Читать книгу Wheat Belly - William MD Davis - Страница 13
ОглавлениеHEY, MAN, WANNA BUY SOME EXORPHINS? THE ADDICTIVE PROPERTIES OF WHEAT
ADDICTION. WITHDRAWAL. DELUSIONS. Hallucinations. I’m not describing mental illness or a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I’m talking about this food you invite into your kitchen, share with friends and dunk in your tea.
I will discuss why wheat is unique among foods for its curious effects on the brain, effects shared with opiate drugs. It explains why some people experience incredible difficulty removing wheat from their diet. It’s not just a matter of inadequate resolve, inconvenience or breaking well-worn habits; it’s about severing a relationship with something that gains hold of your psyche and emotions, not unlike the hold heroin has over the desperate addict.
While you knowingly consume coffee and alcohol to obtain specific mind effects, wheat is something you consume for ‘nutrition’, not for a ‘fix’. Like drinking the Kool-Aid at the Jim Jones revival meeting, you may not even be aware that this thing, endorsed by all ‘official’ agencies, is fiddling with your mind.
People who eliminate wheat from their diet typically report improved mood, fewer mood swings, improved ability to concentrate and deeper sleep within just days to weeks of their last bite of bagel or baked lasagna. These sorts of ‘soft’ subjective experiences on our brains, however, are tough to quantify. They are also subject to the placebo effect – i.e., people just think they’re feeling better. I am, however, impressed with how consistent these observations are, experienced by the majority of people once the initial withdrawal effects of mental fog and fatigue subside. I’ve personally experienced these effects and also witnessed them in thousands of people.
It is easy to underestimate the psychological pull of wheat. Just how dangerous can an innocent bran muffin be, after all?
‘BREAD IS MY CRACK!’
Wheat is a food that is unparalleled for its potential to generate entirely unique effects on the brain and nervous system. There is no doubt: for some people, wheat is addictive. And, in some people, it is addictive to the point of obsession.
Some people with wheat addiction just know they have a wheat addiction. Or perhaps they identify it as an addiction to some wheat-containing food, such as pasta or pizza. They already understand, even before I tell them, that their wheat-food-addiction-of-choice provides a little ‘high’. I still get shivers when a well-dressed, suburban mum desperately confesses to me, ‘Bread is my crack. I just can’t give it up!’
Wheat can dictate food choice, calorie consumption, timing of meals and snacks. It can influence behaviour and mood. It can even come to dominate thoughts. A number of my patients, when presented with the suggestion of removing it from their diets, report obsessing over wheat products to the point of thinking about them, talking about them, salivating over them constantly for weeks. ‘I can’t stop thinking about bread. I dream about bread!’ they tell me, leading some to succumb to a wheat-consuming frenzy and give up within days after starting.
There is, of course, a flip side to addiction. When people divorce themselves from wheat-containing products, 30 per cent experience something that can only be called withdrawal.
I’ve personally witnessed hundreds of people report extreme fatigue, mental fog, irritability, inability to function at work or school, even depression in the first several days to weeks after eliminating wheat. Complete relief is achieved by a bagel or cupcake (or, sadly, more like four bagels, two cupcakes, a bag of pretzels, two muffins and a handful of brownies, followed the next morning by a nasty case of wheat remorse). It’s a vicious circle. Abstain from a substance and a distinctly unpleasant experience ensues; resume it, the unpleasant experience ceases – that sounds a lot like addiction and withdrawal to me.
People who haven’t experienced these effects pooh-pooh it all, thinking it strains credibility to believe that something as pedestrian as wheat can affect the central nervous system much as nicotine or crack cocaine do.
There is a scientifically plausible reason for both the addiction and withdrawal effects. Not only does wheat exert effects on the normal brain, but also on the vulnerable abnormal brain, with results beyond simple addiction and withdrawal. Studying the effects of wheat on the abnormal brain can teach us some lessons on why and how wheat can be associated with such phenomena.
WHEAT AND THE SCHIZOPHRENIC MIND
The first important lessons on the effects wheat has on the brain came through studying its effects on people with schizophrenia.
Schizophrenics lead a difficult life. They struggle to differentiate reality from internal fantasy, often entertaining delusions of persecution, even believing their minds and actions are controlled by external forces. (Remember ‘Son of Sam’ David Berkowitz, the New York City serial killer who stalked his victims on instructions received from his dog? Thankfully, violent behaviour is unusual in schizophrenics, but it illustrates the depth of pathology possible.) Once schizophrenia is diagnosed, there is little hope of leading a normal life of work, family and children. A life of institutionalisation, medications with awful side effects and a constant struggle with dark internal demons lies ahead.
