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Why Does My Stomach Hurt?

And why do my joints ache, and my bowels rumble, and my feet swell, and my . . .?

Eat some jelly beans, and you get a blood sugar rise, grow some tummy fat and rot your teeth. Drink a carbonated soft drink, and you get a blood sugar rise, grow some tummy fat and rot your teeth. End of story.

But eat wheat, and you get a blood sugar rise, grow some tummy fat, rot your teeth – and experience increased appetite, addiction, acid reflux, bowel urgency, joint pain, leg swelling, migraine headaches, skin rashes, dandruff, moodiness, sleeplessness, depression, seizures, dementia and on and on. No other food is capable of such head-to-toe destruction of health – not jelly beans, not bag after bag of M&M’s, not soft drinks by the litre bottle, not high-fructose corn syrup. (I know of a few poisons that can do the same, however.)

We consume this genetically altered (notice that I did not say genetically modified, the imprecise and elusive terminology of those wily geneticists) form of wheat. You’ve been eating it, sharing it with friends and family, feeding it to your kids. You’ve been choosing multigrain over white because you were told it was a healthier choice. You’ve been loading up with bran cereal at breakfast to keep your colon working smoothly. And pasta? A low-fat staple at the dinner table.

The problem: Modern wheat is not the wheat of your mother’s day, nor is it the wheat of the 19th century. It is far removed from the wheat of the Bible and vastly different from the wheat that grew wild and was first consumed by hunter-gatherer humans.

So what happens to us modern humans who’ve been consuming this stuff, told by all ‘official’ sources of dietary advice to eat more ‘healthy whole grains’ that come from high-yield, semi-dwarf strains of wheat?

I’m afraid it’s not a short list. The list of effects – no, the catalogue of effects – that derive from consuming quantities of this modern creation of genetics research reads like a description of all the ills of modern life, hauntingly familiar in that it likely describes the people around you, perhaps even you.

Every wheat-consuming individual will not experience all of the effects discussed. You might experience, for instance, ‘only’ acid reflux and disrupted intestinal health, or ‘only’ appetite stimulation and addictive behaviour. But no individual is entirely immune to the effects. Let me say that again: No individual is entirely immune to the effects of consuming modern wheat. In other words, no matter who you are, no matter how good you look and feel, whether you are a winner on Dancing with the Stars or a champion at horseshoes, wheat works its magic on you. Nobody escapes the effects of modern wheat, whether you perceive them or not. And, given its ubiquity and incredible potential to exert so many effects on health, it is wise always to consider wheat as the culprit in just about any health condition you develop.

While most people perceive symptoms that can be blamed on consumption of wheat, some people have no symptoms at all but just have distortions of multiple metabolic phenomena beneath the surface. It might be high blood sugar or hidden inflammation from amylopectin A and gliadin; it might be increased flow of abnormal foreign substances into the bloodstream from wheat germ agglutinin – but it’s all there, smouldering away, taking its toll on long-term health.

This is why I do not advocate gluten elimination only for the gluten sensitive; I am advocating wheat elimination for everybody because we all experience undesirable effects from consuming this thing, not just the relative few with coeliac disease or blood-test-proven gluten intolerance.

So what does the unwitting wheat-eating individual experience by eating more wheat-containing ‘healthy whole grains’? Let’s pick the effects apart, one by one.

Blood Sugar Disasters

Consult any table of glycaemic index (GI) values that describes how high blood sugar ranges over the 90 to 120 minutes after consuming any food. You will see that two slices of wholemeal bread have a higher glycaemic index than nearly all other foods – higher than 6 teaspoons of table sugar, higher than a Snickers bar, higher than ice cream.

GI of wholemeal bread = 72

GI of sucrose (table sugar) = 59 to 65

(The GI of sucrose varies in different studies.)

GI of a Snickers bar: 41. Ice cream: 36.

Whole grains, such as 12-grain or multigrain breads that contain more fibre, do indeed have a somewhat lower GI, typically in the 50 to 55 range, around the same as a Milky Way bar.

