of explosive bowel urgency, often with just seconds of warning, that cause their lives to be filled with anxiety during social situations, travel or a simple trip to the shops. While grains are commonly painted as good for bowel health because of the fibre they contain, the other components of grains create feelings of urgency, the symptoms of which are often labelled irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Gliadin and related prolamins, glutenins, wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), alpha amylase and trypsin inhibitors are bowel toxins, and bowel urgency is your body’s way of telling you that it is trying to get rid of some toxin causing irritation. It is wise to listen to your bowels, and they are saying, ‘stop the grains’.
IBS, particularly if diarrhoea is present, is also proving to be more coeliac disease-like than previously suspected in that it is associated with increased intestinal permeability and a high likelihood of dysbiosis.5 IBS and/or ‘gluten sensitivity’ are therefore not as benign as previously advertised, given that increased intestinal permeability has the potential to initiate autoimmune processes, among other issues.
Dysbiosis
Grains and other factors cause changes in bowel flora, allowing unhealthy species of bacteria to proliferate while suppressing or entirely knocking off healthy species, a condition called dysbiosis or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). Abnormal bacteria can also migrate into the upper small intestine and stomach, where they don’t belong, rather than being confined to the lowest end of the small intestine and the large intestine. In its most severe form, dysbiosis is experienced as nausea, abdominal distress, diarrhoea or constipation (typically diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome), fatigue and low energy, inflammation of the skin and joints, diffuse muscle pain (often called fibromyalgia), nutrient deficiencies and autoimmune diseases.
One of the ways grains can trigger dysbiosis involves your gallbladder and pancreas, which are normally part of a wonderfully orchestrated system. When oils or fats are sensed in the duodenum, the hormone cholecystokinin (CCK) is released, stimulating the gallbladder to release bile and the pancreas to release a mix of digestive enzymes, all of which work to digest food. Funny thing, though: CCK receptors in the gallbladder and pancreas are glycoproteins, the kind of protein that WGA loves to bind.6 This blocks the CCK signal received by the gallbladder to release bile and the pancreas to release digestive enzymes. The result is inefficient, incomplete digestion. Undigested food ferments and decays in the presence of bacteria, effects you experience as bloating, gas and changes in stool character, including lighter colour and floating (due to undigested oils and fats). Over time, dysbiosis sets in, as the rotting food encourages growth of decay-causing bacteria. To top it all off, the failed release of bile by the gallbladder leads to bile stasis, which allows formation of gallstones.
Dysbiosis can also exacerbate existing conditions. Some people, genetically predisposed, develop inflammatory bowel diseases, ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease after exposure to the bowel toxins of grains. Should dysbiosis develop, these conditions are made even worse, as sufferers may experience diarrhoea, bleeding in the stool, poor nutrient absorption, pain and a long-term risk for complications, such as colon cancer for those with ulcerative colitis or small intestinal lymphoma and fissures for those with Crohn’s disease.
Constipation
A condition as pedestrian as constipation serves to perfectly illustrate many of the ways in which grains mess with normal body functions, as well as just how wrong conventional ‘solutions’ can be. Constipation remedies are like the Keystone Kops of health: they stumble, fumble and bump into each other, but never quite put out the fire.
Drop a rock from the top of a building and it predictably hits the ground – not sometimes, not half the time, but every time. That’s how the bowels are programmed to work, as well: Put food in your mouth, and it should come out the other end, preferably that same day and certainly no later than the following day. People living primitive lives without grains, sugars and soft drinks enjoy such predictable bowel behaviour: eat some turtle, fish, clams, mushrooms, coconut or mongongo nuts for breakfast, and out it all comes that afternoon or evening – large, steamy, filled with undigested remains and prolific quantities of bacteria, no straining, laxatives or stack of magazines required. Live a modern life and have pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast, instead. You’ll be lucky to pass that out by tomorrow or the next day. Or perhaps you will be constipated, not passing out your pancakes and syrup for days or passing it incompletely in hard, painful bits and pieces. In constipation’s most extreme forms, the remains of pancakes can stay in your colon for weeks. The combined effects of impaired CCK signalling, reduced bile release, insufficient pancreatic enzymes and changes in bowel flora disrupt the orderly passage of digested foods.
We are given advice to include more fibre, especially insoluble cellulose (wood) fibres from grains, in our diets. We then eat breakfast cereals or other grain-based foods rich in cellulose fibres and, lo and behold, it does work for some, as indigestible cellulose fibres, undigested by our own digestive apparatus as well as undigested by bowel flora, yield bulk that people mistake for a healthy bowel movement. Never mind that all of the other disruptions of digestion, from your mouth on down, are not addressed by loading up your diet with wood fibres. What if sluggish bowel movements prove unresponsive to such fibres? That’s when health care comes to the rescue with laxatives in a variety of forms, some irritative (phenolphthalein and senna), some lubricating (dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate), some osmotic (polyethylene glycol), some no different than spraying you down with a hose (enemas).
The methods of modern health care build on the problem. Perhaps you develop iron deficiency from grain phytates, necessitating prescription iron tablets that cause constipation. You also develop high blood pressure and are prescribed thiazide diuretics and beta-blockers, both of which increase constipation. Autoimmune thyroid disruption that can develop from prolamin proteins of grains also slows bowel function. When joints hurt from grain consumption, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents are taken, resulting in slowed stool passage. If you’re emotionally depressed due to grain consumption, antidepressants are prescribed that slow normal bowel reflexes that maintain motility. The constant message is to get more fibre, drink more fluids, take a laxative.
The longer stool-in-progress stays in the lower small intestine and colon, the longer it has to putrefy. Just as food sitting out in the open air rots, so can stool sitting too long in the bacteria-rich environment of the intestinal tract. Slowed passage of putrefied stool has been linked to increased cancer risk, especially of the rectum.7 Over time, constipation and the straining it causes lead to haemorrhoids; anal fissures; prolapse of the uterus, vagina and rectum; and even bowel obstruction, a surgical emergency. Once again, the health-care system, with its enthusiasm for procedures, has solutions. As banal, uninspiring and ordinary as it is, constipation has a world of important lessons to teach us about our relationship with the seeds of grasses. Yes, there is order and justice in the digestive world, but you won’t find it in that box of fibre-rich cereal.
Note that I barely mention coeliac disease or gluten sensitivity, as most of the gastrointestinal disruptions caused by grains are of neither variety. When those diseases are removed from the discussion, you can appreciate just how much gastrointestinal distress and disruption is due to the various toxic components of grains. You can also appreciate why defenders of grains, such as the Whole Grains Council, try to minimize the problem by arguing that gluten is the only problem component in grains and that gluten is a problem for a relative few. Nope: grains are simply the innocent seeds of grasses, incompletely digestible just like the rest of grass plants. This indigestibility allows toxins to persist, intact and ready to block, irritate and inflame the gastrointestinal tract of Homo sapiens who never should have eaten the stuff in the first place. This results in insufficient bile and pancreatic enzymes, impaired digestion, gallstones and dysbiosis, coupled with intestinal inflammation – the human gastrointestinal tract doesn’t stand a chance.
The Coeliac Concession and the Clash over Gluten Sensitivity
Defenders of grains would have us believe that the only problem
