William Davis, M.D. Talks On Wheat Belly

William Davis

Another speaker at the event was William Davis, M.D, pictured above lecturing at the conference. Of course his book entitled Wheat Belly has caught everybody’s attention.

Dr. Davis went through the history of wheat, grains and grasses. He showed us biochemically how gluten can cause problems for people with their health.

However Dr. Davis has now extended his recommendations to ALL Grains! He does not even recommend rice, oats, quinoa etc. He basically recommends what is called a Paleolithic diet. He recommends that people eat organ meats such as liver, brain, and kidneys and no grains whatsoever to maintain good health.

Of course, even though I respect the work he has done in promoting the awareness of gluten as a health problem, I do not all agree with his recommendations for the Paleolithic diet.

I now recommend to my gluten sensitive patients a new book which you can find HERE on Amazon. This book focuses on Gluten and why and how it has become such a problem for us to digest.

How Old are the Cells in Your Body & Which Can and Can’t be Renewed?

cells regeneration

You may have just celebrated your 30th, 50th, or 75th birthday, but the cells that make up your body are actually much younger than that. If you go by the numbers, your cells are, on average, around 10 years old, or less.

Your entire skeleton regenerates about once every 10 years.

In fact, most of your body’s cells are constantly being replaced, although its DNA stays the same from the moment the cell is first created (by its parent cell dividing).

Because of this, Jonas Frisen, a stem cell biologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, was able to develop a method to determine just how old your cells really are.

“Dr. Frisen recalled that the nuclear weapons tested above ground until 1963 had injected a pulse of radioactive carbon 14 into the atmosphere. Breathed in by plants worldwide and eaten by animals and people, the carbon 14 gets incorporated into the DNA of cells each time the cell divides and the DNA is duplicated,” writes author Nicholas Wade in his New York Times article “Your Body is Younger Than You Think.”

Click here to read more.

Gut, Brain, Autoimmune Symposium

Joel Kahn Soram-small

As promised, I want to review some of the highlights from the recent conference on the relation between our gut, our brain, our immune system and our food.

To the right, you will see me pictured with my colleague Joel Kahn, M.D. who was one of the speakers. Joel spoke on the relationship of gluten to celiac disease.I did not realize there was such a strong connection. Specifically, cardiomyopathy, which is an intrinsic disease of the muscle the heart, is one of the most common diseases associated with celiac disease.

Reference

There is an epidemic of Atrial Fibrillation now in our society amongst the baby-boomers. Recent studies have shown that celiac disease can be a cause of atrial fibrillation. In addition, studies have shown a relationship between celiac disease and the functioning of the inner lining of the blood vessels of the heart. Specifically, the study found endothelial dysfunction in celiac patients.

Atrial Fib Reference

Endothelium and Celiac

Finally, I am finding more and more patients with elevated homocysteine levels. Homocysteine is an amino acid in the blood. It is analogous to cholesterol but not related to cholesterol or our diet. An elevation of the blood level of this amino acid,increases the risk for heart disease and cancer. This subsequent study found that in celiac disease, patients’ exclusion of gluten would normalize their homocysteine level. This would make it so that it is not necessary to use medications to help people with celiac disease, who have a high [homocysteine]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homocysteine)

Reference

Again, the studies I am mentioning to you have shown the relationship of celiac disease and heart disease. I raise the question of what happens to patients who have “incomplete celiac” disease. I.e. Non Celiac Gluten Sensitivity?

I talk to my patients all the time about how health is on a spectrum. Even though celiac disease is way over in the disease column, what about the effects on the heart of gluten sensitivity that is not at this time documented to be celiac disease?

If you have friends or relatives with cardiomyopathy, atrial fibrillation, or elevated homocysteine, suggest to them that their doctor should check them for celiac disease. Hopefully, research will show us whether having Non-celiac gluten sensitivity has any relation to these cardiovascular conditions as well.

 

Back From The Conference!

