Welcome to another edition of the Doctor’s Note, where we talk about what’s on our minds when it comes to your health.
As you know I have a lot of interest in nutrition, and am a firm believer in letting “food be thy medicine” as Hippocrates stated.
One of my mantras as a doctor is instead of overprescribing drugs, try and prescribe good nutrition.
Part of my mission is to help cure people of Type 2 Diabetes, and get people to lose weight. We’re trying to fight the obesity epidemic, and food is the major reason for obesity.
In this Note, I want to talk about reasons to avoid wheat. This is important because we’ve been taught for a long time that wheat is good for you. Very similar to what we’ve been taught about corn and grains in general.
Side Note: Corn is just a bad product. From the way it’s produced as well as it being a carbohydrate. Half the corn raised is raised to produce ethanol. This is not a good thing for food.
A few book recommendations before we dive in as it pertains to nutrition, and in particular gluten, grains and wheat: “Wheat Belly” and “Grain Brain”. These two books will definitely make you think twice about grains.
Reasons To Avoid Wheat
Many people believe that wheat is nutritious. Maybe it used to be. Part of that is because we’ve learned how bad white flour is for us, which it is. In white flour, all the nutrients are bleached out. This is also true of wheat (even though it does still have more fiber).
Modern wheat is genetically modified, and crossbred with toxic chemicals. It’s modified to where it’s not good for you at all. They do this to increase the yield. It’s also radiated, and radiation is not good for you.
It’s drowned in pesticides from seed to storage. They add estrogen mimicking hormones that can cause hormone imbalances. This can increase risk of breast cancer and prostate cancer among other things.
They use high heat drying that destroys the nutritional value in wheat. This is yet another thing that robs wheat of its original nutrients.
Gluten
Wheat can also cause celiac and gluten problems. Only about 1% of Americans have celiac disease. It’s extreme. But most of us (a little over 50%) have a gluten problem. Gluten problems can cause chronic fatigue, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), and food addictions.
Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. When you think of gluten think of glue. It’s what holds the food together and acts as a preservative. That’s why you can leave a piece of toast in your car for a year, and it still looks put together.
As I said earlier, this is a problem for most people. You don’t have to have celiac disease to have a problem with gluten.
So cut out glutens if you can.
It’s very difficult to completely cut out gluten, but it’s easier now than ever before as there are a lot of gluten free products.
Cutting out glutens, however, doesn’t mean that you’ll lose weight. You can still get fat on a gluten free diet.
Inflammation
Wheat also has neurotoxic properties. There was a scientific study done in the 1970’s that found that when you remove wheat from schizophrenics’ diet, their schizophrenia got a lot better.
Wheat can cause inflammation in the brain, which can be a cause of ADHD, Autism, Bipolar disorder, and Dementia.
It can cause problems with your brain, heart, and inflamed joints. And remember, inflammation is the root cause of most every disease out there.
It’s inflammatory and increases what we call leaky gut, the one cell barrier between your gut and blood stream. And remember, most of your immune system is located in your gut.
It’s a CARB!
Wheat is a carb. Cut out the carbs if you’re obese!
Avoiding wheat makes common sense. Everyone is different obviously. Some people can tolerate it. For the vast majority though it’s not a good product.
Breads are carbohydrates. But it’s not very practical to cut out bread completely. My favorite bread is a good sourdough mix bread. Organic sourdough seems to impact my blood sugar much less and doesn’t make me feel as tired.
Listen to your Gut
Look at the ingredients in the food you shop for. Look for wheat. The phrase “gut feeling” came from somewhere and it means something.
Listen to your gut.
As you can tell I’m not a fan of grains, especially wheat grains.
There’s a lot of things you can do. There’s food sensitivity testing. I’ve been recommending the product Gluten Shield. It has a gluten blocker in it and will block some of the gluten you consume. It also has a dairy blocker, prebiotics, probiotics and digestive enzymes.
It’s important to remember that what you’ve been taught about nutrition was probably wrong. Look at the research. Check out the ingredients of the food you’re eating. And listen to your gut.