So what are the effects of wheat on the vulnerable schizophrenic mind?
The earliest formal connection of the effects of wheat on the schizophrenic brain began with the work of psychiatrist F. Curtis Dohan, whose observations ranged as far as Europe and New Guinea. Dr Dohan journeyed down this line of investigation because he observed that, during World War II, the men and women of Finland, Norway, Sweden, Canada and the United States required fewer hospitalisations for schizophrenia when food shortages made bread unavailable, only to require an increased number of hospitalisations when wheat consumption resumed after the war was over.1
Dr Dohan observed a similar pattern in the hunter-gatherer Stone Age culture of New Guinea. Prior to the introduction of Western influence, schizophrenia was virtually unknown, diagnosed in only 2 of 65,000 inhabitants. As Western eating habits infiltrated the New Guinean population and cultivated wheat products, beer made from barley, and corn were introduced, Dr Dohan watched the incidence of schizophrenia skyrocket sixty-five-fold.2 On this background, he set out to develop the observations that established whether or not there was a cause-and-effect relationship between wheat consumption and schizophrenia.
In the mid-sixties, while working at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Philadelphia, Dr Dohan and his colleagues decided to remove all wheat products from meals provided to schizophrenic patients without their knowledge or permission. (This was in the era before informed consent of participants was required, and before the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment became publicised, which triggered public outrage and led to legislation requiring fully informed participant consent.) Lo and behold, four weeks sans wheat and there were distinct and measurable improvements in the hallmarks of the disease: a reduced number of auditory hallucinations, fewer delusions, less detachment from reality. Psychiatrists then added the wheat products back into their patients’ diets and the hallucinations, delusions and social detachment rushed right back. Remove wheat again, patients and symptoms got better; add it back, they got worse.3
The Philadelphia observations in schizophrenics were corroborated by psychiatrists at the University of Sheffield, with similar conclusions.4 There have since even been reports of complete remission of the disease, such as the seventy-year-old schizophrenic woman described by Duke University doctors, suffering with delusions, hallucinations and suicide attempts with sharp objects and cleaning solutions over a period of fifty-three years, who experienced complete relief from psychosis and suicidal desires within eight days of stopping wheat.5
While it seems unlikely that wheat exposure caused schizophrenia in the first place, the observations of Dr Dohan and others suggest that wheat is associated with measurable worsening of symptoms.
Another condition in which wheat may exert effects on a vulnerable mind is autism. Autistic children suffer from impaired ability to interact socially and communicate. The condition has increased in frequency over the past forty years, from rare in the mid-twentieth century to 1 in 150 children in the twenty-first.6 Initial small samples have demonstrated improvement in autistic behaviours with wheat-gluten removal.7, 8 The most comprehensive clinical trial to date involved fifty-five autistic Danish children, with formal measures of autistic behaviour showing improvement with gluten elimination (along with elimination of casein from dairy).9
While it remains a topic of debate, a substantial proportion of children and adults with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may also respond to elimination of wheat. However, responses are often muddied due to sensitivities to other components of diet, such as sugars, artificial sweeteners, additives and dairy.10
It is unlikely that wheat exposure was the initial cause of autism or ADHD but, as with schizophrenia, wheat appears to be associated with worsening of the symptoms characteristic of the conditions.
Though the laboratory rat treatment of the unsuspecting schizophrenic patients in the Philadelphia VA Hospital may send chills down our spines from the comfort of our fully informed and consenting twenty-first century, it is nevertheless a graphic illustration of wheat’s effect on mental function. But why in the world are schizophrenia, autism and ADHD exacerbated by wheat? What is in this grain that worsens psychosis and other abnormal behaviours?
Investigators at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) set out to find some answers.
EXORPHINS: THE WHEAT–MIND CONNECTION
Dr Christine Zioudrou and her colleagues at the NIH subjected gluten, the main protein of wheat, to a simulated digestive process to mimic what happens after we eat bread or other wheat-containing products.11 Exposed to pepsin (a stomach enzyme) and hydrochloric acid (stomach acid), gluten is degraded to a mix of polypeptides. The dominant polypeptides were then isolated and administered to laboratory rats. These polypeptides were discovered to have the peculiar ability to penetrate the blood–brain barrier that separates the bloodstream from the brain. This barrier is there for a reason. The brain is highly sensitive to the wide variety of substances that gain entry to the blood, some of which can provoke undesirable effects should they cross into your amygdala, hippocampus, cerebral cortex or other brain structure. Once having gained entry into the brain, wheat polypeptides bind to the brain’s morphine receptor, the very same receptor to which opiate drugs bind.
