source: outlaw fitness 

The Take Home Message About Gluten

As home-grown theories about the health affects of gluten abound, there is no credible scientific basis for it. As Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale Prevention Research Center  so eloquently puts,

“The potential adverse health affects of gluten in those sensitive to it have reverberated in cyberspace, creating the impression that gluten is a bona fide toxin, harmful to all. This is false; gluten is not ‘bad’ for those tolerant of it, any more than peanuts are ‘bad’ for people free of peanut allergy.”

He goes on to point out that avoiding gluten is justified for some, but unnecessary for most.

“The effort is well-justified for those who are truly gluten-sensitive, but potentially much ado about nothing for others just caught up in the trend. In addition, the exclusion of whole grain wheat, rye, barley and potentially oats from the diet might reduce overall diet quality and fiber intake. Again, a price worth paying when gluten avoidance is clearly necessary, but cost without benefit for others,” Katz says.

I’m glad Katz brought this up, as the hyper-abundance of anti-grain material sweeps blogs and forums across the nation, little is being said about the negative health affects of gluten-free diets. Registered dietitian Wendy Marcason said in a 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association that a gluten-free diet presents “many negative features, including the high cost of the diet, the difficulty following the diet, and the risk for developing amino acid deficiencies and conditions of bone loss.”

This small study even shows preliminary evidence that a gluten-free diet may in fact decrease the count of beneficial bacteria in the gut, and increase enterobacterial counts, which are microbial features associated with disease. More research needs to be done on the issue before anything can be conclusively decided.

Ultimately, the recent fad can be summed up nicely by Dr. Alessio Fasano, direct of the University of Maryland’s Center for Celiac Research. “The bottom line for gluten-sensitivity,” Fasano says, “is there are very little facts and a lot of fantasy.”

Lectins

Lectins are a naturally occurring phytonutrient that plants use as insecticides to protect themselves from insects and other potential predators. Mark Sisson states that Lectins are toxic “antinutrients,” that attack the stomach lining of insects, bind to human intestinal lining, and maybe even cause leptin resistance.

Before I say anything else, I want to mention that “antinutrient” isn’t really a word. It’s not used by the nutritional or medical communities and you won’t find it in the dictionary. I can only conclude that he refers to lectins in this assumably negative way due to the fact that lectins, in some circumstances, have been shown to act as a toxin in the human body. Now, learn this.

Lectin is in all foods. Read it again grain-bashers. Lectin is in everything you eat. 

Most of the lectin we eat is rendered harmless by cooking, as the majority of lectins are deactivated by heat. However, some lectins, like those in carrots, apples, bananas, avocado, corn pumpkin seeds, wheat bran, wheat flour, dry-roasted peanuts, and more, are not deactivated easily by heat, so they’re often active when we eat them.

The lectins that do make it into our bodies in an activated state break down the membranes of cancer cells (reducing prostate, colon and other cancers), fungi, bacteria, and viruses (HIV-1 included).

Lectins only become a source of intestinal discomfort when they’re consumed in extremely large quantities. When you overload your system with lectin, it starts to affect your intestinal cells in the same way it does with cancer and virus cells. This affect is not new and is well documented in the medical community.

As with many things in life, too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing, and lectin is no different. Saying that a food is toxic or harmful to the human body because it contains lectin is a little like saying carrots or apples are toxic or harmful to the human body because they contain arsenic. Yes, arsenic is a toxin. Yes, it can kill you. No, the arsenic in an apple or a carrot is not unhealthy. It’s misleading to think like that, not to mention incorrect. Heck, even water will kill you if you drink too much of it in too short a time span. Life is all about balance, and lectin is no different. When ingested in its natural amounts, as part of whole foods, it is not something you need to actively fear or avoid.

It can become counterproductive when you try to micromanage the nutrients in foods by avoiding certain ones. Sure, if you isolate lectin and ingest a large dosage of pure lectin, it will cause an adverse reaction in the body. Often times when you take one constituent of a whole food and isolate it, you’ll indeed find that it’s detrimental to your health in large amounts.  Fortunately, this isn’t a very useful or realistic analysis; lectin isn’t isolated when you eat it with food. When you eat lectin in food, with all it parts intact, you achieve balance and reap its health benefits.

The evidence accusing lectin of any ill-affects on the body simply isn’t there. Eat on, brethren.

Phytates

Phyates (also known as phytic acids) are antioxidants found in legumes, nuts seeds, and whole grains. Phytate-bashers claim that phytates make minerals “biounavailable.” Again, this is not a real term. What the anti-phytate crowd is trying to say, is that phytates render all the nutritious minerals and vitamins you eat useless. At least, that’s what Mark Sisson says in his article.

What Mark is likely alluding to is that fact that phytates can bind to certain dietary minerals and subsequently slow their absorption into the body. While this is absolutely true, saying that by consuming phytates you’ll basically neglect the body of vitamins and minerals is complete and utter hogwash.

Phytates in your everyday meals are not something you need concern yourself with, so long as you’re eating a balanced diet. The average American gets enough minerals in their diet to more than make up for the relatively small amount of minerals that get bound to phytates.

The important thing here is to recognize that phytates are broken down by a large degree by cooking, and unless you’re eating a diet made up predominantly of grains, they pose no negative health risks.

The Benefits of Grains

Not only are any negative claims about grains untrue for the gluten-tolerant individual, the many proven benefits of grains have been completely ignored by those who spread these nutritional myths. In my hunt to discover the truth, I needed to seek out the opinions of recognized institutions in the health industry. This is what I found out.

Diets high in grain have been shown to significantly lower the risk of developing heart disease and stroke, increase IVF success in men, protect you from high blood pressure, improve insulin sensitivity by lowering insulin levels, significantly reduce heart failure risk, reduce risk for blood vessel disease and cancer, reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes, and help to lose and maintain weight. Indeed, the health benefits of whole grains are simply too good to ignore.

Do we need grains? No. Does evidence prove, barring any gluten-sensitivity, that including whole-grains in our diet is a healthier option than leaving them out? The answer is unequivocally, undeniably yes. 

Now, where is my sandwich?