Being told to ‘eat more healthy whole grains’ thereby provides advice to consume foods that send blood sugar through the roof for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. And note that the GI of foods is nearly always obtained by examining blood sugar behaviour in young, slender volunteers. The blood sugar rise is often far higher in older and overweight people. GI therefore describes the best-case scenario.

High blood sugar is unavoidably accompanied by high blood insulin, since insulin is required to clear the bloodstream of sugar and move it into muscles and organs for energy, and fat cells for storage. Just as wheat products, especially whole wheat products, increase blood sugar levels higher than nearly all other foods, wheat products also increase blood insulin levels higher than nearly all other foods, too.

Repetitive high levels of insulin set the stage for creating resistance to insulin, i.e., reduced responsiveness in muscle, the liver and other organs to the body’s own insulin. Insulin resistance is the fundamental process that leads to pre-diabetes and diabetes, situations in which the body can no longer cope with the carbohydrates driving repetitive high blood sugar, allowing blood sugars eventually to increase. Insulin resistance also causes the growth of deep abdominal fat, visceral fat, a form of fat that is highly inflammatory. Filled with white blood cells (like that in pus), visceral fat emits inflammatory proteins into the bloodstream, thereby increasing inflammation everywhere in the body, from your knees to your heart to your brain.

By the way, this metabolically messy situation of insulin resistance, pre-diabetic or diabetic blood sugar levels, and the visceral fat of a wheat belly is nearly always accompanied by having an abundant quantity of small, dense LDL particles, by far the most common cause of coronary heart disease and heart attacks today.

So high blood sugar leads to high blood insulin that, in turn, generates insulin resistance. Insulin resistance generates visceral fat that amplifies inflammation, which worsens insulin resistance and increases blood sugar and small LDL particles, starting the whole cycle over again, worse and worse and worse.

And it all started with your morning bagel.

Opiate of the Masses: Addiction and Withdrawal

The gliadins in wheat, particularly the new forms crafted by geneticists, are opiates. Wheat is therefore an opiate. Yes, wheat keeps company with Oxycontin, heroin and morphine.

It has been known for a century that opiates, when administered to laboratory animals or to humans, increase appetite. It was discovered around 30 years ago that the gliadin protein of wheat is, in effect, an opiate, as it yields digestive breakdown products that bind to the opiate receptors of the brain.

Gliadin is degraded in the gastrointestinal tract to smaller polypeptides called exorphins (exogenous morphine-like compounds), such as gluteomorphin and gliadorphin, that, once absorbed into the bloodstream, penetrate into the brain and bind to the opiate receptors, exerting effects similar to those of opiates such as morphine. Wheat opiates, however, stimulate less of a ‘high’ but are more potent stimulants of appetite.

The appetite-stimulating effect of wheat gliadin explains why people who eat more ‘healthy whole grains’ typically experience constant hunger: a 7:00 am breakfast of ‘high-fibre’ cereal followed by a growling stomach at 9:00 am with the need for a snack such as low-fat pretzels or crackers, hungry again at 11:00 am, hungry just a couple of hours after lunch, dinner at 6:00 pm followed by a need to snack at 8:00 pm Many people ‘graze’ all through the day or eat many small meals every 2 hours, a strategy endorsed by dietitians but representing nothing more than a pointless and counterproductive means of dealing with the constant cravings of the wheat-consumer.

Stop consuming wheat and appetite plummets. People report going through the day barely hungry at all. A common experience is having breakfast at 7:00 am followed by noticing that ‘It’s 1:00 pm. Perhaps I might eat something, but I’m not really that hungry.’ The after-dinner munchies that many people struggle with disappear. Total calorie intake drops by 400 or so calories per day, documented in both clinical studies and in real life. And that’s the average experience: Some people reduce calorie intake less than 400 calories per day, while others experience far greater reduction. Four hundred fewer calories per day, multiplied by 365 days per year – that’s a lot of food, 146,000 cumulative calories, and a lot of weight that can be lost effortlessly.

You can see why the failure to eliminate wheat explains why so many people struggle with weight-loss diets: because they failed to remove this appetite stimulant. Reducing calories becomes torture, like waving a syringe full of heroin at a helpless addict.

