Nedanstående är hämtat från Sarah Vaugters blogg.
This site is run by Sarah and John Vaughter. Sarah is a nutritionist and John has a Chemistry Ph.D. We are a husband-and-wife medical investigative journalist team, and have published our first book recently.
Bread, our daily poison (Gluten sensitivity mistaken for Candida)
I wrote this article for people with symptoms that are often misinterpreted as Candida infection, but are in fact are caused by non-Celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS). Of course, people with such symptoms should not purchase Lufenuron from us, but go on a gluten-free diet instead.
It is estimated that at least one in six people are non-Celiac gluten intolerant. Common symptoms are bloating, gas and/or abdominal pain, diarrhea or constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, hard to flush bulky, fatty stools, bloating after meals or waking up bloated, itchy skin rash or eczema, discolored teeth or loss of enamel, aching joints, fatigue, canker sores, mood swings, anxiety, depression, poor appetite, weight loss or weight gain, ringing in your ears, headaches or migraines, muscle weakness, low sex drive, poor concentration and/or memory problems, infertility and/or irregular menstrual cycles. Long term, more serious consequences of gluten exposure in sensitive individuals can be degenerative organ damage, autoimmune diseases, osteoporosis and cancer.
Wheat, barley, rye and oats contain toxic chemicals produced by the plant itself. These wheat-poisons have evolved to help the plant with its own reproduction and survival, at the expense of the animal that eats its seed.
Conservative estimates say that one in seven people have some form of gluten intolerance. Most do not have Celiac disease, and many are asymptomatic, meaning they do not have clear Celiac-like symptoms. The astonishing and worrying fact is that roughly 80% of Western people’s immune systems react to gluten with the production of IgM and IgG antibodies in what is called the “innate immune response”. The innate immune system predates, evolution-wise, the antibody-producing “adaptive immune system” and nonspecifically defends against pathogens.
Gliadin is now (“controversially”) known as a toxic wheat glycoprotein, used by the plant to make gluten. In a study published in GUT in 2007 a group of researchers asked themselves the question: “Is gliadin really safe for non-Coeliac individuals?”. To test the hypothesis that an innate immune response to gliadin is common in patients with Celiac disease and without Celiac disease, intestinal biopsy cultures were taken from both groups and challenged with crude gliadin, the gliadin synthetic 19-mer (19 amino acid long gliadin peptide) and 33-mer deamidated peptides. Results showed that all patients with or without Celiac disease when challenged with the various forms of gliadin produced an interleukin-15-mediated response. The researchers concluded: “The data obtained in this pilot study supports the hypothesis that gluten elicits its harmful effect, throughout an IL15 innate immune response, on ALL individuals.”
There can be only one reason why a substance triggers an immune response: It was useful in evolutionary terms, meaning that without the response, the tribe without that response produced less children than the tribe with the response. Usually the reason for that is that the adult members in the tribe without the response die before they manage to fully procreate and raise their offspring. Hence, when your immune system responds to a substance by producing antibodies, this is a serious sign that this substance likely is bad for you. Bread-eaters are unaware that everybody is gluten-intolerant in one way or another – even when there are no noticeable signs, and that gluten are suspected to play a key role in the cause of certain cancers, autoimmune diseases and age-related illnesses such as Alzheimer’s.
Let me count the ways how “bread is bad”: In some birds as well as Celiac patients, the wheat toxins trigger such a violent inflammatory response in the intestines, that the wheat grain survives the gastrointestinal tract undigested. The benefit to the wheat plant is that its seed ends up viable, in a clot of bird feces – about the most advantageous position to be in, for successful germination. Why does the bird voluntarily subject itself to such a perhaps painful experience? Could it be that it likes the natural opioids the wheat produces? And perhaps those opioids in bread and pasta are the reason why we consider the consumption of these foods to be non-negotiable as a “quality of life” issue?
“Gluten” comes from the Latin. The word “glue” is derived from that same Latin root. “Gluten” means “glues”. Indeed, gluten-based glues are a veritable staple of the glue industry. What gives gluten its adhesive and difficult-to-digest qualities are the high levels of disulfide bonds it contains. These same sulfur-to-sulfur bonds are found in hair, nails and vulcanized rubber. The first third of the small intestine is where vitamins and minerals are absorbed by the millions of tiny outgrowths called Villi. The villi greatly increase the surface area of the intestine, so that nutrients can be absorbed in just a few feet of intestinal tract. The slimy gluten however coat the villi as an oil spill would coat a field of sea anemones. Best case, the villi can’t absorb the water-soluble vitamins and minerals they should absorb. Worst case, the villi become inflamed and disappear completely. Up to ten million Americans have (mostly undiagnosed) Celiac disease, another thirty million are gluten sensitive, and yet the FDA has put gluten on the GRAS-list (“Generally Recognized As Safe”). Therefore, ketchup and ice cream with added gluten does not need to mention gluten content. Less than 0.1 grams of gluten can cause severe problems in a Celiac patient.
A person – any person – who eats bread or pasta on a daily basis constantly has his or her small intestine coated with slimy, inflammatory gluten-glue, and serious vitamin- and mineral deficiencies are the result. These deficiencies usually take many decades to express themselves as Osteoporosis, Diabetes and certain forms of cancer. Societies such as Japan with a traditionally gluten-free diet have very much lower occurrences of a wide variety of diseases, in spite of the fact that these people usually eat a lot of fish, polluted with everything from PCB’s to heavy metals.
