In this article we’re going to talk about wheat! One of my favourite subjects of all time. I’ll be strictly presenting the case AGAINST eating it, and hopefully demonstrate it as one of the most harmful foods you can put in your body.
I’ll go over a few studies and scientific reviews to build the case, but before we do that, I’d like us to at least agree that wheat (and grains generally), are not natural foods for us, despite them coming from ‘nature’.
Have you ever driven or walked by a field of wheat and thought to yourself “hmm… I could go for a snack.” Were you tempted to hop the fence and grab a handful of wheat to munch on? Can you see the difference between that and seeing an apple orchard? Indications from archeology are that before the agricultural revolution, we only ate grains in desperate situations. They were certainly not a staple of the hunter-gatherer diet. They really only can ever become a dietary staple in the diet when we have accessed to processed wheat and grains.
Hey Mister, you gonna eat that?
Now, you might think “well, still the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, so it’s been a natural part of our diet for a very long time.”
There are two main counterpoints to this. The first, is that in evolutionary terms, 10,000 years isn’t particularly long. We’ve been evolving from the first multicellular life for about 600,000,000 years, and from primates for 65,000,000 years. And there’s no indication that we ate wheat or grains during those millions of years. The homo genus (homo erectus, homo sapien, etc) first appeared about 2,000,000 years ago, with anatomically modern humans appeared about 250,000 years ago. Here, we have some indication that grain was consumed, but it was extremely rare and likely only in extreme starvation situations.
Second, during the agricultural revolution something totally unprecedented happened to us as a species, never seen before or since. We went from tall (avg 5’10” for males, 5’6” for females) robust hunter gatherers, to diminutive and weak primitive farmers, who lost half a foot of average height (avg 5’4” for males, 5,1” for females) and could hardly keep a set of healthy teeth in their heads. This was the real dawn of significant quantities of grain in our diets. You can read more on this shrinking and un-healthing of human beings during the agricultural revolution in John Durant’s excellent book, The Paleo Manifesto.
Notice that despite the massive increase in calorie consumption in the modern world, we still haven’t achieved the average stature of our pre-agriculture hunter-gatherer ancestors.
With the evolutionary perspective out of the way, let’s get into some of the science that shows that wheat (and most grains) should be avoided by everyone, not just those with celiac or gluten sensitivity.
LECTINS:
The first of many issues with wheat is Lectins. I bet you thought I was going to say gluten. We’ll get to that later. Lectins are naturally occuring proteins found in most plants. They are considered anti-nutrients – and that is not just hyperbola. They are found in particularly high concentrations in grains, nightshades and beans. The purpose of a plant’s lectins is to protect the plant, particularly it’s reproductive bits, from insects and other environmental harms. There is a considerable amount of research now indicating that consuming lectins in high quantities (ie, making any of the above-mentioned foods staples in your diet) has a myriad of negative health impacts. There also seem to be people who are particularly sensitive to lectins. Perhaps you’ve heard of the FODMAPs diet? A lot of people have had success with that diet treating a wide variety of health issues, and it has everything to do with lectin avoidance.
In 2004 Researchers out of Universidade Federal do Ceará in Brazil had this to say about lectins in a scientific review they called antinutritional properties of plant lectins:
“One of the most nutritionally important features of plant lectins is their ability to survive digestion by the gastrointestinal tract of consumers. This allows the lectins to bind to membrane glycosyl groups of the cells lining the digestive tract. As a result of this interaction a series of harmful local and systemic reactions are triggered placing this class of molecules as antinutritive and/or toxic substances. Locally, they can affect the turnover and loss of gut epithelial cells, damage the luminal membranes of the epithelium, interfere with nutrient digestion and absorption, stimulate shifts in the bacterial flora and modulate the immune state of the digestive tract. Systemically, they can disrupt lipid, carbohydrate and protein metabolism, promote enlargement and/or atrophy of key internal organs and tissues and alter the hormonal and immunological status. At high intakes, lectins can seriously threaten the growth and health of consuming animals.”
