Posted Dec 3, 2011

The last few decades have not been good for wheat.

Some of the world's most popular diets (Atkins, South Beach and
the Dukan Diet) have urged followers to ditch bread and other carbs
to slim down, while a rising number of celiac and gluten sensitivity
sufferers have dropped bread in the name of health.

For cardiologist William Davis, this is no coincidence. The
author of the new book "Wheat Belly" (Rodale, $25.99) believes that
modern wheat - including whole wheat - has become so uniquely
destructive to multiple body functions that more than 80 percent of
us could benefit from giving it up all together. Forty to 50 percent
of us, he says, could see and feel results almost right away.

His book, which has spent time this fall on The New York Times
best-sellers list for advice books, posits that when traditional
wheat was genetically altered to become semi-dwarf wheat in the last
century, it was assumed, without any testing, that the modifications
would not change the way it affected those who ate it.

But Davis theorizes that those genetic changes could be
responsible for the rise in celiac disease and gluten sensitivity we
are seeing today. He further pinpoints unique compounds in wheat
such as gliadin, amylopectin A and others as triggers of hunger,
sharper blood sugar spikes, behavioral disorders and destructive
inflammation.

Though admitting that some of his conclusions are drawn from
anecdotal evidence, the Wisconsin cardiologist says he has watched
thousands of patients effortlessly lose weight, relieve joint pain,
eliminate their need for inhalers and improve their blood numbers
with the simple removal of wheat.

But the whole world does not agree. Shortly after Davis' book was
announced through Rodale Publishing in late summer, the Grain Foods
Foundation, a trade group, launched a campaign to challenge his
claims, noting, among other things, that removing wheat from one's
diet could result in nutrition deficiencies.

Davis acknowledges this danger, but only if dieters replaced the
wheat with unhealthful foods instead of the foods he recommends. And
though GFF representatives acknowledged that no human studies were
done on the safety of genetically altered wheat, they did reject his
mantra that if you "lose the wheat, you lose the weight."

"It's not supported by the literature," says Glenn Gaesser, the
director of the Healthy Lifestyles Research Center at Arizona State
University and member of the GFF advisory board. "If you lose the
calories - and most of our grain calories come from wheat - you lose
the weight."

For more on the debate, Davis has responded to the challenges on
his blog (wheatbellyblog.com) and the GFF has responded to readers'
questions on its blog (sixservings.org).

We recently chatted with Davis about the controversy and tips for
those interested in applying his theories to their life.

Q:One of the most surprising statements in your book is that
whole-wheat products aren't that much better than white when it
comes to blood sugar and certainly not when it comes to appetite
stimulation, inflammation and other issues. So if we must eat bread,
does it not really matter if we go for whole grain or not?

A:This genetically altered form of wheat has been transformed
into such a destructive "food" that any amount has the potential to
trigger undesirable consequences. For instance, there's what I call
the "I had one cookie and gained 30 pounds" effect. ... One day, you
go to a dinner party and they're serving some delicious looking
bruschetta hors d'oeuvres. You say, "What the heck!" ... Before you
know it, the floodgates of appetite have been reopened by exposure
to the gliadin protein of wheat, the component responsible for
triggering appetite - and you promptly gain back 30 pounds.

Others go wheat-free, then have a sandwich and suffer a food-
poisoninglike reaction: diarrhea, cramps, gas for 24 to 48 hours,
while others experience asthma, joint pains, sinus congestion or
emotional effects like anxiety or rage. This is not a benign grain
that "only" causes increased appetite and weight gain, it is
incredibly disruptive for health across a spectrum of conditions.

Q:Can someone gain prorated benefits by eliminating some wheat
from their diet?

A:You'd think that with elimination of, say, 80 percent of wheat,
you'd obtain 80 percent of the benefit. Not true. Eighty percent
elimination leads to something far less, e.g., 30 to 40 percent of
the benefit. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but it may be ...
due to the overwhelming inflammation-triggering effect of wheat
gluten and lectins, or the appetite-stimulating effects of the
gliadin protein unique to wheat. But, yes, even reduction does yield
benefits, just not as dramatic as elimination.

Q:What about whole barley, brown rice and even spelt?

A:Those are three different foods with different implications.
Barley is a potential gluten exposure, so it can introduce
inflammation and autoimmune implications in the susceptible.

Brown rice is immunologically benign, but it is a carbohydrate;
when consumed in more than small quantities, it provokes higher
blood sugars which, in turn, provoke glycation, or glucose-
modification of proteins, the process underlying diabetes,
atherosclerosis, cataracts, kidney disease, etc. I generally advise
most people to limit brown rice portion size to no more than a half-
cup to avoid these effects.

Spelt is one of the evolutionarily older forms of wheat, along
with kamut, emmer and einkorn. They are better, since they lack the
most destructive proteins. ... However, the older forms of wheat can
still trigger many of the same phenomena as modern wheat, just not
as severely. They are better ... but they are not good.

Q:So what would you advise be done on an agricultural level?

A:The first order of business is to raise awareness and just
allow it to be an issue of individual choice. It also might be a
good idea to resurrect some of the older forms of wheat but from
when? One hundreds years ago? A thousand? We don't have any clinical
studies on this yet.


Editor's note: Spelt and kamut are gluten-containing grains and should not be consumed by those who cannot tolerate gluten.