Gluten Sensitivity Benefits
There's been a lot of conflicting claims from the scientific community about Gluten Sensitivity.
Some skeptics claim that there's no convincing evidence for Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity, and that any adverse reactions are purely psychological if you don't have Celiac Disease.
We consumers have to be a bit skeptical when we're looking at any research that makes bold, general claims such as this. Often, these studies are funded by companies who have vested interest in certain outcomes, and this results in lax study designs that offer anecdotal evidence and fail to account for some really important things, like subjects' underlying health conditions and pre-existing allergies.
Gluten Sensitivity is a debate that could go on forever, especially …show more content…
now that gluten-free and non gluten-free companies are both competing in a multi-billion dollar businesses.
With all the conflict, Gluten intake (or lack thereof) is made out to be the bottom line, the end-all-be-all of healthy living. This focus on a single nutrient is pretty short sighted, and doesn't really help us understand what "healthy eating" actually means.
We should really take a look at the big picture.
Instead of focusing solely on gluten, we should look at gluten-containing foods as a whole to determine if we should eat them.
Let's go over the big issues surrounding wheat, the most commonly consumed "gluten grain."
Wheat Nutritional Information
Wheat is made up of primarily simple carbohydrates.
An entire cup of wheat flour contains about 100 grams of carbs, mostly starches. Some B vitamins, and a few essential minerals like selenium, manganese and phosphorous are in there too. Other than that, there's not much to it.
A lot of wheat products contain higher levels of important minerals such Calcium, but most commercial companies use synthetic vitamins and minerals to enrich their products, and the bioavailability of these substances is questionable.
All wheat products contain a substantial amount of phytic acid, a notorious anti-nutrient found in plants that prevents minerals from being absorbed in the digestive tract.
FODMAP'S are a class of short-chain proteins that we generally have a hard time digesting. Wheat contains a lot of these proteins, as well as Lectins and a few other anti-nutrients that could cause problems.
To some degree, you can get around these pesky anti-nutrients by choosing sprouted, soaked or fermented options. These preparation methods "unlock" the nutrients as well, but wheat's nutrient value is still a subject of scrutiny.
Wheat Production
Through cross breeding and other modern farming practices, the food industry has produced a very different form of wheat than that which our ancestors were eating, even as little as 100 years ago.
This "new" wheat has been shown to contain significantly smaller amounts of essential minerals, and is thought to contain more gluten than heirloom varieties.
Since the demand for wheat and other crops is so high, big agriculture companies tend to just churn out crop after crop, never giving the land time to recover and re-mineralize.
The vast majority of wheat crop comes from these over-farmed fields, and so what nutrition that wheat offers is often misrepresented on nutrition labels, and tends to be negligible in the big picture of your diet.
Pesticides are heavily used in commercial wheat production, even when it's organic wheat.
Metabolism, Modification and Mineral Stores
There's also the issue of glycemic impact.
Most wheat products are made of primarily flour, which is almost pure starch. Whether it's white bread or whole grain, wheat flour is unnaturally high on the Glycemic Index.
Such high GI foods spike your blood sugar, releasing a flood of Insulin and starting the old familiar "hangry" cycle.
Relying primarily on fast carbs such as wheat can lead to Insulin Resistance, weight gain and a number of other issues common in our present society.
Glycemic impact might not be such a big problem for carb types, but keep in mind that all crops have been selectively bred, genetically modified, and otherwise manipulated to contain more energy, in the form of sugars, starches, and other
carbohydrates.
All this extra energy requires vitamins and minerals to metabolize, and it's hard to make up for the steep energy:nutrient ratio of modern foods without proper supplementation. Our bodies do store the minerals necessary for healthy energy metabolism, but once the stores run out, the body takes minerals from bones and teeth. Nobody wants that.
If you are going to eat commercial grains, fruits and veggies, make sure you supplement adequately.
Gluten Sensitivity
Finally, we're onto Gluten, the newest mainstream health scapegoat.
While it certainly does play a role in IBS and other inflammatory conditions, there seems to be a lot of haziness around Gluten's effects on the body.
For example, it's a popular belief that gluten actually tears little holes the lining of the gut, thus causing Leaky Gut Syndrome.
Gluten is generally undigestible for most of us, and this alone can lead to problems with intestinal fermentation, but the bigger issue is that Gluten triggers the release of a protein called Zonulin.
Zonulin up-regulates intestinal permeability, or "opens the gut."
