All in all, grain lectins are part of a potent collection of inflammatory factors. Indigestible or only partially digestible, they fool receptors and thwart hormonal signals after gaining entry to our bodies through the seeds of grasses.
VIP: Very Important Peptide
The lectin found in wheat, rye, barley and rice (WGA) also blocks the action of another very important hormone called vasoactive intestinal peptide, or VIP. 8 While studies have been confined mostly to experimental models, not humans, the blocking of VIP has the potential to explain many of the peculiar phenomena that develop in people who consume grains but do not have coeliac disease or gluten sensitivity.
VIP plays a role in dozens of processes. It is partly responsible for:
• Activating the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands9
• Modulating immune defences against bacteria and parasites in the intestine10
• Protecting against the immune destruction of multiple sclerosis11
• Reducing phenomena that can lead to asthma and pulmonary hypertension (increased pressure in the lungs)12
• Maintaining healthy balance of the immune system that prevents inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis13
• Promoting sleep and maintaining circadian rhythms (day–night cycles)14
• Participating in determining taste in the tongue15
• Modulating the immune and inflammatory response in skin that protects us from psoriasis16
In other words, the diseases that are at least partially explained by blocking VIP sure look and sound like the collection of conditions that we witness, day in, day out, in wheat-consuming people: low cortisol levels responsible for low energy, worsening of asthma and pulmonary hypertension, worsening of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, disruption of sleep, distortions of taste such as the reduced sensitivity to sweetness (meaning you need more sugar for sweetness) and psoriasis. The VIP pathway may prove to be one of the important means by which grains disrupt numerous aspects of health.
Grains and a Mouthful of Bacteria
Grains affect the microorganisms that inhabit our bodies. These microbiota live on your skin and in your mouth, vagina and gastrointestinal tract.
Over the last few years, there has been a new scientific appreciation for the composition of human microbiota. We know, for instance, that experimental animals raised in an artificial sterile environment and thereby raised with a gastrointestinal tract that contains no microorganisms have impaired immunity, are prone to infections, are less efficient at digestion and even develop structural changes of the gastrointestinal tract that differ from creatures that harbour plentiful microorganisms. The microorganisms that inhabit our bodies are not only helpful; they are essential for health.
The bacteria that share in this symbiotic relationship with our bodies today are not the same as those carried by our ancestors. Human microorganisms underwent a shift 10,000 years ago when we began to consume the seeds of grasses. DNA analyses of dental plaque from ancient human teeth demonstrate that oral flora of primitive non-grain-consuming humans was different from that of later grain-consuming humans. Alan Cooper, PhD, of the University of Adelaide Centre for Ancient DNA, and Keith Dobney, PhD, of the University of Aberdeen, analysed bacterial DNA from teeth of hunter-gatherers before grains. They then compared it with early grain-adopting humans and later Neolithic, Bronze Age and medieval populations – periods when agriculture flourished. Pre-grain hunter-gatherers demonstrated wide diversity of oral bacterial species, predominant in species unassociated with dental decay. Grain-consuming humans, in contrast, demonstrated reduced diversity, with what the researchers called a ‘more disease causing configuration’, a pattern that worsened the longer humans consumed grains.17 Mouth bacteria underwent another substantial shift 150 years ago during the Industrial Revolution, with the proliferation of even greater disease-causing species, such as Streptococcus mutans, coinciding perfectly with the mechanical milling of flours. Disease-causing species of oral flora are now ubiquitous and dominate the mouths of modern humans, sustained by modern consumption of grains and sugars.18 Dr Dobney comments: ‘Over the past few hundred years, our mouths have clearly become a substantially less diverse ecosystem, reducing our resilience to invasions by disease-causing bacteria.’19
This study rounds out what anthropologists have been telling us for years: when humans first incorporated grains into our diets, we experienced an explosion of tooth decay, tooth loss and tooth abscesses.20 We now know that grains, from einkorn and barley to maize and millet, were responsible for this marked shift in dental health, because they caused disturbances in oral microorganisms.
Insights into oral flora do not necessarily tell us what happened to bowel flora, though there is some overlap. Even though we all begin our lives with sterile gastrointestinal tracts ripe to be populated with organisms provided at birth from the vaginal canals of our mothers, many events occur during our development that lead to divergences between the organisms in our mouths and those in our bowels – such as the appearance of teeth, stomach acidification, the hormonal surge of puberty and antibiotics. Nonetheless, we can still take some lessons about human diet and bowel flora by studying . . .
The Science of Scatology
In addition to knowing that the oral flora of humans changed once we chose to consume grains, we also know that primitive humans had different bowel flora than modern humans. The ancient remains of human faeces, or coprolites, have been recovered from caves and other locations where humans congregated, ate, slept, died and, of course, moved their bowels.
Though we have to make allowances for the inevitable degeneration of faecal material over time, we can make observations on the varieties of bacterial species present in coprolites and thereby primitive human intestinal tracts. We know, for instance, that some Treponema, a species of bacteria important for digestion of fibrous foods and anti-inflammatory effects, are widely present in coprolites of pre-grain cultures but are nearly absent from modern humans.21
These observations are important because we know that abnormal conditions of the gastrointestinal tract, such as irritable bowel syndrome, peptic ulcers and ulcerative colitis, are associated with changes in bowel flora composition.22 We may uncover a connection between these changes in flora and autoimmune diseases, weight control, cancer and other conditions.
We don’t know how many of these changes are due to diet and how many are due to the diseases themselves, but we do know with certainty that the composition of human oral and bowel flora underwent changes over time. And the facts are clear: when humans began to consume the seeds of grasses, the microorganisms cohabiting our bodies changed, and they changed in ways that affect our health.
Let’s now discuss each non-wheat grain individually and explain why, like wheat, they do your health no favours.
Maybe We’ll Chew a Cud: Adaptations to Consuming the Seeds of Grasses
It would be wrong to argue that no human adaptations have evolved over the several thousand years we’ve consumed the seeds of grasses. There have indeed been several changes in the human genetic code that have developed in grain-consuming societies and that are thereby notably absent in non-agricultural native North and South American, South Pacific and Australian populations.
• Genes for increased expression