Where there’s spaghetti, there are meatballs. And where there’s addiction, there’s withdrawal. Yes, indeed: withdrawal from the opiate in wheat. Don’t believe it? Try this little experiment: Stop feeding your husband or kids wheat during a 72-hour period when you can control their diet (e.g., a long weekend), then sit back and watch the emotional fireworks. You’re likely to observe crying, yelling, nausea, incapacitating fatigue, begging for a roll or pretzel, sneaking off to the nearest convenience store for a ‘hit’. (Wheat withdrawal is such an important phenomenon that I discuss it in more detail in the next chapter.) You’ll quickly realize that you’ve been living with a family of opiate addicts, consuming their drug of choice cleverly disguised as a bran muffin, breakfast cereal or pizza.

Another caution: The longer you are wheat free, the more likely you will develop undesirable reactions when re-exposed, inadvertently or intentionally. I call these awful experiences wheat ‘re-exposure reactions’. (Readers and social media followers of Wheat Belly say they’ve been ‘wheated’.) Say you’ve been wheat free for 4 weeks, lost 1 stone 1 pound, been freed from irritable bowel syndrome symptoms and the funny rash that wouldn’t go away for 5 years. You eat a few of the crackers you let sit in your cupboard – what the heck, you’ve been so good! – and you’ve got yourself a case of diarrhoea and cramps, bloating, pain in your elbows and shoulders, and a recurrence of the rash, very common re-exposure reactions. Other common re-exposure reactions include headache, asthma and sinus congestion (in those prone), and emotional effects, especially sadness, hopelessness, anxiety and anger. Re-exposure reactions last from hours to days. Gastrointestinal reactions like diarrhoea tend to dissipate over a day or two, while joint pains can persist for days to weeks. You will survive, but for many of us, the experience is so unpleasant that no indulgence makes it worth the pain and hassle.

Weight Gain: Grow Your Very Own Wheat Belly

If the gliadin protein of wheat, changed by geneticists in their efforts to increase yield, stimulates appetite and increases calorie consumption by 400 or more calories per day, 365 days per year, what happens to us unsuspecting participants in this national experiment? We get fat. Given the unique properties of wheat’s amylopectin A to raise blood sugar and insulin levels, we gain the weight mostly around our middles, evidenced on the surface by what I call a wheat belly, and evidenced on CT scans and MRIs as deep visceral fat encircling the intestines and other abdominal organs.

And we don’t just get a little bit fat. Many of us get really fat, sufficient to send our body mass indexes (see ‘What Is Your Body Mass Index [BMI]?’) to 30 and above, falling into the range classified as obese, or even morbidly or super-obese with BMIs of 40 and over, the group growing the fastest. Such classifications have only become a matter of necessity in the last 25 years, since these extreme ranges of overweight were previously uncommon, rarely seen outside of circus tents and peep shows.

Recall that modern semi-dwarf strains of wheat were introduced in the mid- to late 1970s, with only a few per cent of farmers adopting this crop viewed as peculiar in 1979. As more and more farmers began to observe the startling surges in yield-per-acre of high-yield, semi-dwarf strains, this wheat was rapidly embraced in the early 1980s. By 1985, virtually every wheat product you bought – white, whole grain, organic, sprouted – came from high-yield, semi-dwarf wheat.

Oddly, data collected by the USDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that 1985 also marks the year when calorie intake began to climb, increasing 440 calories per day, every day, 365 days a year. Increased calorie intake leads to weight gain, year after wheat-consuming year. It means we have obese adults, obese elderly, obese teenagers, obese children – more overweight, obese and super-obese people than ever before in the history of man.

What Is Your Body Mass Index (BMI)?

To calculate your BMI, plug your weight and height into the following equation:

BMI = [weight in pounds ÷ (height in inches)²] x 703

Alternatively, go to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s BMI calculator at www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi.

BMI is often used as an assessment of the appropriateness of weight for height, or as an index of health. It is not perfect, as it does not factor in such differences as body shape, muscle mass and other variations among us humans. Nonetheless, it is often used to compare differences in weight in populations and is often cited in clinical studies.

