Read Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health Online
Authors: William Davis
Insulin levels are highest after carbohydrates are consumed; the higher the glycemic index of the consumed carbohydrate, the more insulin is released by the pancreas. Of course, wheat, with its uncommonly high glycemic index, triggers higher blood sugar than nearly all other foods, thereby triggering insulin more than nearly all other foods. It should come as no surprise that wheat, especially in the form of sugary donuts and cookies—i.e., high-glycemic index wheat with high-glycemic index sucrose—causes acne. But it’s also true of your multigrain bread cleverly disguised as healthy.
Also in line with insulin’s ability to provoke acne formation is the role of dairy. While most health authorities obsess over the fat content of dairy and recommend low-fat or skim products, acne is not caused by the fat. The unique proteins in bovine products are the culprit that trigger insulin out of proportion to the sugar content, a unique insulinotropic property that explains the 20 percent increase in severe acne in teenagers consuming milk.
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Overweight and obese teenagers generally get that way not through overconsumption of spinach or green peppers, nor of salmon or tilapia, but of carbohydrate foods such as breakfast
cereals. Overweight and obese teenagers accordingly should have more acne than slender teenagers, and that is indeed the case: The heavier the child, the more likely he or she is to have acne.
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(It does not mean that slender kids can’t have acne, but that statistical likelihood of acne increases with body weight.)
As we would expect from this line of reasoning, nutritional efforts that reduce insulin and blood sugar should reduce acne. A recent study compared a high-glycemic index diet to a low-glycemic index diet consumed by college students over twelve weeks. The low-GI diet yielded 23.5 percent less acne lesions, compared to a 12 percent reduction in the control group.
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Participants who cut their carbohydrate intake the most enjoyed nearly a 50 percent reduction in the number of acne lesions.
In short, foods that increase blood sugar and insulin trigger the formation of acne. Wheat increases blood sugar, and thereby insulin, more than nearly all other foods. The whole grain bread you feed your teenager in the name of health actually worsens the problem. Though not life-threatening in and of itself, acne can nonetheless lead the sufferer to resort to all manner of treatments, some potentially toxic such as isotretinoin, which impairs night vision, can modify thoughts and behavior, and causes grotesque congenital malformations in developing fetuses.
Alternatively, elimination of wheat reduces acne. By also eliminating dairy and other processed carbohydrates such as chips, tacos, and tortillas, you’ll largely disable the insulin machinery that triggers acne formation. If there’s such a thing in this world, you might even have a grateful teenager on your hands.
Dermatitis herpetiformis (DH), described as skin inflammation in the form of herpes, is yet another way that an immune reaction to wheat gluten can show itself outside of the intestinal tract. It is
an itchy, herpes-like (meaning similar-looking bumps; it has nothing to do with the herpes virus) rash that persists and can eventually leave discolored patches and scars. The most commonly affected areas are the elbows, knees, buttocks, scalp, and back, usually involving both sides of the body symmetrically. However, DH can also appear in less common ways, such as sores in the mouth, on the penis or vagina, or odd bruising over the palms.
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A skin biopsy is often required to identify the characteristic inflammatory response.
Curiously, most DH sufferers do not experience intestinal symptoms of celiac disease, but most still show intestinal inflammation and destruction characteristic of celiac. People with DH are therefore subject to all the potential complications shared by people with typical celiac disease if they continue to consume wheat gluten, including intestinal lymphoma, autoimmune inflammatory diseases, and diabetes.
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Obviously, the treatment for DH is strict elimination of wheat and other gluten sources. The rash can improve within days in some people, while in others it dissipates gradually over months. Particularly bothersome cases, or DH that recurs because of continued wheat gluten consumption (sadly, very common), can be treated with the drug dapsone, which is taken orally. Also used to treat leprosy, this is a potentially toxic drug marked by side effects such as headache, weakness, liver damage, and occasionally seizures and coma.
Okay, so we consume wheat and develop itchy, annoying, disfiguring rashes as a result. We then apply a potentially toxic drug to allow us to continue to consume wheat, but expose ourselves to very high risk for intestinal cancers and autoimmune diseases. Does this really make sense?
After acne, DH is the most common skin manifestation of a reaction to wheat gluten. But an incredible range of conditions beyond DH are also triggered by wheat gluten, some associated with increased levels of celiac antibodies, others not.
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Most of
these conditions can also be caused by other factors, such as drugs, viruses, or cancer. Wheat gluten, like drugs, viruses, and cancer, therefore shares the potential to cause any of these rashes.
Wheat gluten-related rashes and other skin manifestations include:
All of these conditions have been associated with wheat gluten exposure, and their improvement or cure observed with removal. For the majority of these conditions, the proportion due to wheat gluten versus other causes is not known, since wheat gluten is often not considered as a potential cause. In fact, most commonly a cause is not sought and treatment is instituted blindly in the form of steroid creams and other drugs.
Believe it or not, as frightening as the above list appears, it is only partial. There are quite a few more skin conditions associated with wheat gluten that are not listed here.
You can see that skin conditions triggered by wheat gluten range from simple nuisance to disfiguring disease. Outside of the relatively common mouth ulcers and acanthosis nigricans, most of these skin manifestations of wheat gluten exposure are uncommon. But in the aggregate, they add up to an impressive list of socially disruptive, emotionally difficult, and physically disfiguring conditions.
Are you getting the impression that humans and wheat gluten may be incompatible?