At the time of writing this post, I am just back from the big medical symposium on Gut, Brain, and Autoimmune Disorders: The Role of Food.

The conference was fantastic, and I learned so much!

The brilliant Alessio Fasano,M.D., gave an update on his research on the role of gluten in many health problems. He is the doctor that helped put non-celiac gluten sensitivity on the map, so that it is now recognized by traditional gastroenterologists.
Just like with our general health and well-being, he has helped us recognize that there is a spectrum of gluten sensitivity, as I have written about in my previous newsletters.

In addition, William Davis, M.D., the author of Wheat Belly gave about three hours of lecture that were very informative.

Some of my favorite lectures were from my friend David Perlmutter, M.D. who is an integrative neurologist in Florida. He spoke about the coming epidemic of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and gave a lot of ideas on what we can do to protect our brain.

It was my intention to give you a summary of the conference in this week’s newsletter. However, there was so much information that it will take me some time to organize it.

Because I went out of town for a brief vacation this past weekend, I did not have time to get the organization of this information started. In next week’s issue, the Labor Day issue, I will begin to review some of the information I learned.

Until then, there are some good articles by my writers this week!

Remember to follow me on Twitter and to like me on Facebook. And remember you can get Physician-Quality Nutritional Supplements at my Online Healthy Living Shop HERE! 

Refined Food Risks: Why They’re Like Trying to Keep a Bonfire Going with Toilet Paper

sugar candyYou’ve heard the advice: eat fewer refined foods like white bread and white sugar. But what exactly are refined foods, and what makes them so taboo?

When you think of something that’s refined, you may think of something that is superior to its predecessor. And in terms of food, refined versions are said to be “made purer by an industrial refining process.”

And when food processing first began, it was only the wealthy who could afford such luxuries as “refined” white flour and white sugar, while the peasants had to make do with foods the way nature created them.

So what’s the problem?

Click here to find out what the problem is.

Honey Works as Good as Cough Syrup: Four Beneficial Uses of Honey

honey flowersBeekeepers have been raising bees to produce honey since at least 700 BC. Back then, this sweet, natural sweetener was a rarity used in religious ceremonies and for medicinal and cosmetic purposes.
Typically, the only people who could afford honey for eating were the very wealthy.

Nowadays, you can find honey in a variety of colors, flavors and textures (not to mention qualities) in just about every supermarket.

What Exactly IS Honey?

Everyone knows the sticky, sweet honey that kids of all ages love to lick from their fingers. But do you know how it’s actually created?

Bees use honey as food, and they make it by collecting nectar from flowers. This nectar mixes with their saliva, which is full of just the right enzymes to create honey. The nectar-saliva mixture is then brought back to their beehive, where their wings fan it into just the right consistency.

The flavor and texture of honey varies depending on the type of flower from which the nectar came.

Click here to read more.

Study Finds Old Forgotten Head Injuries the Source of Many Mental/Emotional Issues

What do learning disabilities, homelessness and alcoholism have in common? They may all be related to a long-ago head injury, according to emerging research.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that over 5 million Americans have a mental or physical disability due to such a brain injury, however this estimate is based only on hospital admissions — and does not take into account the countless others who did not seek medical attention.

“Unidentified traumatic brain injury is an unrecognized major source of social and vocational failure,” says Wayne A. Gordon, director of the Brain Injury Research Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York in The Wall Street Journal.

According to research from Mount Sinai, about 7-8 percent of the U.S. population has some form of traumatic brain injury — mild, moderate, or severe. Some of these head injuries may have happened long ago, and even be completely forgotten, yet could still be impacting your life.

Click here to read more.

Are There Dangers of Genetically Modified Foods?

For years grocery shoppers have been buying and eating genetically modified foods whether they knew it or not. At first even people who did know they were eating genetically modified food didn’t worry about it because they saw no reason to. But as more information from scientific studies has reached consumers, more people are beginning to wonder if some medical problems might be linked to the consumption of these foods.