Zioudrou and her colleagues dubbed these polypeptides ‘exorphins’, short for exogenous morphine-like compounds, distinguishing them from endorphins, the endogenous (internally sourced) morphine-like compounds that occur, for instance, during a ‘runner’s high’. They named the dominant polypeptide that crossed the blood–brain barrier ‘gluteomorphin’, or morphine-like compound from gluten (though the name sounds to me more like a morphine shot in the butt). The investigators speculated that exorphins might be the active factors derived from wheat that account for the deterioration of schizophrenic symptoms seen in the Philadelphia VA Hospital and elsewhere.
Even more telling, the brain effect of gluten-derived polypeptides is blocked by administration of the drug naloxone.
Let’s pretend you’re an inner-city heroin addict. You get knifed during a drug deal gone sour and get carted to the nearest A&E. Because you’re high on heroin, you kick and scream at the staff trying to help you. So these nice people strap you down and inject you with a drug called naloxone, and you are instantly not high. Through the magic of chemistry, naloxone immediately reverses the action of heroin or any other opiate drug such as morphine or oxycodone.
In lab animals, administration of naloxone blocks the binding of wheat exorphins to the morphine receptor of brain cells. Yes, opiate-blocking naloxone prevents the binding of wheat-derived exorphins to the brain. The very same drug that turns off the heroin in a drug-abusing addict also blocks the effects of wheat exorphins.
In a World Health Organization study of thirty-two schizophrenic people with active auditory hallucinations, naloxone was shown to reduce hallucinations.12 Unfortunately, the next logical step – administering naloxone to schizophrenics eating a ‘normal’ wheat-containing diet compared to schizophrenics administered naloxone on a wheat-free diet – has not been studied. (Clinical studies that might lead to conclusions that don’t support drug use are often not performed. In this case, had naloxone shown benefit in wheat-consuming schizophrenics, the unavoidable conclusion would have been to eliminate wheat, not prescribe the drug.)
The schizophrenia experience shows us that wheat exorphins have the potential to exert distinct effects on the brain. Those of us without schizophrenia don’t experience auditory hallucinations from exorphins resulting from an onion bagel, but these compounds are still there in the brain, no different than in a schizophrenic. It also highlights how wheat is truly unique among grains, since other grains such as millet and flax do not generate exorphins (since they lack gluten), nor do they cultivate obsessive behaviour or withdrawal in people with normal brains or people with abnormal brains.
So this is your brain on wheat: digestion yields morphine-like compounds that bind to the brain’s opiate receptors. It induces a form of reward, a mild euphoria. When the effect is blocked or no exorphin-yielding foods are consumed, some people experience a distinctly unpleasant withdrawal.
What happens if normal (i.e., nonschizophrenic) humans are given opiate-blocking drugs? In a study conducted at the Psychiatric Institute of the University of South Carolina, wheat-consuming participants given naloxone consumed 33 per cent fewer calories at lunch and 23 per cent fewer calories at dinner (a total of approximately 400 calories less over the two meals) than participants given a placebo.13 At the University of Michigan, binge eaters were confined to a room filled with food for one hour. (There’s an idea for a new TV show: The Biggest Gainer.) Participants consumed 28 per cent less wheat crackers, bread sticks and pretzels with administration of naloxone.14
In other words, block the euphoric reward of wheat and calorie intake goes down, since wheat no longer generates the favourable feelings that encourage repetitive consumption. (Predictably, this strategy is being pursued by the pharmaceutical industry to commercialise a weight loss drug that contains naltrexone, an oral equivalent to naloxone. The drug is purported to block the mesolimbic reward system buried deep within the human brain that is responsible for generating pleasurable feelings from heroin, morphine and other substances. Pleasurable feelings can be replaced by feelings of dysphoria, or unhappiness. Naltrexone will therefore be combined with the antidepressant and smoking-cessation drug bupropion.)
From withdrawal effects to psychotic hallucinations, wheat is party to some peculiar neurological phenomena. To recap:
Common wheat, upon digestion, yields polypeptides that possess the ability to cross into the brain and bind to opiate receptors.
The action of wheat-derived polypeptides, the so-called exorphins such as gluteomorphin, can be short-circuited with the opiate-blocking drugs naloxone and naltrexone.
