Frankengrain, was a huge enough undertaking for one book. For readers of the original Wheat Belly, I will cover some familiar ground in this and the next chapter, but I will expand the discussion, relate new lessons and include the latest science.
When you read what happens to typical grain-consuming people, you can’t help but be struck by the realization that we are describing nearly everyone around us. The range of destructive health effects wrought by grain consumption is so far-reaching that, by the end of this chapter, and certainly by the end of this book, you will come to understand that the wide-ranging and myriad chronic health conditions that afflict humans can, to an astounding degree, be blamed on grain consumption. Accordingly, when we remove this collection of things called ‘healthy whole grains’, we regain health in ways that, even today, continue to astound all of us engaged in this adventure.
I’ll begin the discussion of the adverse health effects of grains at the first place your body has waged its battle against grains. This is dietary ground zero: your gastrointestinal tract.
Grains wreak an astonishing array of digestive havoc. People struggle for years, dealing with the turmoil of bloating, abdominal pain and diarrhoea, many of them eventually ending up in the emergency room, endoscoped top and bottom, typically with no cause identified, only to be prescribed one of the few catchall drugs: acid-suppressing medication, laxatives or antibiotics. A particularly common complaint of the grain consumer is disruptive and embarrassing bowel urgency that keeps people from leaving their homes or travelling, or that forces them to dash to the toilet with barely a warning. Some of the worst constipation you could imagine, called obstipation, with bowel movements happening as infrequently as every several weeks, is silently endured, as fibre and laxatives are ineffective against it. The range and frequency of bowel disruption by grains is all the more astounding when we hear just how much they are supposed to be good for gastrointestinal health.
Grains are not only not good for gastrointestinal health, but they are actually poisonous when consumed chronically. Diarrhoea, constipation, obstipation, malabsorption and inflammatory bowel disease should come as no surprise to those who consume the collection of toxins contained in the seeds of grasses. Let’s quickly map out the digestive system to give you a greater appreciation for just how grains upset the entire system and to help you understand why additional efforts are often required to regain health after grains are removed.
It Starts with a Gulp
Digestion is the miraculous process of converting things ingested, animate or inanimate, into the components of your body. The human gastrointestinal tract starts at your lips and teeth, which begin the process of tearing food into fragments. Your tongue and sense of smell serve testing functions, distinguishing the distasteful and foul-smelling (and thereby potentially unsafe) from the tasty (which is our main criterion for determining what should or should not be eaten). Salivary glands provide lubricant and are the first source of digestive enzymes. The oropharynx at the back of your throat divides and protects your respiratory from your digestive system and is lined with lymph tissue to respond to foreign invaders. Then comes your oesophagus, the muscular passageway to your stomach. In your stomach, powerful hydrochloric acid degrades food and provides an environment inhospitable to microorganisms. Protein breakdown is initiated by the stomach enzymes pepsin and gastric lipase, followed by a soup of digestive enzymes (including pancreatic lipase, trypsin, chymotrypsin, collagenase and others) released by your pancreas to further digest proteins, fats and carbohydrates.
Your liver then joins the process by producing bile, a green-coloured liquid synthesized from discarded haemoglobin from aged red blood cells – an example of the incredible efficiency of nature. Bile is stored in your gallbladder, neutralizes the acidity from your stomach acid and is secreted into your small intestine to further digest fats. Your liver also receives nutrients absorbed via your small intestine, converting them into forms transportable through the bloodstream and usable by various organs. Partially digested food and liquids proceed through your duodenum, then jejunum and ileum, segments of the small intestine responsible for nutrient absorption. Though labelled ‘small’ because of its narrow diameter, your small intestine is the longest part of your gastrointestinal tract, typically measuring 24 feet in length. This adaptation makes us efficient digesters of protein compared with ruminants, who have shorter small intestines.
After passing through your small intestine, food finally gets to your colon, the organ charged with the function of completing unfinished digestion. It does so by housing trillions of microorganisms that digest any remaining polysaccharides, even those indigestible by humans, and absorbing any residual nutrients while also helping maintain hydration by absorbing water from its semi-liquid contents and converting those contents into semisolid form. Lower down, your rectum serves a storage function that allows the elimination of its contents to occur at opportune moments, rather than in the middle of a business meeting or when doing star jumps.
I recount this amazingly elaborate process to highlight just how many steps along the way can be disrupted. In fact, given its complexity, it almost seems a wonder that digestion ever occurs smoothly. Safety mechanisms and redundancies built into the system through evolutionary adaptation maximize the likelihood that what you’ve ingested will be safely converted into the nutrients you require, while the undigested remains will be passed out quietly and without fanfare. The complexity of your digestive system is part of its beauty, but also part of its vulnerability. Disruption of this multistep process can come in many forms, including pinpoint disruption of intestinal permeability by poisons such as cholera toxin, autoimmune attacks against layers of small intestinal tissue characteristic of Crohn’s disease and factors that alter the composition of microorganisms.
Grains: A Disemboweling Experience
Let’s put it all together and describe what happens when us non-ruminants choose to eat the seeds of grasses in multigrain bread, cornflour, puffed rice in a rice cake or a bowl of oatmeal. It should come as no surprise that disruptions of this otherwise marvellous system develop. We don’t fatally succumb to our first or second bite, of course, but over an extended period of time our health declines and we wonder why, though we’re eating what we thought were healthy foods in moderation, exercising and heeding conventional health advice, we end up with disastrous health consequences. These are the gastrointestinal effects of consuming the seeds of grasses.
Acid Reflux and Reflux Oesophagitis
Millions of people are plagued by the discomfort of acid reflux and oesophageal inflammation and are prescribed acid-suppressing medications such as Prilosec, Prevacid, Pepcid and Protonix, which they take every day for years. Treatment for acid reflux and reflux oesophagitis has proven to be enormously profitable. Annual revenues for these drugs for one company alone, AstraZeneca, exceeded £15 billion in 2011.1 More than one billion people – one out of every seven people on the planet – have been prescribed these drugs since their appearance on the market 35 years ago.
These drugs are not without health consequences. They have been associated with vitamin B12 and magnesium deficiency; impaired calcium absorption, osteoporosis and increased bone fracture risk; and increased risk of pneumonia.2 Use of such prescription drugs has been associated with changes in bowel flora resulting in dysbiosis (disrupted bowel flora) and increased potential for intestinal infection with Clostridium difficile.3 The dysbiosis provoked by such drugs is believed by some to explain the deterioration of multiple sclerosis symptoms that often develops with their use.4 Because the drugs are often ineffective and result in their own collection of health problems, doctors increasingly advise patients to undergo surgical procedures, such as fundoplication (surgically wrapping the stomach around the oesophagus) to avoid using the drugs. But for the majority of people taking these drugs for acid reflux and reflux oesophagitis, the real solution is as simple as saying ‘no’ to all grains.
Bowel Urgency and Irritable Bowel Syndrome
I am astounded
