I have just finished this book and the immediate take home is that
the unique biochemistry of wheat in particular drives the production
of visceral belly fat and its associated disease syndrome. Thus it
is very reasonable to kick it straight out of your diet.
Doing that is quite a challenge but it is certainly easier to do than
a more blanket low carb protocol. We fortunately live in a world in
which there are plenty of alternatives to switch to easily.
After applying my Arclein Diet, my weight has stabilized about ten to
fifteen pounds above what would be ideal. All of this extra can be
accounted for by visceral fat and the rest is fine. I lost a full
forty five pounds to return to my natural weight range and that is
easily ten pounds below my best adult weight. I did this without a
significant change in either diet and physical exercise and it went
painlessly. I have pretty well demonstrated the ease and efficacy of
the Arclein Diet. Now dropping all wheat intake for the natural
addiction it represents allows me to add finish to protocol.
Obviously a user of the Arclein Diet will want to also switch out
wheat much earlier that I am doing and I certainly agree. Again we
go not use portion control as long as we remain sensible in our
eating. I depend on eliminating food intake from awakening through
late evening on Tuesday and Thursday. If is need a little energy I
take a little honied tea or water. I did not change my meal types
nor my exercise system. The end result is that every week I eat what
my body needs and no more. This allows the body to dump unnecessary
stored fat it has been forced to take up
September 2011, 15:35
Uhr
MICHAEL R EADES, MD.
Over a half decade ago
Professor Jared Diamond, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Guns,
Germs, and Steel, famously wrote
“The adoption of
agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life,
was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.”
Dr Diamond was
referring, of course, to the devolution of human health that
took place as mankind suffered the corporal transformation driven by
the mismatch between hunter-gatherer genes and an agricultural diet
and lifestyle. Smaller stature, decreased cortical bone thickness,
obesity, increased incidence of infectious diseases, dental caries,
periodontal disease, vitamin deficiencies, and even famine – all
common in agriculturists – were not, for the most part, the lot of
pre-agricultural man.
Humanity
doubtless gained more than it lost in this hunter to farmer
changeover when viewed in a big-picture sort of way. Farming
made possible larger communities filled with workers, workers who,
for the first time, made specialization of labor a possibility.
And fewer people could till the fields and provide food for the many,
freeing the others to pursue the arts, business, politics, and
warfare.
Stephen Budiansky,
author of one of my favorite books, Covenant of the Wild,
describes how domestic animals formed a pact with humans in which the
animals traded a period of safety and survival for their lives.
Had this covenant not been made, it is highly likely – virtually a
certainty – that cows would now be extinct. Big, slow, stupid
and tasty, had they not been amenable to domestication and entered
into the covenant with their domesticators, cattle would have been
hunted to extinction long, long ago. But they did – however
unwillingly – make the covenant and so exist by the tens of
millions today. The deal they cut was a phenomenal deal for
cattle as a species, but not a particularly good deal for the
individual cow when the time comes to pay up at slaughter.
Homo sapiens entered
an almost mirror image of this same covenant when they domesticated
cereal grasses.* We gave up our independence and mobility for
the promise of a constant and plentiful food supply. But, as
with our covenant with domestic animals, there is a catch. And
this time it’s with us. Humans emerged from this deal with
the short end of the stick. In the same way as did cattle, we
made a good-for-humans-as-a-species/bad-for-the-individual-human
trade. Like it or not, we traded the health of the individual
human for the overall good of mankind and the development of
civilization.
We traded a diet based
primarily on fat and protein with a little carbohydrate thrown in
from roots, shoots and tubers for one centered predominantly on
carbohydrate. The main source of the carbohydrate was cereal
grains, chiefly ancient forms of wheat, the predecessor of the wheat
that now occupies a large part of the human diet everywhere.
Ancient forms of wheat didn’t do our forebears a lot of good, and,
according to Dr. William Davis’s new book Wheat Belly, the
modern forms of the grain do us even less good.
Before we get to the
problems modern hybrid wheat causes us, let’s take a look at the
afflictions a diet of primitive wheat visited upon our predecessors.
The ancient Egyptians
consumed a diet that would be considered optimal by many people
today. Both wealthy and poor Egyptians consumed primarily bread
and a type of cloudy, almost gruel-like beer. To these staples
were added a variety of vegetables (mainly onions), and a small
selection of game, fish and meat. The bread was made from
coarse ground, whole grain emmer wheat, a primitive, high-protein
wheat. Sugar didn’t come on the scene until about 1000 AD, so
the Egyptians used honey sparingly (it was expensive) as a sweetener
along with figs. In short, these people consumed a diet the
vast majority of modern nutritionists would prescribe to people to
prevent obesity, heart disease, obesity and the rest of the diseases
associated with the Western diet.
