Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health by William Davis Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: William Davis
the insulin level, the more fat is deposited. This is why, say, eating a three-egg omelet that triggers no increase in glucose does not add to body fat, while two slices of whole wheat bread increases blood glucose to high levels, triggering insulin and growth of fat, particularly abdominal or deep visceral fat.
There’s even more to wheat’s curious glucose behavior. The amylopectin A-induced surge in glucose and insulin following wheat consumption is a 120-minute-long phenomenon that produces the “high” at the glucose peak, followed by the “low” of the inevitable glucose drop. The surge and drop creates a two-hour roller coaster ride of satiety and hunger that repeats itself throughout the day. The glucose “low” is responsible for stomach growling at 9 a.m., just two hours after a bowl of wheat cereal or an English muffin breakfast, followed by 11 a.m. prelunch cravings, as well as the mental fog, fatigue, and shakiness of the hypoglycemic glucose nadir.
Trigger high blood sugars repeatedly and/or over sustained periods, and more fat accumulation results. The consequences of glucose-insulin-fat deposition are especially visible in the abdomen—resulting in, yes, wheat belly. The bigger your wheat belly, the poorer your response to insulin, since the deep visceral fat of thewheat belly is associated with poor responsiveness, or “resistance,” to insulin, demanding higher and higher insulin levels, a situation that cultivates diabetes. Moreover, the bigger the wheat belly in males, the more estrogen is produced by fat tissue, and the larger the breasts. The bigger your wheat belly, the more inflammatory responses that are triggered: heart disease and cancer.
Because of wheat’s morphine-like effect (discussed in the next chapter) and the glucose-insulin cycle that wheat amylopectin A generates, wheat is, in effect, an appetite
stimulant.
Accordingly, people who eliminate wheat from their diet consume fewer calories, something I will discuss later in the book.
If glucose-insulin-fat provocation from wheat consumption is a major phenomenon underlying weight gain, then
elimination
of wheat from the diet should reverse the phenomenon. And that is exactly what happens.
For years, wheat-related weight loss has been observed in patients with celiac disease, who must eliminate all foods containing gluten from their diets to halt an immune response gone awry, which in celiac patients essentially destroys the small intestine. As it happens, wheat-free, gluten-free diets are also amylopectin A-free.
However, the weight loss effects of wheat elimination are not immediately clear from clinical studies. Many celiac sufferers are diagnosed after years of suffering and begin the diet change in a severely malnourished state due to prolonged diarrhea and impaired nutrient absorption. Underweight, malnourished celiac sufferers may actually
gain
weight with wheat removal thanks to improved digestive function.
But if we look only at overweight people who are not severely malnourished at the time of diagnosis who remove wheat from their diet, it becomes clear that this enables them to lose a substantial amount of weight. A Mayo Clinic/University of Iowa study of 215 obese celiac patients showed 27.5 pounds of weight loss in the first six months of a wheat-free diet. 11 In another study, wheat elimination slashed the number of people classified as obese (bodymass index, or BMI, 30 or greater) in half within a year. 12 Oddly, investigators performing these studies usually attribute the weight loss of wheat- and gluten-free diets to lack of food variety. (Food variety, incidentally, can still be quite wide and wonderful after wheat is eliminated, as I will discuss.)
Advice to consume more healthy whole grains therefore causes increased consumption of the amylopectin A form of wheat carbohydrate, a form of carbohydrate that, for all practical purposes, is little different, and in some ways worse, than dipping your spoon into
There’s even more to wheat’s curious glucose behavior. The amylopectin A-induced surge in glucose and insulin following wheat consumption is a 120-minute-long phenomenon that produces the “high” at the glucose peak, followed by the “low” of the inevitable glucose drop. The surge and drop creates a two-hour roller coaster ride of satiety and hunger that repeats itself throughout the day. The glucose “low” is responsible for stomach growling at 9 a.m., just two hours after a bowl of wheat cereal or an English muffin breakfast, followed by 11 a.m. prelunch cravings, as well as the mental fog, fatigue, and shakiness of the hypoglycemic glucose nadir.
Trigger high blood sugars repeatedly and/or over sustained periods, and more fat accumulation results. The consequences of glucose-insulin-fat deposition are especially visible in the abdomen—resulting in, yes, wheat belly. The bigger your wheat belly, the poorer your response to insulin, since the deep visceral fat of thewheat belly is associated with poor responsiveness, or “resistance,” to insulin, demanding higher and higher insulin levels, a situation that cultivates diabetes. Moreover, the bigger the wheat belly in males, the more estrogen is produced by fat tissue, and the larger the breasts. The bigger your wheat belly, the more inflammatory responses that are triggered: heart disease and cancer.
Because of wheat’s morphine-like effect (discussed in the next chapter) and the glucose-insulin cycle that wheat amylopectin A generates, wheat is, in effect, an appetite
stimulant.
Accordingly, people who eliminate wheat from their diet consume fewer calories, something I will discuss later in the book.
If glucose-insulin-fat provocation from wheat consumption is a major phenomenon underlying weight gain, then
elimination
of wheat from the diet should reverse the phenomenon. And that is exactly what happens.
For years, wheat-related weight loss has been observed in patients with celiac disease, who must eliminate all foods containing gluten from their diets to halt an immune response gone awry, which in celiac patients essentially destroys the small intestine. As it happens, wheat-free, gluten-free diets are also amylopectin A-free.
However, the weight loss effects of wheat elimination are not immediately clear from clinical studies. Many celiac sufferers are diagnosed after years of suffering and begin the diet change in a severely malnourished state due to prolonged diarrhea and impaired nutrient absorption. Underweight, malnourished celiac sufferers may actually
gain
weight with wheat removal thanks to improved digestive function.
But if we look only at overweight people who are not severely malnourished at the time of diagnosis who remove wheat from their diet, it becomes clear that this enables them to lose a substantial amount of weight. A Mayo Clinic/University of Iowa study of 215 obese celiac patients showed 27.5 pounds of weight loss in the first six months of a wheat-free diet. 11 In another study, wheat elimination slashed the number of people classified as obese (bodymass index, or BMI, 30 or greater) in half within a year. 12 Oddly, investigators performing these studies usually attribute the weight loss of wheat- and gluten-free diets to lack of food variety. (Food variety, incidentally, can still be quite wide and wonderful after wheat is eliminated, as I will discuss.)
Advice to consume more healthy whole grains therefore causes increased consumption of the amylopectin A form of wheat carbohydrate, a form of carbohydrate that, for all practical purposes, is little different, and in some ways worse, than dipping your spoon into
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