When administered to normal people or people with uncontrollable appetite, opiate-blocking drugs yield reductions in appetite, cravings, and calorie intake, as well as dampen mood, and the effect seems particularly specific to wheat-containing products.
Wheat, in fact, nearly stands alone as a food with potent central nervous system effects. Outside of intoxicants such as ethanol (like that in your favourite merlot or chardonnay), wheat is one of the few foods that can alter behaviour, induce pleasurable effects and generate a withdrawal syndrome upon its removal. And it required observations in schizophrenic patients to teach us about these effects.
NIGHT CRAVINGS CONQUERED
For as long as he could remember, Larry struggled with weight.
It never made sense to him. He exercised, often to extremes. A 50-mile bike ride was not unusual, nor was a 15-mile walk in the woods or desert. As part of his work, Larry enjoyed the terrain of many different areas of the United States. His travel often took him to the southwest, where he hiked for up to six hours. He also prided himself on following a healthy diet: limiting his red meat and oils and eating plenty of vegetables and fruit and, yes, an abundance of ‘healthy whole grains’.
I met Larry because of a heart rhythm problem, an issue we dealt with easily. But his blood work was another issue. In short, it was a disaster: blood glucose in the low diabetic range, triglycerides too high at 210 mg/dl, HDL too low at 37 mg/dl, and 70 per cent of his LDL particles were the small heart disease-causing type. Blood pressure was an important issue with systolic (‘top’) values ranging up to 170 mmHg and diastolic (‘bottom’) values of 90 mmHg. Larry was also, at 5 feet 8 inches and 17 stone 5 pounds, nearly 6 stone overweight.
‘I don’t get it. I exercise like nobody you know. I really like exercise. But I just cannot – cannot – lose the weight, no matter what I do.’ Larry recounted his diet escapades that included an all-rice diet, protein drink programmes, ‘detox’ regimens, even hypnosis. They all resulted in a few pounds lost, only to be promptly regained. He did admit to one peculiar excess: ‘I really struggle with my appetite at night. After dinner, I can’t resist the urge to graze. I try to graze on the good stuff, like whole-wheat pretzels and these multigrain crackers I have with a yoghurt dip. But I’ll sometimes eat all night from dinner until I go to bed. I don’t know why, but something happens at night and I just can’t stop.’
I counselled Larry on the need to remove the number one most powerful appetite stimulant in his diet: wheat. Larry gave me that ‘not another kooky idea!’ look. After a big sigh, he agreed to give it a go. With four teenagers in the house, clearing the shelves of all things wheat was quite a task, but he and his wife did it.
Larry returned to my office six weeks later. He reported that, within three days, his nighttime cravings had disappeared entirely. He now ate dinner and was satisfied with no need to graze. He also noticed that his appetite was much smaller during the day and his desire for snacks virtually disappeared. He also admitted that, now that his craving for food was much less, his calorie intake and portion size was a fraction of its former level. With no change in his exercise habits, he’d lost ‘only’ eleven pounds. But, more than that, he also felt that he’d regained control over appetite and impulse, a feeling he thought he’d lost years earlier.
WHEAT: APPETITE STIMULANT
Crackheads and heroin addicts shooting up in the dark corners of an inner-city drug house have no qualms about ingesting substances that mess with their minds. But how about law-abiding citizens like you and your family? I’ll bet your idea of mind bending is going for the strong brew rather than the mild stuff at Starbucks, or hoisting one too many Heinekens on the weekend. But ingesting wheat means you have been unwittingly ingesting the most common dietary mind-active food known.
In effect, wheat is an appetite stimulant: it makes you want more – more cookies, cupcakes, pretzels, candy, soft drinks. More bagels, muffins, tacos, submarine sandwiches, pizza. It makes you want both wheat-containing and non-wheat-containing foods. And, on top of that, for some people wheat is a drug, or at least yields peculiar drug-like neurological effects that can be reversed with medications used to counter the effects of narcotics.
If you balk at the notion of being dosed with a drug such as naloxone, you might ask, ‘What happens if, rather than blocking the brain effect of wheat chemically, you simply remove the wheat altogether?’ Well, that’s the very same question I have been asking. Provided you can tolerate the withdrawal (while unpleasant, the withdrawal syndrome is generally harmless aside from the rancour you incur from your irritated spouse, friends and co-workers), hunger and cravings diminish, calorie intake decreases, mood and well-being increase, weight goes down, wheat belly shrinks.
Understanding that wheat, specifically exorphins from gluten, have the potential to generate euphoria, addictive behaviour and appetite stimulation means that we have a potential means of weight control. Lose the wheat, lose the weight.
