to recede again with stopping wheat – on again, off again, on again, off again. Unfortunately, many in the gastroenterology community deny that these associations exist because they cannot view the destruction at the end of their endoscopes and often ascribe the symptoms to anxiety or depression or dismiss you as nuts and advise an anti-depressant or pill for anxiety. The fact that you can trigger symptoms with exposure and obtain relief with avoidance is sufficient proof to demonstrate a cause-effect relationship, regardless of whether some gastroenterologist ‘approves’ or not.

Among the most common gastrointestinal experiences with wheat elimination are:

• Acid reflux. Also known as reflux oesophagitis, acid reflux improves or disappears in the majority of people within days of stopping wheat. People taking drugs like Prilosec, Pepcid, Protonix, or antacids for years describe relief within 3 to 5 days of saying goodbye to wheat. I’ve witnessed countless people kiss their drugs goodbye after years of dependence with no recurrence of symptoms.

• Irritable bowel syndrome. Characterized by symptoms of excessive gas, cramps and intermittent diarrhoea and constipation, as well as bouts of bowel urgency, irritable bowel syndrome symptoms also disappear in the majority within days of saying goodbye to wheat. The drugs usually prescribed for this condition provide partial relief at best. The dietary strategy for relief – eat no wheat – works like a charm in the majority.

• Improved regularity. Most people find that, minus wheat, bowel regularity is paradoxically improved. I say ‘paradoxically’ because we’ve been told over and over again by healthcare experts and the food industry that wheat products containing plenty of fibre promote regularity. And they do – in wheat-eating individuals. Take away wheat and regularity improves in the majority, even in people with something called obstipation, or severe and unremitting constipation with bowel movements delayed for up to weeks at a time. (An occasional person experiences constipation with wheat elimination, but this situation responds to restoration of bowel flora. See ‘What If My Colon Says, “No Way!”?’ .)

• Reduced symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease. Serious inflammatory bowel conditions – ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease – are worsened by wheat consumption and improved with wheat avoidance. I find that the longer an individual with one of these conditions avoids wheat, the greater the relief, with substantial relief developing over extended periods of months or longer. The most common response is marked reduction in symptoms of cramps, diarrhoea and bleeding, though I have witnessed outright cure on several occasions.

I interpret the incredible ubiquity of improved gastrointestinal health with wheat elimination as evidence that this thing called modern wheat was never meant for human consumption.

Caution: If You Have Diabetes . . .

‘There is not a shred of evidence that sugar, per se, has anything to do with getting diabetes’.

Richard Kahn, PhD,

recently retired chief scientific and medical officer, American Diabetes Association

Dr Kahn’s comment echoes conventional thinking on diabetes: Eat all the grains and sweets you want; just be sure to talk to your doctor about diabetes medications.

If you eat foods that increase blood sugar, it increases your need for diabetes medications. If you reduce or eliminate foods that increase blood sugar, then it decreases your need for diabetes medications. The equation for most people with adult, or type 2, diabetes is really that simple.

But several precautions are necessary if you are diabetic and are taking certain diabetes drugs. The potential danger is hypoglycaemia,