Lecture notes from Real Health Talk 4/22/12
Why gluten is so bad for you
“The whiter the bread, the sooner you’re dead” ~ Terry Lemerond, founder of EuroPharma and Terry Natural Supplements
Wheat bread gluten:
Currently, whole wheat bread is more often consumed by people of middle to upper-class background in contrast to white bread prepared with processed wheat, which is less expensive, and is more often the choice of working-class consumers.
This is actually a white/whole wheat role-reversal from circa 1900 when white flour was for the “refined” elites, who would go so far as to whiten it further with alum. Hence the term “refined” i.e. cultured or upper class. The highly refined flour was reserved for those with great status, whereas the whole-grain flours were those of poor status.
In the 1920s, it was found that animals fed a diet of white flour developed serious neurological diseases and then died. Instead of banning this product, the US Food and Drug Administration declared that most white flour products must be “enriched” with iron and a few vitamins to “correct” the problem (1). Unfortunately, the subsequent enrichment of a lesser product has created an even more insidious situation that results in diabetes, heart disease and cancer for millions of people.
What is gluten sensitivity?
Gluten sensitivity is not technically even a disease and therefore has no cure. Gluten sensitivity is triggered by eating products containing gluten. The only way to avoid its complications is to stay away from food products containing gluten. Obviously everyone who is gluten sensitive must avoid all wheat, barley, and rye products.
A review in the New England Journal of Medicine listed 55 diseases that can be caused by eating gluten. Gluten sensitivity can produce many different symptoms, mostly related to inflammation. Some of these symptoms are: arthritis, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, anxiety, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), lupus, frequent headaches, fatigue, eczema, loss of muscle coordination, osteoporosis, weakened immune system, fungal overgrowth, organ inflammation, weight loss/weight gain, and malnutrition. Gluten sensitivity increases your risk for type I diabetes, obesity, gastrointestinal cancers, brain disorders, autism and thyroid disease.
Gluten sensitivity is a problem of inflammation. This inflammation harms organs and other body tissues by causing an autoimmune response where the body’s immune system ends up attacking the body organs and other tissues. This inflammation generates C-reactive proteins which rise in response to inflammation. HDL levels also go up. Statin drugs are then pushed. Calcium deposits harden the arteries and blood pressure rises. BP medications are prescribed. Symptoms are treated while the disease process rages on.
The gluten/cancer connection
Sugar cannot fuel cancer cells by itself. Gluten and the amino acid glutamine have been studied and found to play a critical role in the cancer/tumor growing process.
Gluten and obesity
Gluten interferes with healthy fat cells which are little metabolic factories. When things are running smoothly, your fat cells produce leptin. This hormone messenger leptin sends out 2 different signals: One, it tells your brain when you’re full–that shuts down your hunger. Two, it tells the fat inside your cells to breakdown into a kind of fat that can be burned as energy. Gluten interferes with leptin. Ghrelin is our hunger hormone that enhances feelings of hunger. Gluten in our diets increases ghrelin in our digestive tract leaving you hungry when you shouldn’t be. This ghrelin response is why food manufacturers hide gluten in their products as it leaves the consumer hungry for more product.
Brain killing gluten:
As an excitotoxin (agitating and killing neuronal cells), gluten and glutamate (think MSG), accelerates, activates, irritates and damages brain cells through a special “docking station” called the NMDA receptor. Also, N Methyl D Aspartate receptors cause spinal cord neurons to become hyper to touch (think Fibromyalgia). As morphine or psychedelic proteins, gluten can be broken down into strange proteins that are a lot like psychedelic drugs. These are opium-like proteins called gluteomorophins (think Autism and Manic Depressive Disorder).
Gluten and blood pressure
The University of California put people on a “Paleolithic” diet and their high blood pressure numbers dropped like a stone. So did high blood insulin levels. HDL (good) cholesterol went up. And they experienced “large significant reductions” in LDL (bad) cholesterol, total cholesterol and triglycerides. And this all happened in just 10 days!
A 2006 study mentioned in the Journal of Attention Disorders took 131 children with ADHD and removed gluten from their diets and all 131 children were reported to have significant improvements.
Gluten sensitivity causes you to miss out on your fat soluble vitamins like vitamin D and K. Eating gluten has now been associated with bone density problems in people who can’t digest gluten properly. In particular, individuals with Celiac disease have the most difficulty with fat soluble vitamin absorption and are the most prone to conditions associated with low levels of these important nutrients. Solution: STOP EATING GLUTEN!
Wheat genetics
Modern day wheat in the United States is mostly a monoclonal hybrid that does not have the genetic variety found in European Heirloom Wheat. As we eat more and more of this monoclonal “improved protein content” wheat and other grains along with MSG, the effects on the human body are accumulating and we become more and more sensitive and intolerant to gluten.
Also, grain-fed cows don’t just produce inferior gluten fed, inflammation and diabetes ridden meat, they’re also pumped full of first hormones and then antibiotics to combat the grain-fed inflammation. They are actually becoming diabetic and they are clinically depressed because they cannot chew their cud like God intended them to do.
Gluten conclusions:
Abstaining from gluten products is not a “diet” where we deny ourselves of certain foods while other people dine away with impunity. Gluten free is a lifestyle choice for health of body and mind. If we take the attitude that we are denying ourselves something we desire that everyone else but we can have, we are set up for ultimate failure. If we choose a gluten free lifestyle for obvious health reasons, we are intentionally avoiding trouble both now and in the future.
Gluten affects everyone negatively, some effects are very evident now but most of them are subclinical and will not show up for years, even when disease finally manifests, the connection to gluten will be overlooked or denied.
“The best time to seek your health is while you still have it!” ~ Craig
1. CHRONIC ACQUIRED IRON OVERLOAD-A DISEASE OF CIVILIZATION. Lawrence Wilson, MD. s.l. : The Center for Development, 2011
Authored by Cancer Nutritionist Craig Stellpflug NDC, CNC
Dayspring Cancer Clinic Scottsdale, AZ
Copyright 2012 Craig Stellpflug© Permission is hereby granted to copy and distribute this article but only in its entirety