Abstract
Obesity and the “metabolic syndrome” with its associated type 2 diabetes mellitus have become the 21st-century worldwide epidemic. 1 –7 Based on his extensive experience dealing with the cardiovascular consequences of this problem, the preventive cardiologist William Davis developed an anti-wheat approach that has helped many patients improve their health, and he has now prepared a book to share his ideas more widely. Chapters 2 and 3 of the book highlight the major underpinnings of his arguments that the wheat plant as we now know it is drastically different (thanks to genetic selection) than its naturally occurring ancestor that humans first began to consume and that the carbohydrates in wheat are so readily digested that they cause a sudden massive increase in blood glucose (quantitated as the glycemic index), which repeated many times over a lifetime produces significant damage to multiple organ systems. The second part of the book (subtitled “Wheat and It’s Head-to-Toe Destruction of Health”) details specific effects of a wheat diet on various organs including the brain (from increasing appetite to contributing to autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]), the endocrine system (by increasing hormone-secreting abdominal fat), the gastrointestinal tract (including gluten-sensitive enteropathy or celiac disease), the pancreas (by increasing insulin resistance and thereby overtaxing the pancreatic insulin-producing beta cells), the bones and joints (changes in body pH with resultant altered calcium homeostasis), and the cardiovascular system and heart (altering lipid metabolism and increasing atherosclerosis). He also describes the effect of the surges in blood glucose (associated with the high glycemic index) on aging in the form of advanced glycation end products (given the acronym AGE), which are the result of an irreversible reaction of glucose with body proteins that turns the reaction product into indigestible debris. The latter part of the book contains dietary instructions for avoiding wheat along with about 2 dozen recipes.
This book makes the case for a different lifestyle than that currently advocated by most dieticians. The concept of returning to a diet more like that of our Paleolithic ancestors has been previously proposed and has found some adherents. 8 –10 Whether the avoidance of wheat is an answer to the obesity/diabetes epidemic will await future studies. Nonetheless, the concepts in this book certainly deserve clinical consideration, particularly in individual patients based on the success that the author has found with many of his own patients.