Yafa - Grain of truth: the real case for and against wheat and gluten

O ne of the many bonds between my wife, Bonnie, and myself has long been the sturdy armor of skepticism we have both erected to protect us from the relentless onslaught of dietary, fashion, lifestyle, and spiritual fads, all directed toward creating a slimmer, bouncier, brighter-eyed, whiter-toothed, higher-functioning you and mejust the sort of evolved being weve both learned to dodge at cocktail parties. Over two decades wed lived through the Atkins, Pritikin, Scarsdale, South Beach, Blood Type, Beverly Hills, Detox, Israeli Army, Cabbage Soup, and Grapefruit diets and emerged more or less intact. Wed survived break dancing, the Maharishi, Pet Rocks, Rubiks Cubes, Cabbage Patch Dolls, Beanie Babies, ant farms, granny glasses, lava lamps, leisure suits, strobe lights, and Tony Robbins. There have been scars but no damage to major organs including the cerebral cortexor so I thought.

Then came the Ayurvedic retreat. Bonnie and three female friends disappeared into the hills near Calistoga in Napa County one December morning for a weekend of intense spa treatments. Returning home, my wife made an announcement. I have a gluten neck, she said. Her first words. I waited for the punch line. None followed. Apparently two male Ayurvedic practitioners, who work on you as a teamI know how this soundsperformed their tandem bodywork on Bonnie. She said she half-expected to be massaged by a guru with a white goatee and a turban. The ancient Indian practice of Ayurvedic medicine, she understood, dates back more than twenty-five hundred years and stresses the balance of three internal doshaswater, fire, and air. Beneath the exotic nomenclature is an emphasis on a healthy body-mind connection, a smooth-running metabolism, and an unimpeded digestive system.

One of the bodyworkers dug his knuckles into the kinks in my neck and shoulders and after a minute he just stopped, Bonnie reported. He told me, Theres very little I can do for you until you stop eating gluten. Your upper torso is so inflamed that if you sincerely want to see change, youll have to take gluten out of your diet. And I am, starting now. This was not the punch line I expected.

The first items to disappear from our kitchen pantry were pumpernickel, crusty sourdough with its spongy interior, and every other form of wheat-based, chewy, delicious bread and bagel. In their place a whole cast of pretenders moved in like squatters, bearing no resemblance to the authentic originalloaves begging to be called bread yet made from tapioca, rice, sorghum, potato, cornstarch, and flour; crackers and cookies and other assorted dry, brittle wannabe edibles that I snipped off with my front teeth like slivers of seasoned cardboard and attempted to crunch into bite-size units capable of being swallowed. Whether eating non-gluten pizza, pastry, or ersatz pasta, the experience of savoring and chewing anything springy and doughy soon became a nostalgic memory at best, the way that bright sun glows only in dim recollections of characters in bleak postapocalyptic novels. Nothing remained of the heady scent, elasticity, and buoyant texture I associate with leavened wheat. What Im eating isnt food, I decided: it is punishment for running the occasional red light and sins Ive yet to commit.

You may wonder why I didnt stock up on a gluten-rich grain trove of my own in self-defense. Spousal loyalty had something to do with itBonnie was committed to her new regimenbut beyond that, I began on my own to investigate the current print, social, and broadcast media assaults on wheat, and they were both voluminous and daunting. Gluten, all agreed, was Satans spawn. Characterizing wheat as a healthy whole grain constitutes colossally bad advice, Dr. William Davis proclaimed in Wheat Belly. It is among the biggest health blunders ever made in the history of nutritional science. If consuming refined white flour was comparable to smoking unfiltered Camels, he added, eating whole grains was no healthier than inhaling filtered cigarettes.

The basic argument, by now familiar to one and all, goes something like this: gluten, a complex protein found in wheat, rye, and barley, triggers a variety of inflammatory and digestive reactions while the carb content in grain spikes blood glucose and, as a result, promotes insulin resistance, deposits visceral fat, and contributes to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and a host of inflammatory disorders, one of the most severe being celiac disease. That autoimmune reaction in about 1 percent of the population severely damages the small intestine and leaks unwanted bacteria into the blood system. While no cure exists, it can be accurately diagnosed and negative effects can be avoided by refraining from eating wheat, rye, and barley in any form. For the vast majority of us, however, the alleged culprit is non-celiac gluten sensitivity, a more elusive and widespread condition. While it does no damage to our intestinal walls, gluten sensitivity is said to play havoc with our systems in the myriad ways listed above. Hunger cravings, joint pain, and constipation round out glutens rap sheet.

Closer to home, my wife and dozens of others I talked to, men and women, reported an increase in mental clarity and sustained energy and less bloating as a result of abstaining from wheat. Weight loss figured in, but without the dramatic decreases reported by cardiologist Davis.