Classifications of BMI:

Underweight = <18.5	Obese = 30 or greater
Normal weight = 18.5–24.9	Super-obese = 40 or greater
Overweight = 25–29.9

Recent findings in experimental models also suggest that the lectin in wheat, wheat germ agglutinin, may block the hormone leptin, meaning the body becomes unresponsive to the satiating effects of this hormone. Obese people have inappropriately high levels of this hormone when it should be low, given their overnourished state. If this holds true in future studies and wheat lectins prove to block the satiating effect of leptin, it will become clear that wheat consumption essentially equals weight gain. ‘Eat more healthy whole grains’: a perfect formula for obesity.

Diabetes: You Get What You Ask For

The ‘official’ explanation for the 30-year climb in collective weight and the diabetes that results from it? We are all lazy and gluttonous. We drink too many soft drinks and watch too much TV. If we would just exercise more and cut our calories, we would return to the age of slender Jimmy Stewarts and Donna Reeds.

Let’s consider an alternative explanation. If the amylopectin A of wheat, what dietitians call a complex carbohydrate, increases blood sugar more than simple sugars such as table sugar and many chocolate bars, then surely it must increase the likelihood of diabetes. Wheat products increase blood sugar every time you eat them. Eating more ‘healthy whole grains’ ensures high blood sugar levels, along with all the phenomena that follow, including insulin resistance that results in diabetes.

It is well-established fact that foods with a high glycaemic index promote diabetes, while foods with a low glycaemic index – or, even better, no glycaemic index – make diabetes less likely. What food has among the highest glycaemic indexes of all foods out there? Yup: Foods made of wheat. Ironically, whole wheat is worse than white (though both are bad, of course). Whole grain and multigrain products improve the situation a bit, but remain triggers of high blood sugar despite the extra fibre and B vitamins. After all, whole grain, whole wheat, white – it all comes from the same semi-dwarf wheat plant bearing the same amylopectin A.

Gain 2 stone 2 pounds, 2 stone 12 pounds, 4 stone 4 pounds or more, especially in the visceral fat of the abdomen, and most people become pre-diabetic or diabetic. And, indeed, during the mid- to late 1980s, as products made with semi-dwarf wheat flour proliferated, expanding from only breads and rolls to liquorice, instant soups, frozen dinners and nearly all other processed foods, a surge in the incidence of these conditions began, accelerating through the 1990s. The numbers reflecting the incidence of diabetes are now a vertical climb, straight upwards since 2008.

Conventional wisdom, of course, argues the opposite: Consuming more healthy whole grains is associated with reduced likelihood of diabetes. And that is true – if you compare whole grain consumption to consumption of processed white flour products. Study after study conducted over the past 30 years, including such ambitious studies as the Nurses’ Health Study of 80,000 women, or the Physicians’ Health Study of 30,000 professionals, all demonstrated the significant health benefits of consuming healthy whole grains . . . over white flour. Okay, so let’s follow the logic of these studies.

If you replace something bad with something less bad and there is an apparent health benefit, then a whole bunch of the less bad thing must be good.

If there are health benefits to consuming something less bad, what are the effects of complete removal? In other words, what happens when wheat products, white and whole grains, are completely eliminated from the diet? That, too, has indeed been studied, but the dramatic weight loss and reductions of blood sugar and HbA1c (a measure that reflects blood sugar fluctuations over the prior 2 to 3 months) are often dismissed as due to malnutrition (discussed further in the next chapter). As with many things wheat, the answers have been there all along – just not recognized for what they were.

Recall that wheat is also an opiate, due to the gliadin protein that converts to exorphins upon digestion, and that this opiate acts as an appetite stimulant. It means that consumption of modern wheat sends blood sugar higher than nearly all other foods while stimulating appetite to consume more calories. Eat more calories, desire more food, send blood sugar higher again and again, and you’ve got yourself a perfect situation to cultivate diabetes.

But you, your friends and your family are all accused of being gluttonous and lazy. You’ve gained weight, developed insulin resistance and become pre-diabetic or diabetic because of your love affair with chips, Mountain Dew and your sofa. I believe all that is true – for many 10- to 14-year-olds. But what about all the health-conscious adults who exercise, avoid junk foods and eat more ‘healthy whole grains’?

