Dr. Davis has published a hugely successful series of Wheat Belly books popularizing this well-known gluten connection. He puts the blame for many health conditions squarely on the gluten molecule. He is essentially claiming that the wheat gluten molecule is the root cause. To rationalize why the gluten molecules have become so toxic, and almost all of a sudden, he’s coined the term “frankenwheat”.
Well, “frankenwheat” is a pretty sensational sounding term. I don’t like molecules being wrongly accused of being related to Frankenstein without some solid scientific evidence. Dr. Davis makes this claim because the wheat plant has been genetically modified to be shorter and stronger. It’s not the same plant that it was 40 years ago. But, has this shorter and stronger plant actually changed the structure of the gluten molecules too? In the wee bit of research that I was able to do, the answer is very likely no. The wheat gluten molecules are still the same ones we had 50, or even hundreds of years ago.
Therefore, we need to ask how could it be that the same gluten molecules have essentially become an allergen or toxin for so many people. Clearly, it’s not because the molecule has changed. Therefore, it must be because the conditions in the gut have changed. Additionally, the immune cells in the intestine are being trained to produce immunoglobulin in the presence of gluten in this altered environment. Therefore, gluten, on its own, is probably not the root cause of celiac disease. Just based upon the dramatically increased rates of this disease it’s highly unlikely. Yet, it’s indeed now a serious contributing factor and antagonist, and it’s absolutely not off the hook on all of this. Of course, it’s critically important to determine exactly what is going on here. Wheat has been considered the “staff of life” for centuries, and hundreds of millions of people rely on it daily as their primary source of energy and protein.
I can only speculate as to how exactly gluten has become this antagonist. Could it be that the gluten molecule is binding to retinol very similar to what happens with the urushiol molecule in poison ivy? Once bonded, it is the combination of these two molecules that invokes the immune response. Another partial hypothesis I have is that with the intestine being chocked full of retinol, the sticky gluten molecule may bind with some of that retinol and carry it into the blood, and later expose it. Remember back in an earlier chapter where I referred to the Japanese researchers investigating novel ways to deliver retinoic acid deep into the skin as a skin rejuvenation therapy. They did this by using a glucose ring structured molecule termed cyclodextrin to embed the retinoic acid molecule within. This is possible because the cyclodextrin is large and has a central cavity. The cyclodextrin is somewhat donut shaped. After mixing the cyclodextrin with retinoic acid they were able to apply it topically. The skin would then absorb the entire inclusion complex. Deeper in the skin, the glucose packaging would be consumed and expose the retinoic acid molecule. The cyclodextrin was just providing a safe delivery envelope. The gluten molecule also has internal cavities. Therefore, the gluten molecule may be acting similar to the cyclodextrin and / or the retinol binding protein. This would fit with the observation that many people have gluten sensitivity well before they test positive for gluten antibodies.
This hypothesis of gluten acting as a carrier molecule is actually not that speculative since something very similar was researched and documented back in the 1960s. The concern was that many commercial flours and bread products were starting to include emulsifiers. The emulsifiers included such compounds as monoglycerides, diglycerides, and other poly-compounds. To emulsify means to wrap and contain one compound within another. The observation was that these additional emulsifiers increased the absorption of vitamin A from food tremendously. The fear was that people with moderate to high levels of vitamin A in their diets could be at risk; so much so that their rates of actual vitamin A intake into their blood would be dangerously high. Of course, as a person’s vitamin A storage levels increases, their tolerable absorption rates into the liver will diminish. Therefore, over time, the situation becomes more and more risky. Additionally, as the intestine accumulates more local storage of vitamin A, these emulsifiers are not just going to transport more vitamin A from digesting food. They are also going to pick up locally tissue-stored vitamin A and carry it into the blood. So, just maybe, gluten is getting a bad rap here.
The other very popular theory in the press is that gluten causes “leaky gut”. Well, let’s remember that in eczema the facts are that the sebaceous glands get burned out, and the hair goes missing. There is subsequently a complete breakdown of the barrier function of the inflamed skin. Now, one of the conditions used in the clinical diagnosis of celiac disease is the flattened villi of the small intestine. Of course, we also have a similar breakdown of the barrier function in the intestine too. That is definitely going to cause a bi-directionally “leaky gut”. The big sticky gluten molecule may get stuck in the tight junction of cells lining the intestine. Once inflamed, these cells are no longer going to have their normal elasticity. But, that does not help reveal the real root cause of all of this. We really need to take a step back, and determine what’s causing the inflammation in the first place.
Most Celiac’s do not recover on the gluten free diet
Here’s the shocking little truth regarding gluten and celiac disease. If gluten were indeed the root cause of this disease, we should expect a large percentage of people who do adopt a gluten-free diet to more or less fully recover. However, that is simply not the case. Here’s a 2009 publication documenting this observation:
Complete recovery of intestinal mucosa occurs very rarely in adult coeliac patients despite adherence to gluten-free diet.
Abstract:
Complete normalization of duodenal lesions is exceptionally rare in adult coeliac patients despite adherence to GFD, symptoms disappearance and negative CD related serology. Control biopsies are mandatory to identify lack of response to gluten-free diet.
Source: PMID: 19302264
Complete recovery of intestinal mucosa occurs very rarely in adult coeliac patients despite adherence to gluten-free diet. - PubMed - NCBI
Here’s another 2010 publication:
Mucosal recovery and mortality in adults with celiac disease after treatment with a gluten-free diet.