Thus, eating wheat at every meal (as is custom in our society) leads to a perpetually "leaky" gut.
Leaky Gut
The intestinal lining is naturally permeable, but when it's always "open," toxins and undigested food particles (like those found in wheat) can pass through and into the bloodstream at a rapid rate. This causes an inflammatory immune response---your body is trying to get rid of the invading foreign substances.
Some Gluten proteins are structurally similar to proteins found in the human body, so the antibodies produced by immune system to combat the invaders can actually end up attacking similar native proteins. Your body attacks it's own joints and tissues.
Fatigue, inflammation and mood swings are some of the most basic problems that can therefore be traced back to Gluten itself.
The immune response to particles of food passing through the gut also contributes to an array of periodic food allergies. One can very quickly find themselves having an immune response to a vast variety of foods, strictly as a result of the gut permeability caused by eating wheat with every meal.
Leaky gut is also directly related to autoimmune diseases like Type 1 Diabetes, MS, and Celiac Disease in genetically susceptible individuals.
Final Thoughts
Commercial grains are wrought with potentially harmful substances.
Research shows that removing them can significantly reduce gastrointestinal inflammation.
It has also been shown that Gluten increases gut permeability, allowing the potential for serious bodily stress.
However...
Biochemical individuality is always an important consideration.
Depending on your gene expression, you might be able to tolerate Gluten-containing grains pretty well.
The effects of Gluten can be very subtle though. Most people (save extreme cases) can't tell how gluten affects them without completely removing wheat and other grains from their diets.
Quinoa and brown rice substitutes are catching on, so carb types can meet their dietary needs without having to worry about Gluten anyway.
If you are going to eat wheat, ensure that it's high quality, organic and prepared optimally.
Soaking, sprouting and fermenting your grains will get you the best nutritional bang for your buck, but none of these methods will make the Gluten any more tolerable to your body.
Commercial grains like wheat are very different than they used to be, so we have to be careful not to make false assumptions about having "eaten wheat for the last 10,000 years."
Having been adulterated from their natural form, modern grains can be deleterious to your body's mineral reserves, cause you to gain excess weight, and present a host of health problems.
Considering all of the potential ill effects, biochemical individuality really holds the lion's share in this decision.
It's best to play it safe if you're not sure.
If grains, fruits and veggies are the right foods for you, it is especially important to take the right supplements.
Some skeptics claim that there's no convincing evidence for Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity, and that any adverse reactions are purely psychological if you don't have Celiac Disease.
We consumers have to be a bit skeptical when we're looking at any research that makes bold, general claims such as this. Often, these studies are funded by companies who have vested interest in certain outcomes, and this results in lax study designs that offer anecdotal evidence and fail to account for some really important things, like subjects' underlying health conditions and pre-existing allergies.
Gluten Sensitivity is a debate that could go on forever, especially …show more content…
now that gluten-free and non gluten-free companies are both competing in a multi-billion dollar businesses.
With all the conflict, Gluten intake (or lack thereof) is made out to be the bottom line, the end-all-be-all of healthy living. This focus on a single nutrient is pretty short sighted, and doesn't really help us understand what "healthy eating" actually means.
We should really take a look at the big picture.
Instead of focusing solely on gluten, we should look at gluten-containing foods as a whole to determine if we should eat them.
Let's go over the big issues surrounding wheat, the most commonly consumed "gluten grain."
Wheat Nutritional Information
Wheat is made up of primarily simple carbohydrates.
An entire cup of wheat flour contains about 100 grams of carbs, mostly starches. Some B vitamins, and a few essential minerals like selenium, manganese and phosphorous are in there too. Other than that, there's not much to it.
A lot of wheat products contain higher levels of important minerals such Calcium, but most commercial companies use synthetic vitamins and minerals to enrich their products, and the bioavailability of these substances is questionable.
All wheat products contain a substantial amount of phytic acid, a notorious anti-nutrient found in plants that prevents minerals from being absorbed in the digestive tract.
FODMAP'S are a class of short-chain proteins that we generally have a hard time digesting. Wheat contains a lot of these proteins, as well as Lectins and a few other anti-nutrients that could cause problems.
To some degree, you can get around these pesky anti-nutrients by choosing sprouted, soaked or fermented options. These preparation methods "unlock" the nutrients as well, but wheat's nutrient value is still a subject of scrutiny.
Wheat Production
Through cross breeding and other modern farming practices, the food industry has produced a very different form of wheat than that which our ancestors were eating, even as little as 100 years ago.