This is a pretty good summary of lectins. Again, just because they come from nature, doesn’t mean their healthy. The venom of a snake comes from nature, but it’s purpose is to serve the snake, not us. The same is true with lectins. They serve for the benefit of the plant, not for consumers of that plant, and in particular not for consumers of the reproductive parts of the plant. As these researchers say, they are antinutritive, toxic substances. They increase turnover and loss of epithelial cells – these are the cells lining our digestive tract; the barrier between our gut and the rest of our body. They disrupt our metabolism, and atrophy our organs and tissues. Obviously these affects aren’t strong enough that we eat a donut and drop dead, but as the researchers say, at high intakes lectins can seriously threaten the health of those that consume them.
The first scientific review I’d like to go over in more depth is “The Dietary Intake of Wheat and other Cereal Grains and Their Role in Inflammation” which was a collaboration between universities in austria and spain, published in the journal Nutrients, in 2013. The title certainly gives the gist of it away, but let’s go over a few of its findings about the type of lectins found in wheat.
Wheat Germ Agglutinin (WGA) is the most studied lectin present in wheat, and has been shown to increase intestinal permeability among other things. We’ll get more into what intestinal permeability is shortly. Here’s the researchers take on lectins and WGA:
“Because of their ability to bind to virtually all cell types and cause damage to several organs, lectins are widely recognized as anti-nutrients within food. Most lectins are resistant to heat and the effects of digestive enzymes, and are able to bind to several tissues and organs in vitro and in vivo (reviewed by Freed 1991). The administration of the lectin WGA to experimental animals caused hyperplastic and hypertrophic growth of the small intestine, hypertrophic growth of the pancreas and thymus atrophy.”
In other words, pure lectins from wheat have been shown to cause growths (polyps, etc) in the small intestine and pancreas, and reduction in thymus size (which is associated with lymphocyte – a key part of the immune system – depletion) in animals.
They go on – and this part is a bit hard to read, but I’ll attempt to put it more simply afterwards.
“[The lectin] WGA induces inflammatory responses by immune cells. For example, WGA has been shown to trigger histamine secretion and granule extrusion from non-stimulated rat peritoneal mast cells, induce NADP-oxidase activity in human neutrophils and stimulate the release of the cytokines IL-4 and IL-13 from human basophils. In human PBMC [peripheral blood mononuclear cells], WGA induced the production of IL-2, while simultaneously inhibiting the proliferation of activated lymphocytes. WGA stimulated the secretion of IL-12, in a T- and B-cell-independent manner in murine spleen cells. IL-12, in turn, activated the secretion of IFN-γ by T or natural killer cells. In murine peritoneal macrophages WGA induced the production of the pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-12 and IFN-γ. Similar results have been observed in isolated human PBMC, given that nanomolar concentrations of WGA stimulated the release of several pro-inflammatory cytokines. In the same study a significant increase in the intracellular accumulation of IL-1β was measured in monocytes after WGA exposure. These results indicate that, when delivered in vitro, WGA is capable of directly stimulating monocytes and macrophages, cells that have the ability to initiate and maintain inflammatory responses.”
So, what does this all mean? Simply, it means that when you eat wheat, even in small quantities, your immune system has a massive, pro-inflammatory, reaction. This is not just for people with Celiac, this is everyone. The cytokines referenced, IL-1β, IL-2, IL-4, IL13, IL-12, are a type of protein used by our immune system to signal other components of the immune system basically saying “Get over here! We are being invaded! Help, help!” – which is exactly what’s going on when we consume wheat. TNF-α [Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha] is also a cytokine, works similarly, and is well known for being a great marker for overall inflammation levels in the body. This is how our body reacts to the lectin WGA alone, not to mention gluten (it reacts similarly to pure gluten, making wheat a great one-two inflammatory punch, but we’ll get to that shortly).
They go on:
“After ingestion, WGA is capable of crossing the intestinal barrier. In animal models, WGA has been shown to reach the basolateral membrane and walls of the small blood vessels in the subepithelium of the small intestine.”