But, as their
mummified remains and their contemporary artwork demonstrate, the
ancient Egyptians were often fat and were riddled with heart disease,
dental caries, bad periodontal disease and no doubt diabetes and
hypertension. Many people have argued that since only the
wealthy were mummified, the mummy data applies only to them, and
since the wealthy ate more red meat, the rates of obesity, heart
disease and the other disorders common to them didn’t apply to the
rest of the population. Even the common man, however, was often
portrayed as obese in Egyptian artwork, and despite greater
consumption of meat, the main staple of even the wealthy was bread
and beer. And it didn’t do them a lot of good.
The 5,300 year old
mummy of Ötzi the Iceman found in the Italian Alps showed a bad case
of dental caries and periodontitis along with a
stomach-full of einkorn wheat (another primitive variety). Said the
researchers who examined Ötzi:
Although the Iceman
did not lose a single tooth until the his death at an age of about 40
years, he had an advanced abrasion of his teeth, profound carious
lesions, and a moderate to severe periodontitis.
In particular, the
molars of the upper jaw showed loss of alveolar bone as a sign of
periodontitis (inflammation of the ligaments and bones that support
the teeth), while evidence of “mechanical trauma” was found on
two teeth.
…the most surprising
find is the high frequency of cavities.
These dental
pathologies are a sign of change in the Neolithic diet.
We already know that
he was eating grains, such as einkorn or emmer. The contained
carbohydrates clearly increased the risk of developing dental
diseases
One would assume these
findings would be common among the rest of Ötzi’s contemporaries,
who doubtless consumed a similar diet.
Sadly, these same
findings are also common among modern man who consumes a more malign
version of primitive wheat.
Until I read Dr.
Davis’s book Wheat Belly, I didn’t really think much about
wheat other than its being a major source of carbohydrate in the
American diet. It never had occurred to me that the wheat we
eat today is not the same wheat of our great-grandmothers cooked with
nor probably even our grandmothers. And it really hadn’t
dawned on me how pervasive wheat is in the diet. Since reading
Michael Pollen’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma I had been
conscious of the amount of corn in our modern diet, but I hadn’t
thought much about wheat. As Yogi Berra supposedly said, “You
can see a lot just by looking.” So I went out and looked.
And I can tell you that we are much more Children of the Wheat than
we are Children of the Corn.
In most grocery
stores, an entire aisle is devoted to nothing but bread in all its
forms. Then there is typically another large aisle full of
cakes, cupcakes, cookies, pies, tarts, sweet rolls, bagels,
croissants, brownies, and other sweet baked goods. The vast
majority of the cereal aisle displays products containing primarily
wheat. And if you look at processed foods of all kinds, you’ll
find wheat in there. If you make or buy gravy, roux, or just
about any kind of sauce, you’ll find it’s thickened with wheat
flour. (MD bought some demiglace a few days ago, and noticed as she
was removing it from the container that even it had added wheat.)
Then there is the aisle full of different beers, many of which are
made with wheat. These are just a few of the items you can find
containing wheat in a grocery store; don’t even get me started on
restaurant fare. Wheat is everywhere – corn should be so
lucky.
When I was roaming
around looking for pictures of dwarf wheat (more about which later),
I came upon the website for the Kansas Wheat Commission that listed a
few facts about wheat. Here are several that caught my eye.
Wheat is the primary
grain used in U.S. grain products. Approximately three-quarters
of all U.S. grain products are made from wheat flour.
More food is made with
wheat than any other cereal grain.
U.S. Farmers grow
nearly 2.4 billion bushels of wheat on 63 million acres of land.
About half the wheat
grown in the United States is used domestically.
A little
back-of-the-envelope calculating using the above statistics tells us
that each of us in the United States consumes about four bushels of
wheat per year. Another statistic from the linked website
states that each bushel of wheat makes about 90 one-pound loaves of
whole wheat bread. So, we all eat the equivalent of 360 loaves
of bread per year, or approximately one loaf per person per day.
That’s a lot of wheat, in fact, it’s almost approaching ancient
Egyptian levels. (Moreover, since MD and I don’t eat any, that
means two other people out there are each eating two loaves per day.)
It would be bad enough
if we consumed all this wheat as emmer or einkhorn or other primitive
varieties, but we don’t. We get most from a hybrid
of Triticum aestivum – our great grandmother’s wheat –
called dwarf (or semi-dwarf) wheat, which now comprises more than 99
percent of all wheat grown worldwide.
As Dr. Davis tells it,
the hybridization of wheat came about in an effort to improve yield,
which is now about tenfold greater per acre than it was a century
ago. Older strains of wheat were taller and more prone to damage from
wind and rain. And when large quantities of nitrogen-rich
fertilizer are applied to wheat fields, the seed head at the top of
the plant grows to enormous proportions. The top-heavy seed
head, however, buckles the stalk. Buckling kills the plant and
makes harvesting problematic. A University of Minnesota-trained
geneticist…is credited with developing the exceptionally
high-yielding dwarf wheat that was shorter and stockier, allowing the
plant to maintain erect posture and resist buckling under the large
seed head. Tall stalks are also inefficient; short stalks reach
maturity more quickly, which means a shorter growing season with less
fertilizer required to generate the otherwise useless stalk.