For any scientific endeavor to be in the best interest of society, the benefits must outweigh the disadvantages. There are supposed advantages with genetically modified food, but some research is suggesting the disadvantages may win out in the long run.

The Basic Principles of Genetic Modification

Broadly speaking, there are two ways that a food crop can be genetically modified. The first method has been around since our ancestors first began to actually grow food instead of just foraging for it.

That method is usually called cross-breeding. You find the individuals of a specific plant that have more of a characteristic that is desirable — say, more and bigger berries. Take the seeds from those plants and grow them close together so that the pollen from one fertilizes others. Pick the individuals from that group of plants that have the biggest and most berries and plant only the seeds from them.

Click here to read more.

Gluten Free Diet And Your Health

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A new article has recently been published that shows that a gluten-free diet reduces fat, inflammation and insulin resistance. This study was done in mice and the conclusion of the authors was “Our data support the beneficial effects of a gluten–free diet in reducing adiposity gain (fat), inflammation and insulin resistance. The data suggest that diet gluten exclusion should be tested as a new dietary approach to prevent the development of obesity and metabolic disorders (diabetes).”

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the “Wheat belly” syndrome and to try to understand if it is true. In addition, very importantly they wanted to understand the biochemistry that underlies the development of these other health issues from gluten. They were able to evaluate intermediate molecules with names like PPAR, and HSL, and found through this, how gluten contributes biochemically to weight gain, inflammation, and insulin resistance.

This is especially relevant because both groups of mice were fed high-fat diets. The gluten-free mice however lost weight.

Sayer Ji of GreenmedInfo.com proposed this analysis: “… the weight gain associated with wheat consumption has little to do with caloric content per se; rather, the gluten proteins … disrupt endocrine and exocrine processes within the body, as well as directly modulating nuclear gene expression … to alter mammalian metabolism in the direction of weight gain.”

I already mentioned to you in previous newsletters, that we have a new blood test for non-celiac gluten sensitivity. I have been running this test for about the last six months. In patients with gluten sensitivity, I have seen revolutionary changes in their health when they stop all gluten.

If you or a family member is having trouble losing weight, or controlling your diabetes, you do not need to do this blood test. You can simply eliminate gluten from your diet for 6 to 8 weeks, and see if you begin to lose weight, and your diabetes begins to get under better control.

As more and more people in our country are going gluten-free, health food stores and even regular grocery stores are creating “Gluten-free Departments”. Please always read the labels of these products very carefully. Often they use sugars and artificial ingredients, to try to compensate for the absence of gluten. In addition a lot of these products use corn to replace gluten. A large percentage of the corn in our country is from Genetically Modified crops. Therefore you may want to avoid this type of corn as well. (Please see the most informative article on GMO’s, in this newsletter!)
If you do try this experiment, please drop me a note and let me know if it works for you!

J Nutr Biochem. 2012 Dec 17. Epub 2012 Dec 17

Another Article

Article 2

What is Dr Soram Doing?

Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMugAs I am writing this post, I am preparing to attend a very exciting convention here in Los Angeles! The title of the convention is “Gut, Brain, and Autoimmune Disorders: The Role Of Food.”

This course will provide me with the latest information regarding the links between food and many diseases. The emphasis of the weekend will be on gastrointestinal and neurological disorders but will also cover other organ systems including the cardiovascular system. In addition endocrine dysfunction, skin issues and joint disorders will also be discussed.

I am most excited that  William Davis, M.D., the author of Wheat Belly will be speaking for four hours about his newest findings in regard to wheat and health.

In addition, the world-famous Alessio Fasano,M.D., who is a world renowned pediatric gastroenterologist and research scientist, as well as the chief at the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition at the world-famous Mass General Hospital for Children, will be speaking. Dr. Fassano is doing International Research and will lead us to a greater understanding of the complicated nature of gluten – related disorders, including celiac disease, gluten sensitivity and wheat allergy. Dr. Fasano will also be addressing us for almost 4 hours.

I really look forward to bringing the information I get at this convention to all my readers and patients in my future posts.