In other words this lectin, WGA, gets past the intestinal barrier. Note they also mentioned earlier, that WGA is not destroyed by digestive enzymes.
“WGA itself has been found to affect enterocyte permeability. Investigations by Dalla Pellegrina et al. showed, in vitro, that exposure to micromolar concentrations of WGA impairs the integrity of the intestinal epithelial layer, allowing passage of small molecules, like lectins. At the basolateral side of the epithelium, WGA concentrations in the nanomolar range induced the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines by immune cells . This may further affect the integrity of the epithelial layer, heightening the potential for a positive feedback loop between WGA, epithelial cells and immune cells. When combined, these mechanisms are likely able to significantly increase the percentage of consumed WGA that can cross the epithelial layer compared to the low percentage of WGA crossing by means of transcytosis (0.1%) alone. This suggests that, together with gliadin, WGA can increase intestinal permeability, resulting in an increase of translocating microbial and dietary antigens interacting with cells of the immune system.”
Alright, what does THAT mean? The big take-away from this paragraph is that this lectin present in wheat, WGA, when combined with the gluten-associated protein found in wheat, gliadin, increases intestinal permeability.
Intestinal permeability results in bacteria and other ‘stuff’ (to put it gently) that’s supposed to be contained within your small intestine, getting into your body. The myriad of bacteria and undigested food getting into your body of course results in a massive, massive immune response (and of course inflammation), and when this happens chronically it should be considered the number one risk factor for acquiring an autoimmune condition. We’ll talk more on that later.
PHYTATES
Phytates are another class of anti-nutrients. In this case their effect as an anti-nutrient is more obvious; they simply block the absorption of minerals in your digestive tract. Specifically they’ve been found to significantly inhibit iron, zinc, magnesium, manganese and calcium from being absorbed (that’s what we know of, anyway). This effect is acute; meaning that they have this negative effect during the meal you’re eating, but won’t affect you the next day, etc. Phytates are found mostly in grains, legumes and nuts. They aren’t necessarily a huge concern if consumed occasionally. The issue is that grains are a huge staple of the north american diet. If you have a handful of beans and nuts a day, you’ll get some less-than-efficient mineral absorption. However if you’re having cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, pasta for dinner, and a granola bar for a snack, you’re effectively blocking mineral absorption during every single opportunity to absorb minerals during the day. I’d also note that iron, zinc, magnesium, manganese and calcium are the minerals they’ve studied in conjunction with phytates, and it’s likely they actually block many more minerals from being well absorbed.
Although not specifically about wheat, the review bioavailability of minerals in legumes out of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, looks specifically into the effect of phytates on the absorption of Zinc and Iron. They reviewed several human studies that showed Iron absorption from the phytate-rich food soybeans, ranged from 0.8 to 1.9%. Soybeans have about the same phytate content as wheat – though wheat germ and wheat bran are much higher.
“The mineral content of legumes is generally high, but the bioavailability is poor due to the presence of phytate, which is a main inhibitor of Fe and Zn absorption… Strictly vegetarian diets based on unrefined cereals and possibly also some legume-based diets will result in low absorption of Fe and Zn.”
The review goes on to state that fermenting, soaking, or sprouting legumes does improve mineral absorption by reducing phytate. This is true for grains such as wheat as well. Concurrently consuming Vitamin C seems to help as well, specifically by blocking phytates. So, there are ways to get around this, but there is no doubt that this compound found in grains, especially abundant in whole grains, blocks nutrient absorption in a big way.
To be clear, phytates are impossible to completely avoid, and there seem to be some benefits to eating them for both heart disease and hemochromatosis. It’s simply that in large quantities, such as having them present in just about every meal, they can be quite problematic. I think this is probably especially true for children, who benefit less from the good parts of phytate and need all the mineral absorption capacity they can get.
GLUTEN
Alright, let’s do it. The biggest buzz word of them all! Why is this such a big deal?