In the photos below
you can see the difference between wheat grown in the Middle Ages and
the dwarf wheat grown today.
Dr. Davis writes that
modern wheat is approximately 70 percent carbohydrate by weight.
The carbohydrate is in the form of a starch called amylopectin A.
The most digestible
form of amylopectin, amylopectin A, is the form found in wheat.
Because it is the most digestible, it is the form that most
enthusiastically increases blood sugar. This explains why, gram
for gram, wheat increases blood sugar to a greater degree than, say,
kidney beans or potato chips. The amylopectin A of wheat
products, “complex” or no, might be regarded as a
supercarbohydrate, a form of highly digestible carbohydrate that is
more efficientl
y converted to blood
sugar than nearly all the other carbohydrate foods, simple or
complex. [Italics in the original.]
But what about the
much vaunted whole grains. Won’t ‘whole grain’ bread or
wheat products be better? Not according to Dr. Davis:
…the degree of
processing, from a blood sugar standpoint, makes little difference:
Wheat is wheat, with various forms of processing or lack of
processing, simple or complex, high-fiber or low-fiber, all
generating similar high blood sugars. Just as “boys will be
boys,” amylopectin A will be amylopectin A. In healthy,
slender volunteers, two medium-sized slices of whole wheat bread
increase blood sugar by 30 mg/dl (from 93 to 123 mg/dl), no different
from white bread. In people with diabetes, both white and whole
grain bread increase blood sugar 70 to 120 mg/dl over starting
levels.
And aside from the
blood sugar and, consequently, insulin problems caused by the
consumption of too much wheat, there are other problems. As
with almost any food, the newer the food, the greater the likelihood
that it will be problematic to some humans who consume it.
Since dwarf wheat has been around for less than 50 years, it should
come as no surprise that it does indeed cause it’s share of
problems. Dr. Davis spends the better part of his excellent
book detailing many of these problems and describing his clinical
experience in helping many of his patients shuck their wheat habit.
He describes the increase in celiac disease over the past 50 years
and believes, as I do, that celiac disease is a continuum. The
severe form of it that is recognized as celiac disease is pretty easy
to diagnose (if a doctor has sense enough to look for it), but there
are milder forms that manifest themselves as anything from mysterious
rashes that come and go to diarrhea and other GI disturbances to
arthritic aches and pains. And we can’t forget a number of other
afflictions that may well have their basis in wheat intolerance that
include osteoporosis, acne (bagel face?), neurological disorders, and
the creepily- dubbed ‘man boobs.’
It’s good to learn
in Wheat Belly that Dr. Davis has finally shucked his
bred-in-the-bone cardiologist’s antipathy toward fat in general and
saturated fat specifically and has come over to what most of his
peers must view as the dark (read: low-carb) side:
The fat phobia of the
past forty years turned us off from foods such as eggs, sirloin, and
pork because of their saturated fat content — but saturated fat was
never the problem. Carbohydrates in combination with
saturated fat, however, cause measures of LDL particles to
skyrocket. The problem was carbohydrates more than saturated
fat. In fact, new studies have exonerated saturated fat as an
underlying contributor to heart attack and stroke risk. [Italics in
the original.]
Dr. Davis wraps up his
meticulously researched book with a straightforward plan to help free
the reader from the tyranny of wheat, while at the same time
providing instructions for a delicious and satisfying wheat-free
diet. He furnishes an extensive list of wheat-containing foods
that should be avoided and imparts his caveats about going facedown
in products advertised as being gluten-free. And best of all,
he provides a short section filled with matchless wheat-free recipes
for many meals that would otherwise be wheat-laden. (MD and I have
tried a few of these recipes and found them to be superb. I
especially enjoy his wheat-free granola recipe even though I go a
little easy on the rolled oats part of it.)
Wheat Belly hit
the New York Times Bestseller list shortly after it came out (and has
been there for two weeks now), which I can tell you from experience,
is not an easy thing to do. As a result (because being on the
NY Times list means a book has had big sales numbers), the wheat
producers have not taken their hits lying down. They’re
fighting back with full venom, because a book like this one can do
them serious economic damage. Expect it to get worse. (Remember all
those shelves in the grocery stores stuffed with wheat-containing
products? They don’t want to see that go away.) You can read
about some of their tactics here and read Tom Naughton’s
interviews with Dr. Davis here and here.
I can’t recommend
this terrific book highly enough. Wheat Belly is
fully referenced and indexed (unless you somehow got the little
freebee paperback review version that I received from the publisher),
and is a must have for the library of any serious low-carber or
anyone concerned about health.
*MD and I wrote about
this domestication of humans by grains in The Protein Power
LifePlan. In that book we referenced an interesting paper by a
couple of Australian researchers on the hypothesis that the
addictive nature of cereal grains helping this domestication
along.
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