Unwinding this metabolic disaster is powerfully accomplished by eliminating all things wheat. Additional benefit is obtained, however, by restricting other carbohydrates as well, from chocolate bars to fruit. More on that in the next chapter.

The Gastrointestinal Battleground

You deliver wheat products directly into your gastrointestinal tract, starting at the mouth and on down for another 30 or more feet. It therefore serves as the front line for the wheat battle.

We know that many people experience gastrointestinal distress from gluten in wheat (actually the gliadin within gluten, as well as glutenin). Of course, gluten is primarily responsible for coeliac disease, a condition marked by destructive changes in the intestinal lining that result in abdominal pain, cramps, diarrhoea, impaired absorption of nutrients, haemorrhage and occasionally death; it affects approximately 1 per cent of the population. Of the approximately 2.4 million Americans who have coeliac disease, 90 per cent don’t know it, making it among the most underdiagnosed of chronic diseases. And it’s gotten worse: Over the last 50 years, we’ve witnessed a quadrupling of the incidence of coeliac disease, a doubling over the past 20 years.

Gluten also disrupts the gastrointestinal tracts of people without coeliac disease, resulting in common complaints such as acid reflux, heartburn, excessive gas, abdominal cramping, diarrhoea and constipation. (See ‘Gluten Sensitivity: Is There Such a Thing?’.) Gluten sensitivity can develop in people with abnormal antibodies to gliadin; it can develop in people without abnormal antibodies to gliadin. Coeliac disease and gluten sensitivity combined affect up to 10 per cent of the American population, but the intestinal disruptive effects of wheat add up to far more than 10 per cent of the population, with more people experiencing the heartburn of acid reflux, the bowel urgency and crampiness of irritable bowel syndrome, and the worsening of symptoms (diarrhoea, cramps, gas, pain) of ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.

The lectin in wheat, wheat germ agglutinin, because it has a direct toxic effect on the intestinal tract, adds to the intestinal disruption of gluten. After all, lectins are potentially poisonous proteins in plants meant to protect them from insects, moulds, and other predators. Wheat germ agglutinin is the stuff that permits abnormal intestinal permeability to develop, allowing foreign substances – including wheat germ agglutinin itself – to gain access to the bloodstream in small quantities. (In larger quantities, direct injection of wheat germ agglutinin into the bloodstream of laboratory animals is rapidly fatal.) Once in the bloodstream, wheat germ agglutinin and its hordes of unwanted foreign compounds then migrate to your liver, joints, brain and just about everywhere else in the body, leading to inflammation and abnormal conditions in these organs. It means that people who consume wheat, and thereby wheat germ agglutinin, are more likely to experience inflammatory diseases or experience worsened symptoms of existing conditions, such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjögren’s syndrome, polymyalgia rheumatica, polymyositis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, seborrhoea, psoriasis and a long list of other inflammatory and autoimmune conditions.

Gluten Sensitivity: Is There Such a Thing?

For years, many doctors denied that there was such a thing as coeliac disease, the intestinal destruction that develops from wheat gliadin/gluten consumption in genetically predisposed individuals. But only the most intransigent (read: ‘crazy’) among my colleagues can continue to deny that coeliac disease is a genuine – and potentially devastating – disease.

Doctors are now struggling with the notion of gluten sensitivity, a reaction to the gluten in wheat but not achieving the severity of coeliac disease. While not everybody agrees on how to define gluten sensitivity, the most common definition is that of showing symptoms of sensitivity to wheat gluten, such as acid reflux, abdominal pain, cramps and diarrhoea, that disappear with elimination of wheat. Despite the apparent response to wheat/gluten removal, intestinal biopsy (which usually reveals extensive damage in coeliac patients) shows either no evidence of damage in those with gluten sensitivity, or inflammatory changes without damage.

