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Cracker Bowel: Why Grains are Toxic to the Human Gastrointestinal Tract

By Dr. Davis | January 28, 2019 7 Comments

We are told to eat “healthy whole grains” to boost fiber intake, maintain bowel regularity and intestinal health–but the exact OPPOSITE is true. Wheat and grains, especially modern wheat and grains, contain an entire collection of bowel toxins.

Banish wheat and grains from your diet and you are on the path to recovering gastrointestinal health and freedom from dozens of common gastrointestinal conditions.


Transcript:

Hi everybody, Doctor William Davis here. I call this video “cracker bowel”, because wheat and grains are a collection of very potent bowel toxins. You know, it’s ironic isn’t it, that we’re told that we need to eat wheat and grains; need to include them at every meal; because they’re so good for bowel health; because of bran or fiber content, for instance.

Well, that’s true. You can get more cellulose fiber, like sawdust, by eating grains, but this idea that grains are necessary for bowel health is complete nonsense. In fact, the opposite is true. Wheat and grains, particularly modern wheat and grains, are a collection of very toxic compounds to your gastrointestinal tract.

For instance, the gliadin protein within gluten, besides triggering celiac disease, also directly damages the intestinal lining. That’s because, recall that we cannot break down, we can’t digest, the proteins in grains, because we don’t have the enzymes to do that. If you eat an egg, or a piece of bacon, or a hamburger, you break the proteins down in those foods into single amino acids. That’s how you’re supposed to digest proteins.

When you eat the proteins of grains, you either can’t digest them at all, or they’re broken down to pieces — not amino acids, but peptides — several amino acids long. We don’t have the enzymes to break down each bond between each amino acid. That’s how we get gliadin-derived opioid peptides, for instance, that cause appetite stimulation and mind effects. In this case, these small peptides are also toxic, directly toxic to the gastrointestinal lining.

We also are exposed to wheat germ agglutinin. It sounds like “gluten”, but it’s unrelated to gluten. It’s wheat germ uh-GLOO-tih-nin. It’s called agglutinin because it when it contacts blood, it causes it to clot, or agglutinate.

Wheat germ agglutinin is one of those proteins that is completely impervious to human digestion. So if it goes in here [points to mouth] it comes out the other end, intact. But in its course from top to bottom, it is highly toxic. It damages the villi, the little hairs that line intestinal tract, and are responsible for absorption of nutrients. It’s very destructive to those villi, and that can lead to inflammatory changes like colitis.

Wheat germ agglutinin is also very effective in blocking the hormone cholecystokinin (or we say CCK for short).
Screen text: CHOLECYSTOKININ (CCK)
CCK is a hormone released when you eat food, and food contacts the duodenum, the duodenum releases this hormone, CCK. CCK causes two things to happen. It causes your gallbladder to squirt out bile to help modify fats, and it causes your pancreas to release digestive enzymes. Wheat germ agglutinin is a very potent blocker of CCK.

It means that your digestion is impaired. That can lead to acid reflux, stomach upset, heartburn, and over time, disrupts bowel flora, because you’re not fully digesting food. It can also lead to gallstones, because there’s bile stasis. When you have bile stasis, there’s crystallization in the gall bladder. That’s what leads to gallstones over time.

There are also unhealthy changes provoked in bowel flora, especially fungal overgrowth; fungi like Canada albicans.
Screen text: INTESTINAL FUNGAL OVERGROWTH
This is a big problem — a growing problem. It’s responsible for problems like recurrent skin rashes, fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, and can lead to other forms of dysbiosis like SIBO
Screen text: SMALL INTESTINAL BACTERIAL OVERGROWTH (SIBO)
once again, disrupt bowel flora, but especially fungal overgrowth.

Those gliadin-derived peptides, that act like opiates? Well, you know that opioids, or opiates, cause constipation. So the opioid peptides that come from gliadin are very constipating. What we’re told to consume (the brans in grains, for regularity) the opposite is often true — because the opioid peptides that derive from gliadin cause constipation.

Some of the worst constipation you’ll ever see is called obstipation. These poor people can move their bowels maybe every once or every 2 or 3 weeks. It’s a horrible, horrible situation, that responds only to enemas — repeated enemas. It doesn’t even respond to laxatives. Obstipation, severe constipation, goes away within days of stopping all grains. That’s because you’re getting rid of opioid peptides.

Lastly, there’s a collection of allergens in grains that can be responsible for a variety of gastrointestinal symptoms like stomach upset, acid reflux, etc.

This notion that you must eat grains for gastrointestinal health is a complete fairy tale. In fact, the opposite is true. That’s why if you follow along my Wheat Belly and Undoctored conversations, you see, every day, there’s a flood of comments from people who’ve been freed of acid reflux, esophagitis, reflux esophagitis, stomach problems, poor digestion, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome symptoms. A wonderful start to a gastrointestinal health program is to eat no wheat and no grains.

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Filed Under: News & Updates Tagged With: colitis, constipation, gallstones, Gliadin, grain-free, grains, IBS, Inflammation, irritable bowel, lectins, obstipation, wheat belly, Wheat Germ Agglutinin

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About Dr. Davis

Cardiologist Dr. William Davis is a New York
Times #1 Best Selling author and the Medical Director of the Wheat Belly Lifestyle Institute and the Undoctored Inner Circle program.

Nothing here should be construed as medical advice, but only topics for further discussion with your doctor. I practice cardiology in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Comments & Feedback...