Compared to the great apes and other primates, modern
Homo sapiens
are relatively hairless. So we prize what little hair we have.
Kurt came to me because he was told he had high cholesterol. What his doctor labeled “high cholesterol” proved to be an excess of small LDL particles, low HDL cholesterol, and high triglycerides. Naturally, with this combined pattern, I advised Kurt to eliminate wheat forthwith.
He did so, losing eighteen pounds over three months, all from his belly. But the funny thing was what the diet change did to his rash.
Kurt told me that he’d had a reddish-brown rash over his right shoulder, spreading down to his elbow and upper back, that had plagued him for more than seven years. He’d consulted with three dermatologists, resulting in three biopsies, none of which led to a firm diagnosis. All three agreed, however, that Kurt “needed” a steroid cream to deal with the rash. Kurt followed their advice, since the rash was at times very itchy and the creams did provide at least temporary relief.
But four weeks into his new wheat-free diet, Kurt showed me his right arm and shoulder: completely rash-free.
Seven years, three biopsies, three misdiagnoses—and the solution was as simple as (eliminating) apple pie.
My dad used to urge me to eat hot chili peppers because “it will grow hair on your chest.” What if Dad’s advice was to avoid wheat instead because it made me
lose
the hair on top of my head? More so than cultivating a man-like “heavage,” losing my hair would have captured my attention. Hot chili peppers really don’t trigger hair growth on the chest or elsewhere, but wheat can indeed trigger hair loss.
Hair can be a very intimate thing for many people, a personal signature of appearance and personality. For some people, losing hair can be as devastating as losing an eye or a foot.
Hair loss is sometimes unavoidable, due to the effects of toxic drugs or dangerous diseases. People undergoing cancer chemotherapy, for instance, temporarily lose their hair, since the agents employed are designed to kill actively reproducing cancer cells, but inadvertently also kill active noncancerous cells, such as those in hair
follicles. The inflammatory disease systemic lupus erythematosus, which commonly leads to kidney disease and arthritis, can also be accompanied by hair loss due to autoimmune inflammation of hair follicles.
Hair loss can occur in more ordinary situations, as well. Middle-aged men can lose their hair, followed soon after by an impulse to drive convertible sports cars.
Add wheat consumption to the list of causes of hair loss. “Alopecia areata” refers to hair loss that occurs in patches, usually from the scalp, but occasionally other parts of the body. Alopecia can even involve the entire body, leaving the sufferer completely hairless from head to toe and everything in between.
Wheat consumption causes alopecia areata due to a celiac-like inflammation of the skin. The inflamed hair follicle results in reduced hold on each individual hair, which causes shedding.
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Within the tender spots of hair loss are increased levels of inflammatory mediators, such as tumor necrosis factor, interleukins, and interferons.
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When caused by wheat, alopecia can persist for as long as wheat consumption continues. Like completing a course of chemotherapy for cancer, elimination of wheat and all gluten sources usually results in prompt resumption of hair growth, no surgical hair plugs or topical creams required.
In my experience, acne, mouth sores, a rash on the face or backside, hair loss, or nearly any other abnormality of the skin should prompt consideration of a reaction to wheat gluten. It may have less to do with hygiene, your parent’s genes, or sharing towels with friends than with the turkey sandwich on whole wheat that was yesterday’s lunch.
How many other foods have been associated with such a protean array of skin diseases? Sure, peanuts and shellfish can cause hives. But what other food can be blamed for such an incredible range of skin diseases, from a common rash all the way to gangrene, disfigurement, and death? I certainly don’t know of any other than wheat.
I had a heck of a time persuading Gordon to drop the wheat.
I met Gordon because he had coronary disease. Among the causes: abundant small LDL particles. I asked him to completely remove the wheat from his diet in order to reduce or eliminate the small LDL particles and thereby obtain better control over his heart health.
Problem: Gordon owned a bakery. Bread, rolls, and muffins were part of his life every day, seven days a week. It was only natural that he would eat his products with most meals. For two years, I urged Gordon to drop the wheat—to no avail.
One day Gordon came to the office wearing a ski cap. He told me how he had started to lose clumps of hair, leaving divot-like bald patches scattered over his scalp. His primary care doctor diagnosed alopecia, but couldn’t divine a cause. Likewise, a dermatologist was at a loss to explain Gordon’s dilemma. The hair loss was very upsetting to him, resulting in his asking his primary care doctor for an antidepressant and concealing the embarrassing situation with a cap.
Wheat, of course, was my first thought. It fit Gordon’s overall health picture: small LDL particles, wheat belly body configuration, high blood pressure, prediabetic blood sugars, vague stomach complaints, and now hair loss. I made yet another pitch for Gordon to once and for all remove the wheat from his diet. After the emotional trauma of losing most of his hair and now having to conceal his patchy scalp, he finally agreed. It meant bringing food to his bakery and not eating his own products, something he had some difficulty in explaining to his employees. Nonetheless, he stuck to it.
Within three weeks, Gordon reported that hair had begun to sprout up in the bald patches. Over the next two months, vigorous growth resumed. Along with his proud pate, he also lost twelve pounds and two inches from his waist. The intermittent abdominal distress was gone, as was his prediabetic blood sugar. Six months later, reassessment of his small LDL particles demonstrated 67 percent reduction.
Inconvenient? Perhaps. But it sure beats a toupee.