One recent and important Italian study demonstrated that 56.4 per cent of people identified with gluten sensitivity, but lacking the intestinal damage associated with coeliac disease, are positive for the IgG antigliadin antibody (i.e., an antibody to the gliadin protein in wheat), but not for other markers. In other words, many people demonstrate evidence of an abnormal antibody response to the gliadin protein in gluten but don’t have coeliac disease.

Other studies have demonstrated that gluten consumption, even when subjects are blinded to what they are consuming, generates symptoms in people without coeliac disease.

Gluten sensitivity can extend beyond the gastrointestinal tract, with new descriptions of neurological impairment, especially cerebellar ataxia (loss of coordination and bladder control due to destruction of the cerebellum at the base of the brain) and peripheral neuropathy (destruction of the nerves of the legs, arms and organs). In one study, 57 per cent of people with unexplained neurological impairment were positive for antibodies against gliadin, while only 5 per cent of people with neurological impairment from known diseases (e.g., stroke) showed positive gliadin antibodies. Typically, people with these forms of neurological impairment do not have coeliac disease.

This is not just an academic debate. Observations suggest that gluten sensitivity not only can result in intestinal inflammation and neurological symptoms, but also increases mortality.

Because it required about 40 years for the concept of coeliac disease to even begin to gain wide acceptance in the medical community, it is another leap for most doctors to believe that there is another form of intolerance to wheat gluten that extends beyond coeliac disease.

Problem: If 56.4 per cent of participants in the Italian study experienced relief from abdominal symptoms with wheat removal, it means that the remaining 43.6 per cent experienced relief by saying goodbye to all foods containing wheat – but had no evidence of abnormal immune response to gliadin. Researchers from the world of gastroenterology don’t know what to do with this bothersome 43.6 per cent, dismissing it as an uncertain group, a group prone to placebo effects, or just plain nuts.

Now that you have a better appreciation that wheat is about more than just gluten and gliadin, you can readily surmise that at least some of those 43.6 per cent in the Italian study who had symptoms associated with wheat consumption and experienced relief with wheat elimination included people who likely reacted to wheat germ agglutinin, or experienced reactions to glutenin, alpha amylase inhibitors or any one or more of the many other relatively uncharted and unique compounds in modern wheat. It’s not all about gluten.

One lesson is clear: If modern medicine cannot identify the blood marker or the biopsy evidence that active destruction of some organ is actively occurring, then there’s nothing wrong. (You know how many people I’ve seen placed on antidepressants, pain-relieving drugs and narcotics, and antiseizure drugs, all to treat wheat consumption? I lost count long ago.)

In the march of scientific progress in charting the adverse consequences of consumption of modern wheat, along each step of the way we learn that many of the people who complained of a variety of health problems, but were dismissed as cranks, nuts or undiagnosable, prove to have some form of unhealthy reaction to one or another component of wheat.

In short, the human intestinal tract is poorly equipped to endure the onslaught of the dual toxic effects of wheat gluten and lectin, resulting in a battleground strewn with casualties, experienced as an astounding range of gastrointestinal and inflammatory illnesses, and managed with all manner of drugs and procedures.

Neurological Impairment: Wheat Brain

Among the most disturbing associations between wheat and ill health are the associations being made between consumption of this man-made grain and the deterioration of the brain and nervous system.

Anecdotally, mind ‘fog’ is exceptionally common with consumption of wheat. It is likely due to the mind effects of gliadin that are also responsible for addictive behaviour, worsened by the hypoglycaemia that typically develops after amylopectin A’s extravagant blood sugar high. But the effects of wheat on the human brain go far deeper than that.

While coeliac disease is usually regarded as a disease confined to the intestinal tract, over the last few years coeliac disease has become less a disease of diarrhoea and cramps, and more a disease of nervous system impairment and psychiatric problems. Rather than developing diarrhoea, people with coeliac disease more recently tend to demonstrate impaired coordination, difficulty controlling their bladders and a wide variety of other nervous system derangements.