Our story here starts with researcher Alyssio Fassano in MIT and his work with Zonulin. Zonulin is a compound that exists in our guts, and it was discovered just two decades ago. It is the only native factor that controls the function of the intracellular tight junctions in our intestines. Most of our small intestine walls are of course only a single cell in thickness. That’s all that separates most of our digestive tract from the rest of our body. Because of this, and the function of our gut generally, most of our immune system components cells reside right along that single cell barrier. The ‘intracellular tight junctions’ are what hold the single-cell wall of our intestines together – they are essential to making sure that food, bacteria and other ‘stuff’ in our intestines doesn’t make it into the rest of our body except through the proper mechanisms – absorption by the villi and microvilli lining our digestive tract.
Of course when researchers first discovered this zonulin compound which regulates these tight junctions in our intestines, they worked to find out what diseases were associated with very high levels of zonulin. What they found was celiac, type 1 diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, and multiple sclerosis. You’ll notice 3 out of 4 of those are autoimmune conditions, and the fourth, IBS, may in fact be an autoimmune condition according to some recent research.
In all his work Alyssio Fassano found that only two things increase zonulin – which in turn increases intestinal permeability – which in turn leads to the development and exacerbation of auto-immune conditions. One is pathogenic bacterial consolidation of the gut – ie, dysbiosis. The other is gluten; well, specifically one of its two components (gliadin and glutenin) – which may mean that in addition to gluten-containing grains like wheat, oats may be an issue. Oats are the only food that contains gliadin without glutenin.
This is the connection that makes wheat, and other gluten containing grains, specifically bad. Their ability to upregulate Zonulin production, which leads to increased intestinal permeability, which leads to autoimmune conditions. Combine this with wheat’s specific lectin, WGA, which has also been shown to increase intestinal permeability in of itself, and you’ve got a one-two punch to the gut (lining).
Gluten is of course a controversial subject. Partly because research has been so back-and-forth about it. In 2014 there were a group of scientists that published a study finding gluten harmful, and causing gastrointestinal distress among consumers of the protein, compared to placebo. Then within a few months, they published a study that reversed that conclusion. The media ran with this story (not the original study that implied gluten was harmful) and essentially put on a big campaign about how crazy all these damn anti-gluten people are. Bizarrely the lead researcher from that study, in a third report report said:
“Human and animal studies strongly suggest that dietary gluten could play a causal role in the etiopathogenesis of type 1 diabetes (T1D). However, the mechanisms have not been elucidated. … Our novel study thus suggests that dietary gluten could modulate the incidence of T1D by changing the gut microbiome.”
So, a flip, then a flop, then a flip again. What’s going on here? Funding. Remember the cigarette studies from the 1950’s?
If we check out the second study, the one the media ran a blitz campaign on, indicating gluten is perfectly fine, we find two main things. First, they only looked at gastrointestinal distress; as opposed to say inflammation and disease, and second, the funding for this study was provided by George Weston Foods. Who are George Wetson Foods? Just one of Australia’s largest purveyors of bread, pasta, cakes and other baked goods.
Then, hilariously, there was a study in 2017 saying that a gluten free diet may cause heart disease. This report, I suspect, was trying to be overly sensational. The findings really indicate that a low-fiber diet may cause heart disease (based on cholesterol levels increasing, which is becoming controversial in of itself). In other words, removing whole wheat and replacing it with white rice isn’t helpful. Sure. Fiber is essential for maintaining a good microbiome and healthy cholesterol levels – cholesterol binds to fiber in the gut in order to get evacuated from the body. If there is no fiber in the gut, it gets resorbed through the large intestine.
So, if you alter the macronutrients in a diet by lowering fiber while keeping everything else the same, yeah, that might lead to a worse outcome – especially over the short term where things like cholesterol levels would go up but low-grade systemic inflammation may not have any noticable effects yet (and especially of course, if the only thing you’re measuring is cholesterol). So the issue here isn’t a ‘gluten free diet’ – that would be a bit like saying the issue with a vegan diet is eating too many Doritos.