CONCLUSIONS:
Mucosal recovery was absent in a substantial portion of adults with CD after treatment with a GFD. There was a borderline significant association between confirmed mucosal recovery (vs. persistent damage) and reduced mortality independent of age and gender. Systematic follow-up with intestinal biopsies may be advisable in patients diagnosed with CD as adults.
Source: PMID: 20145607
Mucosal recovery and mortality in adults with celiac disease after treatment with a gluten-free diet. - PubMed - NCBI
At least 65% of the celiac disease patients make no recovery, or recover very little after being on a gluten-free diet for over a year. Doesn’t that just make it stunningly clear that gluten is not the root cause? Just like with so many of the other autoimmune diseases, the fires of inflammation rages on even after the gluten is gone. So, clearly there is more going on here.
There are some other very interesting aspects to observe regarding celiac disease. Let’s consider the common side effects. They are: “brain fog”, depression, ADHD-like behavior, abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, headaches, bone or joint pain, and chronic fatigue. Oh, but wait, there’s more. They include low bone mineral density (osteoporosis), itchy skin rashes (dermatitis herpetiformis), defects in the enamel of the teeth, joint swelling, poor growth, delayed puberty, infertility, or repeated miscarriages, neurological problems, and recurrent seizures (epilepsy). Does that list look familiar? Okay, so celiac disease, like all the other autoimmune diseases, is affecting the entire body (think elephant here).
Additionally, there is something else peculiar documented about this disease. That is that nearly 70% of women with this disease are also zinc deficient. But, no, zinc deficiency is not causing the disease either. It’s just the opposite. The zinc deficiency is being caused by the disease. One obvious factor is that the inflamed intestine might be unable to absorb it as efficiently. However, there is a more direct connection here. The body uses zinc, vitamin E and some other compounds to protect cells from elevated retinol. Therefore, autoimmune diseases result in the quicker depletion of zinc by using it up more rapidly in trying to protect cells. The documented function for this is that zinc is used to facilitate the building of the retinol binding proteins. As the level of retinol increases the body simply needs to produce more of these RBPs to facilitate the removal and transport of excess retinol. If there is a corresponding compromised kidney function, then some of the recycled RBPs will be lost in urine.
Guilty by Association
As before, I can’t just leave it at that. I have to, at least, offer one more plausible explanation as to why gluten has mysteriously become toxic to millions of people. I think there is a very big clue here in that most people develop gluten sensitivity after age 20 or so. How is it that they have been perfectly okay with this grain molecule for 20 or more years of their lives, and then it magically becomes a serious allergen? As people progress from gluten sensitivity to clinical confirmation for the disease they have immunoglobulin antibodies.
I have a simple, and maybe even wacko, hypothesis. It’s simply guilt by association. Remember the itchy self-destruct process I’ve speculated on before in the context of eczema. We only need to extend it a tiny little bit. The tissue cells in the intestine become inflamed due to their overexposure to retinol / retinoic acid and send out their damage alerting molecules and self-destruct cytokine messages. The immune cells respond, and take out these affected tissue cells. That’s all perfectly fine and normal. But, the immune cells then go on the hunt for the suspected pathogens that would have normally been responsible for starting the inflammation process to happen in the first place. Yet, there are no pathogens to be found. However, the immune cells do find the big gluten proteins nearby. To the immune cells, being a protein, the gluten molecule looks enough like a candidate pathogen. The adaptive immune system takes no chances, and now builds antibodies to it. Therefore, we have now developed an allergy to this food molecule for completely the wrong reason. It may have been just an innocent molecular bystander to the inflammation fight. We have now effectively been vaccinated for the gluten molecule. That vaccination could last for decades, if not a lifetime. Some people call it an allergy. Others call it celiac disease. I’m calling it a tragic poisoning by the overload of vitamin A.
Lastly, since eczema is such a common co-symptom in celiac disease, then logically the reciprocal may apply. If you have eczema, then it’s very likely that you could have gluten sensitivity too. I’d say you could almost bet on it.
Vaccines and Inadvertent Self-vaccinations
Naturally, this self-vaccination scenario is perfectly normal and takes place, at the least, a million times a day (over the entire human population). It’s what the human body has always done before the advent of manmade vaccines. But, this inadvertent vaccination against the wrong antagonist is just a little hypothesis of mine. Now, for it to be even plausible, we should expect there to be similar occurrences happening when people get normal manmade vaccinations.
Most people understand that normal vaccine doses contain a crippled version, or viral fragments, of the disease-causing viruses they are being vaccinated for. But, what some people might not know is that is not all the vaccine doses contain. These doses can contain other toxic chemicals. This is of course not by accident. The designers of the vaccine want a substance that is going to highly antagonize the immune system and to hopefully force its adaptive immune process to kick in. When the vaccine is administered these toxic chemicals cause a significant amount of localized inflammation to alert the immune system. The adaptive immune system comes in to investigate what the hell is causing all the inflammation. The goal of the vaccine is to antagonize the immune system enough to force it to build antibodies to the virus that was included in the vaccine dose.
But obviously, what could happen is that some of the antagonistic toxic chemical drifts away from the viral fragments that were included in the vaccine dose. They could also bind to other proteins. Therefore, the antagonistic inflammation occurs at a location some distance away from the vaccine’s target virus. Then, when the immune system finds some other protein in the vicinity it puts the blame on it. Being extra thorough, it builds antibodies to that protein instead of, or in addition to, the vaccine’s intended virus. It could be proteins from say peanut butter, or orange juice, or any other food sourced protein that just happens to be there. Now, and quite inadvertently the person is vaccinated for this food-based protein too.