This "new" wheat has been shown to contain significantly smaller amounts of essential minerals, and is thought to contain more gluten than heirloom varieties.
Since the demand for wheat and other crops is so high, big agriculture companies tend to just churn out crop after crop, never giving the land time to recover and re-mineralize.
The vast majority of wheat crop comes from these over-farmed fields, and so what nutrition that wheat offers is often misrepresented on nutrition labels, and tends to be negligible in the big picture of your diet.
Pesticides are heavily used in commercial wheat production, even when it's organic wheat.
Metabolism, Modification and Mineral Stores
There's also the issue of glycemic impact.
Most wheat products are made of primarily flour, which is almost pure starch. Whether it's white bread or whole grain, wheat flour is unnaturally high on the Glycemic Index.
Such high GI foods spike your blood sugar, releasing a flood of Insulin and starting the old familiar "hangry" cycle.
Relying primarily on fast carbs such as wheat can lead to Insulin Resistance, weight gain and a number of other issues common in our present society.
Glycemic impact might not be such a big problem for carb types, but keep in mind that all crops have been selectively bred, genetically modified, and otherwise manipulated to contain more energy, in the form of sugars, starches, and other
carbohydrates.
All this extra energy requires vitamins and minerals to metabolize, and it's hard to make up for the steep energy:nutrient ratio of modern foods without proper supplementation. Our bodies do store the minerals necessary for healthy energy metabolism, but once the stores run out, the body takes minerals from bones and teeth. Nobody wants that.
If you are going to eat commercial grains, fruits and veggies, make sure you supplement adequately.
Gluten Sensitivity
Finally, we're onto Gluten, the newest mainstream health scapegoat.
While it certainly does play a role in IBS and other inflammatory conditions, there seems to be a lot of haziness around Gluten's effects on the body.
For example, it's a popular belief that gluten actually tears little holes the lining of the gut, thus causing Leaky Gut Syndrome.
Gluten is generally undigestible for most of us, and this alone can lead to problems with intestinal fermentation, but the bigger issue is that Gluten triggers the release of a protein called Zonulin.
Zonulin up-regulates intestinal permeability, or "opens the gut."
Thus, eating wheat at every meal (as is custom in our society) leads to a perpetually "leaky" gut.
Leaky Gut
The intestinal lining is naturally permeable, but when it's always "open," toxins and undigested food particles (like those found in wheat) can pass through and into the bloodstream at a rapid rate. This causes an inflammatory immune response---your body is trying to get rid of the invading foreign substances.
Some Gluten proteins are structurally similar to proteins found in the human body, so the antibodies produced by immune system to combat the invaders can actually end up attacking similar native proteins. Your body attacks it's own joints and tissues.
Fatigue, inflammation and mood swings are some of the most basic problems that can therefore be traced back to Gluten itself.
The immune response to particles of food passing through the gut also contributes to an array of periodic food allergies. One can very quickly find themselves having an immune response to a vast variety of foods, strictly as a result of the gut permeability caused by eating wheat with every meal.
Leaky gut is also directly related to autoimmune diseases like Type 1 Diabetes, MS, and Celiac Disease in genetically susceptible individuals.
Final Thoughts
Commercial grains are wrought with potentially harmful substances.
Research shows that removing them can significantly reduce gastrointestinal inflammation.
It has also been shown that Gluten increases gut permeability, allowing the potential for serious bodily stress.
However...
Biochemical individuality is always an important consideration.
Depending on your gene expression, you might be able to tolerate Gluten-containing grains pretty well.
The effects of Gluten can be very subtle though. Most people (save extreme cases) can't tell how gluten affects them without completely removing wheat and other grains from their diets.
Quinoa and brown rice substitutes are catching on, so carb types can meet their dietary needs without having to worry about Gluten anyway.
If you are going to eat wheat, ensure that it's high quality, organic and prepared optimally.
Soaking, sprouting and fermenting your grains will get you the best nutritional bang for your buck, but none of these methods will make the Gluten any more tolerable to your body.
Commercial grains like wheat are very different than they used to be, so we have to be careful not to make false assumptions about having "eaten wheat for the last 10,000 years."
Having been adulterated from their natural form, modern grains can be deleterious to your body's mineral reserves, cause you to gain excess weight, and present a host of health problems.
Considering all of the potential ill effects, biochemical individuality really holds the lion's share in this decision.
It's best to play it safe if you're not sure.
If grains, fruits and veggies are the right foods for you, it is especially important to take the right supplements.