THE AUTOIMMUNE CONNECTION
Let’s consider for a moment the massive rise in autoimmune conditions over the last few decades.
These are some of the more common autoimmune conditions; rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, eczema, asthma, vitiligo, multiple sclerosis, crohns, type 1 diabetes, celiac, graves, hashimotos, lupus, ulcerative colitis, hepatitis, endometriosis, schizophrenia, fibromyalgia.
Since the 1950’s:
- MS rates are up 400%
- Crohn’s rates are up 400%
- Type 1 Diabetes rates are up 350%
- Celiac Disease rates are up 300%
- Hyper/Hypo thyroidism is up 250%
There are an estimated 50 million Americans with autoimmune diseases. This however likely an underestimate as we keep adding to the list of conditions that have an auto-immune component. In comparison 9 million US citizens have cancer, and 22 million have heart disease. This makes autoimmune disease the most common type of medical disease in the west.
So, are we eating more wheat now than in the 50’s? Yes, likely about twice as much per person. The data shows wheat consumption has generally been rising pretty steadily since 1960. Before then it’s a bit hard to say. American wheat production was high in the 40’s, but so were exports; while worldwide wheat production was low. It’s hard to figure out per capita consumption data. But there is a clear correlation over the last 60 years between wheat consumption and autoimmune conditions.
Over the last 6 decades we see a four-fold increase in wheat production, while world population increased a bit more than two-fold. Cattle, the other major consumers of wheat, have remained relatively unchanged, with populations declining in most industrial countries, however increasing worldwide by about 40% over those 6 decades.
But correlation is not causation!
Very true! This data on wheat consumption doesn’t mean wheat consumption causes autoimmune conditions. There is simply a correlation. It may be causative, it may not. However it has come to be widely accepted in health communities around the world that leaky gut is the driver for autoimmune conditions.
Likely, wheat consumption is just one of the major factors driving the autoimmune epidemic. We know some of the best ways to seal the gut lining is dramatically increasing vitamin D. Do we spend more or less time outside soaking up vitamin D, than we did in the 50’s? We know bone-broth is a fantastic gut-sealer. I’m willing to bet we were eating more of that back in the days before processed-everything, when almost all food was made from scratch. Eating a diet that fosters a healthy microbiome, full of raw veg, fibre, and fermented food while being low in sugar, is great at preventing leaky gut. I’m also willing to bet a diet like that was much more common in the 50’s.
So I think if everything else in your life is right, you can probably tolerate some amount of wheat. But if you’re not outside working the farm 8 hours a day, not eating a diet made from scratch, with bone broth, fiber, raw veg, and fermented foods, and you eat more than a few scarce grams of added sugars per day, eating wheat is unfortunately not a good idea. At best it should be considered a treat, and at worst, a toxin. My general advice would be that if you have any diagnosed autoimmune disease, or any hints of one, even the more benign ones such as psoriasis or eczema, you should completely avoid wheat (and other gluten containing grains). If you’re both young and the pinnacle of health, consider it a once-in-a-while treat.
My daughter seems to be the pinnacle of health. As a treat, we allow her to consume a serving of wheat about every couple of weeks; a friend’s birthday cake, some christmas stuffing, that kind of thing. Based on the science, I’m sure that this causes a large reaction from her immune system, a spike in inflammation, and inefficient mineral absorption. Her five year old body can handle that once in a while. The unfortunate reality of aging is that every year one must make more careful and deliberate decisions about what to eat. I think even a senior at the ‘pinnacle of health’ – should avoid wheat if they’d like to stay that way.
For myself, cutting gluten from my diet (and taking 5,000 – 10,000 IU vitamin D daily) has had a profound impact on my kidney disease, which is autoimmune in nature (IgA Nephropathy). I have now been 4 years without a flair-up, where as I used to get about 3 per year. My urine is also consistently clear of any signs of my autoimmune disease. Needless to say, I am a huge advocate of cutting wheat and other grains from the diet, as it’s had a huge impact on my life.