  1. Sandra

    January 28, 2019 at 6:48 pm

    Excellent informative information!
    Wish I would have known about this way back when I used to have severe outbreaks of skin rashes, which I now know were Canada albicans. These rashes are actually red rashes that itch like mad, have small blisters that weep, and can reoccur frequently. Mine were the worst during the hot days of summer. Not a fun thing to suffer with.
    Believe it or not, at that time the only thing that worked for me were frequent showers and putting on Desitin baby diaper rash cream with a 40% zinc solution.
    Another good reason to quit the wheat!

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    • Bob Niland

      January 28, 2019 at 8:19 pm

      Sandra wrote: «Wish I would have known about this way back when I used to have severe outbreaks of skin rashes, which I now know were Canada albicans.»

      Are they now completely gone?

      re: «Another good reason to quit the wheat!»

      For some people, that’s all they need to do. But it’s clear that fungal overgrowths, even on an optimized diet with attention to gut flora cultivation, can be persistent. The subscription site has an emerging approach for that, which is reflected in a series of public articles on the Undoctored Blog, starting with this one on 2019-01-12: The Fungus Among Us
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  2. Stuart

    January 29, 2019 at 1:20 am

    Canada albicans? Should we start blaming the Canadians, or should that be Candida albicans? (auto-correct is an invention of the devil IMO).

    Sandra’s rash sounds a lot like dermatitis herpetiformis, an allergic reaction to gluten and other wheat proteins, so may not have been candida

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  3. Susan

    January 30, 2019 at 10:58 am

    A Jan. 28, 2019 article in The New York Times mentions lactobacillus reuteri. Adding it to the microbiomes of mice made them more sociable by increasing oxytocin in their brains.

    Germs in Your Gut Are Talking to Your Brain. Scientists Want to Know What They’re Saying.

    The body’s microbial community may influence the brain and behavior, perhaps even playing a role in dementia, autism and other disorders.
    Carl Zimmer

    By Carl Zimmer

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    • Bob Niland

      January 30, 2019 at 8:53 pm

      Susan wrote: «…article in The New York Times mentions lactobacillus reuteri.»

      Thanks. Actually, the real value of that article might be that it links to many recent papers, some open, some pay-walled. I suspect that Dr. Davis has read them all. By the way, be sure to follow the Undoctored Blog too, as that’s where a lot of the L.reuteri, SIBO and SIFO content has been posted lately.

      re: « Adding it to the microbiomes of mice made them more sociable by increasing oxytocin in their brains.»

      If that’s this paper (Mechanisms Underlying Microbial-Mediated Changes in Social Behavior in Mouse Models of Autism Spectrum Disorder DOI:10.1016/j.neuron.2018.11.018), alas, it’s pay-walled, and the abstract doesn’t mention which L.reuteri strain, so I won’t even bother linking to it.

      The NYT article did close with some things worth commenting on.

      Some strains of L. reuteri alter the behavior of mice, he’s found, and others don’t.

      Yep. Strains matter.

      That’s not easy when people can buy probiotics without a prescription, and when some companies are willing to use preliminary research to peddle microbes to treat conditions like depression. “The science can get mixed up with what the pseudoscientists are doing,” said Dr. Hsiao.

      Translation: the anointed don’t want you meddling serfs trying to fix your horrible (and possibly optional) ailments on your own, even by unwinding back to an ancestral state that lacked the problems. You must wait for the authorized priests of progress, no matter how long it takes. I might further caution: the peer-reviewed solution will probably not actually be a cure, but will be patented, and prescription. It also won’t be initially covered by your universal sickcare regimentation and rationing plan.

      Dr. Costa-Mattioli and his colleagues are still searching for the most effective strain and figuring out the right dose to try on people. “You want to go into a clinical trial with the best weapon, and I’m not sure we have it,” he said.

      Best agent aside, a major issue there, is Standard of Care (SoC). Clinical trials are likely to happen, but are going to be massively confounded by IRBs insisting on arms being on standard diets, and on SoC meds — the very diets and gut antagonists that cause/exacerbate the problems they’re trying to address. A significant problem all by itself is: what water is being consumed? Are the researchers even aware of the chloramine (not chlorine) issue there?

      “We have the edges of the puzzle, and we’re now trying to figure out what’s in the picture itself,” she said.

      Anyone who thinks they have framed (found all the edges of) the problem(s) with the modern/civilized human gut, is exhibiting exactly the sort of arrogance that will delay, detour and perhaps completely derail progress. On microbiome, we might be, on a historical perspective, in the early decades of an Enlightenment.
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  4. kukze

    February 5, 2019 at 5:27 am

    what if the grains are fermented, are they still damaging. I live in a part of the world where grains are our main staples, we can barely do without them, because we don’t have alot of options like developed countries. What can you advice?

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    • Bob Niland

      February 5, 2019 at 9:05 am

      kukze wrote: «what if the grains are fermented, are they still damaging.»

      Yes, but less so. If reduced to flour, and given an extended ferment, the amylopectin starch would be expected to be converted from a sugar to short chain fatty acids and other metabolites. Diabetes risk might be reduced, but that still leaves a long list of other hazards.

      The toxic proteins might be modified a bit, but to what extent I couldn’t guess (in particular the WGA lectin). Whether fermented wheat still stimulates the zonulin that provokes leaky gut and enables autoimmunity, is another interesting question.

      re: «What can you advice?»

      Do whatever you can to avoid the gluten-bearing grains and eat real food. If non-gluten-bearing grains are unavoidable, ferment them. Regions that cannot afford real food, also cannot afford the health consequences of the junk foods they consume instead.
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