Most nervous system involvement has been confined to people with abnormal immune markers (such as increased levels of transglutaminase, endomysial or gliadin antibodies) to wheat typical of coeliac disease or gluten sensitivity, though many do not experience intestinal symptoms. Nervous system involvement is especially worrisome, as it is difficult to diagnose, since it yields symptoms that most doctors would not associate with wheat consumption, and is not fully reversible. Cerebellar ataxia, for instance, involving loss of balance and bladder control and destructive changes in the cerebellum (the region of the brain responsible for co-ordination) seen as atrophy (shrinkage) on MRI, with a typical age of onset of 48 to 53 years, has been linked to wheat consumption. Peripheral neuropathy, the loss of sensation in the legs or the loss of bladder and bowel control, may be due to wheat consumption in as many as 50 per cent of those afflicted when no other cause can be identified. Even dementia from wheat has been identified, recently documented by a study from the Mayo Clinic and identified at autopsy – yes, fatal dementia from wheat.

The effects of wheat consumption on the human brain can also involve seizures, typically of the temporal lobe variety but also grand mal, and migraine headaches.

You don’t have to have coeliac disease or gluten sensitivity for wheat to exert effects on your brain. We know that gliadin gains access to the brain, yielding the appetite-stimulating opiate effect that increases calorie consumption. Gliadin is also the probable cause of behavioural effects (reduced attention span and behavioral outbursts) in children with autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Gliadin is likely to blame for the worsening of auditory hallucinations, social detachment and paranoia of paranoid schizophrenia and the manic phase of bipolar illness. Gliadin effects in these conditions are reversible: They occur with wheat consumption; they dissipate with wheat avoidance.

In most of us, wheat does not generate auditory hallucinations or destruction of the cerebellum. But it does induce appetite to the tune of 400 or more calories per day, every day. Think about this: What if Big Food and Big Agribusiness got hold of such information? Would they warn us – or just put wheat in everything?

Inflammation: Going Down in Flames

Signs of inflammatory processes gone awry in the wheat-consuming individual are common. Typical signs include painful wrists and hands, painful elbows and shoulders, worsening of arthritis in knees and hips, and tender ankles and shins when touched. If any form of inflammatory disease is present, such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus, wheat is the gasoline on the fire, typically worsening inflammation and resulting in greater pain, swelling, rash, etc.

Inflammation is a fundamental process that underlies an astoundingly wide range of conditions, such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, diabetes, Sjögren’s syndrome, scleroderma, polymyositis, polymyalgia rheumatica, coronary disease and heart attacks, even cancer – to name just a few in a long, long list. The elaborate processes of inflammation can be initiated by a variety of triggers, including nutritional deficiencies (e.g., vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids), chronic infections (e.g., gingivitis, intestinal bacterial overgrowth), ingestion of oxidized compounds (e.g., polyunsaturated fatty acids, foods cooked at high temperature), autoimmune processes in which the body’s immune defences mistakenly attack normal tissue (e.g., Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, autoimmune hepatitis), and ingestion of toxic substances. The last two paths are especially relevant to our wheat conversation.

Wheat is an especially prominent player in the complex web of inflammation: The direct toxic effects of wheat germ agglutinin and the indirect toxic effects of gliadin get the fires of inflammation started; autoimmune processes are set in motion by the abnormal entry of foreign substances into the bloodstream allowed by wheat germ agglutinin; and the inflammation-stoking effects of visceral fat further fan the flames.

The process starts with the direct toxic effects and intestinal leakiness created by wheat germ agglutinin. Foreign compounds gain access to the bloodstream, some of which intensify ongoing inflammatory responses, while others mistakenly generate autoimmune responses, immune responses errantly waged against the body’s own proteins, which is the signature process underlying conditions such as autoimmune hepatitis and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

Gliadin, the wheat protein responsible for coeliac disease, indirectly provokes inflammation in the lining of the intestinal tract. Gliadin triggers the entry of inflammatory T-cell lymphocytes, damaging the fine hair-like villi lining the intestinal tract, and invites a barrage of inflammatory proteins such as interferons and interleukins. People with non-coeliac gluten sensitivity show inflammation from gliadin. Although it doesn’t wreak the same degree of destruction of the delicate villous lining, inflammatory changes, such as infiltration of inflammatory lymphocytes, are seen.

