The Gluten Free Diet
Avoiding gluten is now big business though many individuals have been gluten free for years. The supermarkets have responded with an array of gluten-free bread, soups, and biscuits—even gluten-free sauces and yoghurts. Authors are publishing gluten-free cookbooks; restaurants feature gluten-free menus. Your kids birthday cake can be ordered – Gluten Free. It only makes sense then to question – how bad is gluten?
What is gluten?
Gluten is a protein found typically in wheat, barley, and rye. Gluten is what gives the dough its elasticity and what makes it chewy. Holding the title of SUPER GLUTEN – believe it or not – WHEAT!
How your body deals with gluten
- Poor Digestion as Gluten is hard to digest
- Poor Nutrient Absorption
- Mineral Deficiencies
- Causes holes in the lining of the intestines
- Toxins can then pass through the damaged intestinal wall
- “Brain Fog” = Anxiety & Depression
- Crohn’s Disease, IBS, Candida, Coeliac Disease
For those suffering from celiac disease, (an autoimmune disorder)., eating foods containing gluten can cause a series of medical problems. It causes damage to the small intestine, creates abdominal pain and bloat and further nutrient deficiencies. Also, among the symptoms is diarrhoea, anaemia, and fatigue. Celiac disease is more common than one would imagine and unfortunately, there is no cure or drugs that can treat it. The management is to live gluten-free for the remaining years of your life.
Living Gluten Free isn’t easy, but there are a range of alternatives.
Gluten-free grains are highly nutritious and rich in belly filling fibre, so keep your mind open to the options available.
Quinoa
Superfood providing complete protein, with all nine essential amino acids. Low on the glycemic index, so it shouldn’t mess with your blood sugar.
Buckwheat
Buckwheat is rich in rutin, a flavonoid that has potent antioxidant properties. Rich in magnesium which is great for the heart’s health.
Amaranth
Amaranth has more protein than wheat and double that of white rice.
How Wheat (and Gluten) Triggers Weight Gain, Prediabetes, Diabetes and More
When you cut out wheat, you lose the insatiable appetite, the cyclic highs of blood sugar and insulin, and the inflammatory phenomena via its components, gliadin, wheat germ, and gluten.
There are grades of bad within the wheat world. The worst most likely to be wheat germ, and the least severe, though destructive, is pasta.
What makes it so hard to cut out the wheat from one’s diet?
The gliadin protein has addictive qualities due to its opiate-like effects. It also stimulates the appetite for up to 5 days post consumption.
Grains and sugars are known to CAUSE type 2 diabetes.
Wheat can be considered the worst of all grains. Studies show that it plays an important part in the creation of diabetes. But why?
- The amylopectin A “complex” carbohydrate of Amylase, the salivary and stomach enzyme responsible for the digestion of wheat. Raises blood sugar levels dramatically.
- High blood glucose damages the pancreatic beta cells. Beta cells produce insulin. This process is called “glucotoxicity.”
- Following the consumption of wheat, the process of liver lipogenesis causes a flood of triglyceride-rich liver lipoproteins like VLDL particles to enter the bloodstream. This damages the pancreatic beta cells, a process called “lipotoxicity.”
- Repetitive high blood sugars, such as those that develop after eating whole grains “wheat” via an uncertain cascade of events, leads to insulin resistance, which places greater demand on the pancreas to produce more insulin.
- Insulin resistance triggers visceral fat to accumulate – we know this physically on our bodies: muffin top, love handles, or wheat belly.
- Visceral fat is inflammatory fat. This is the fat that causes insulin resistance.
- Combining the action of gliadin protein and the lectin protein, wheat germ agglutinin, are directly toxic to the pancreas, as well as to the gastric/duodenal signaling apparatus for pancreatic endocrine/exocrine function.
In short: eat/drink wheat = diabetes.
Pancreatic beta cells, for the most part, do not regenerate once destroyed. If you have only 70 % residual beta cell function remaining, remember that diabetes is irreversible once you have it.