The visceral fat of the wheat belly that lines the intestinal tract or encircles the liver, pancreas and kidneys, thanks to repeated bouts of high blood sugar and insulin, amplifies inflammation. Visceral fat is itself inflamed. If biopsied, it appears to be riddled with white blood cells, not unlike the pus that oozes from an inflamed wound. Visceral fat, often reflected on the surface as ‘love handles’ or a ‘muffin top’, also pours inflammatory proteins into the bloodstream, proteins like tumour necrosis factor and leptin that export inflammation out from visceral fat and into all other areas of the body.

All the pieces in wheat add up to an incredibly effective vehicle for generating inflammation in multiple organs, head to toe. How’d those biscuits taste?

Make Your Skin Crawl

The skin is the largest organ of the human body, serving functions such as temperature regulation, insulation against water loss and protection from bacteria and other potential invaders.

Think of the skin as the outward reflection of internal health. Rashes, acne, itchiness, pain – all can reflect something going on inside. Skin health may especially reveal gastrointestinal health. So a rash may not simply be a rash; it may provide insight into some process gone awry in, say, the small intestine, pancreas and liver.

Dermatologists typically biopsy rashes, then treat them with steroid creams and toxic drugs like dapsone, sulphameth-oxypridazine and isotretinoin (Accutane). It is not uncommon for dermatologists to have no idea why you have a rash and have no choice of treatments except to shotgun it with drugs, wear long-sleeved shirts and long trousers, and grin and bear it.

Skin problems are rampant in wheat-consuming individuals. The most frequent problem is a dry red rash along the edges of the nose and on the cheeks. Dermatologists call this seborrhoea. However, it is so common and so typical of wheat consumption that I recognize this as a wheat rash.

Dandruff, itchy rashes of eczema and seborrhoea-like rashes on the elbows are also common expressions of wheat consumption. The thick, silvery, scaly rash of psoriasis is another very common expression of wheat consumption.

Dermatitis herpetiformis, a herpes-like rash (but not caused by the herpes virus), is the signature rash of people with a coeliac disease tendency (characterized by having abnormal immune markers to wheat, such as increased levels of transglutaminase antibodies). It is an angry-looking, itchy rash that occurs symmetrically on the body. Although it occurs in people with a genetic susceptibility to coeliac disease, intestinal symptoms of coeliac disease are not usually present.

In truth, the list of skin conditions that can develop from consumption of wheat is easily four pages long. It includes such peculiar conditions as acanthosis nigricans, black velvety patches on the back of the neck, armpits and elbows; dermatomyositis, a rash that occurs along with muscle weakness and inflammation, resulting in difficulty walking and climbing stairs, and blood vessel inflammation; and alopecia, or hair loss from the head or other areas. Wheat causes so many skin conditions that I believe it makes sense to always consider wheat consumption as the underlying cause of all rashes until proven otherwise.

Death, Taxes and Wheat

Nobody escapes the effects of wheat. They might be visible on the surface, they might be hidden deep within your stomach, intestinal tract, bloodstream or brain, but they’re there, working their effects.

If I told you that eating green peppers triggered increased appetite, wreaked havoc on your gastrointestinal tract, exerted neurological destruction in susceptible people, screwed with insulin and blood sugar, damaged joints, etc., then I’m sure you would say, ‘Well, I’ll never have a green pepper again!’ (Innocent green peppers do not do any of this, of course.) So why is it so hard to persuade people that these things happen with consumption of their beloved bagels, croissants and pancakes? Most people say convenience: Wheat products are portable and available. But I think it’s more than that. I say it’s because this thing has a hold on you, an opiate-like comfort that you crave, and distinctly unpleasant feelings when you lack it. And this effect is not lost on the food industry, which happily accommodates your addiction, making sure it includes a bit of wheat in everything.

We then take medications for acid reflux and irritable bowel syndrome, drugs for joint pain, diuretics for leg swelling and water retention, cholesterol drugs for high cholesterol, anti-inflammatory drugs for inflammation and pain. . . . We are, in effect, treating the effects of wheat consumption.

You cannot avoid taxes. You certainly cannot sidestep death. But you can sure say goodbye to wheat.