It turns out that Celiac disease is not a disease at all, but a well-functioning early warning system. In addition to the innate immune response to wheat that we all have, Celiacs have an additional, genetically determined, adaptive response. Whereas non-Celiacs go on consuming wheat and develop cancer, MS and a plethora of other very serious illnesses, Celiacs simply avoid gluten and stay healthy. Celiacs don’t have a faulty immune system, non-Celiacs do. When people started to eat wheat as a matter of increasing necessity, only those with genetically suppressed adaptive responses to gluten remained alive to procreate. But those individuals only have debilitated immune systems. They are not at all impervious to gluten’s damaging properties.
It’s not just the gluten that are bad for you. Wheat is a veritable bio-weapon. Chemical warfare is wheat’s middle name. Toxic oxalates, lectins and phytates, insidious trypsin- and alpha-amalyase inhibitors, and endocrine disrupters such as estrogens. Wheat grains are unwholesome indeed. Not even cows can digest them without the risk of severe intestinal problems and liver abcesses.
“But European humanity has been been eating bread since time immemorial!” you may say, incredulously. Well, no. From archeological evidence we know that bread was invented at most 14 thousand years ago. Most estimations say between 10 000 and 12 000 years. And most Western societies were introduced to bread many millennia later. That is a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. Humans have been genetically unchanged for the past 200 000 years. We are genetically still mainly hunter-gatherers and sandwiches and spaghetti are not part of such a diet. Bread is the product of the age of agriculture, which directly spawned the industrial revolution. Humans did not have time to adapt to the slow-acting poisons in wheat. Wheat is a monocotyledonous (one-leafed) grass, something humans, nay, mammals have never eaten in their entire evolutionary history. No wonder they have no defence against its phyto-chemical toxins.
Wheat Germ Agglutinin (WGA) is glycoprotein classified as a lectin and is known to play a causative role in kidney disease, such as IgA nephropathy. In the article: “Do dietary lectins cause disease?”, allergist David L J Freed points out that WGA binds to “glomerular capillary walls, mesangial cells and tubules of human kidney and (in rodents) binds IgA and induces IgA mesangial deposits,” indicating that wheat consumption may lead to kidney damage in susceptible individuals.
And sure enough, there is research that shows that wheat can indeed cause kidney cancer. A study from the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan Italy published in 2007 in the International Journal of Cancer looked at bread consumption and the risk of malignant kidney tumors. They found that those who consumed the most bread had a 94% higher risk of developing kidney cancer compared to those who consumed the least bread. Given the inherently toxic effect that WGA obviously has on kidney function, it is possible that in certain genetically predisposed individuals the body – in its innate intelligence – has to choose between continuing to allow damage to the kidneys (or possibly other organs) until kidney failure and rapid death result, or launch an autoimmune attack on the villi to prevent the absorption of the offending substance which results in a prolonged though relatively malnourished life.
The real culprit is of course the wheat, not the “inferior genes”. Because wheat is not food for humans. It is toxic in a wide variety of ways, and only suitable to be used for the production of industrial glues. The fact that you don’t notice anything untoward when eating gluten doesn’t mean nothing bad is going on in your body. Why isn’t this a widely known fact? One reason is that PhD’s never see any patients and MD’s never do any fundamental research, and there is little cross-pollination between disciplines. Besides – proclaiming that macaroni kills people by rotting their organs is not exactly beneficial to one’s scientific career. Fact is, we haven’t identified half of the all the bad stuff wheat contains yet. Many years of selective breeding has increased wheat’s genome to more than 5 times larger genetic size than the human genome! Common bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), for instance, has so far almost 24,000 proteins catalogued. One single “bad” protein can wreak havoc anywhere in the body, over the years. Big Agrobusiness, like the tobacco industry, are of course already aware of the health problems their product causes, and are feverishly completing their Wheat Genome Project, to aid them in identifying the main disease-causing part of the wheat DNA so that they can remove them. This will avoid a looming legal liability and add Celiac patients and gluten-intolerants to their market. There is much more to explain about the damaging, sick-making properties of wheat, but that has to wait for another time. Wheat causes damage to the intestines. Wheat causes intestinal permeability. Wheat has pharmacologically active properties such as estrogens that are detrimental to health. Wheat causes damage to many organs in the body, including the brain. Wheat contains high concentrations of excitotoxins such as aspartates and glutamates.
Ha det så bra
Viveca
MixWell sine glutenfrie produkter er kanskje ukjente for deg. Jeg har drevet bakeri i 20 år og bakt med forskjellige typer glutenfritt mel. MixWell hadde jeg ikke prövd för jeg kom till Brisk i november 2009. Brisk bakeri produserer kun glutenfrie produkt som f.eks. pizzabunner till Dollly Dimples og Pizzabakeren og glutenfritt bröd til de fleste butikk-kjeder over hele Norge og de har brukt mel fra MixWell i flere år. Mitt bekjentskap med melet var meget positivt! De fleste andre meltyper jeg har brukt har hatt en spesiell "glutenfri lukt" under produksjon og en glutenfri smak på ferdig produkt. Dette er noe jeg ikke kan kjenne ved bruk av MixWell sitt mel.
Peder Heimland
MixWell först med det senaste
Så uttrykker sig en professionell bagare om MixWells mixer. Det är roligt att fler och fler upptäcker fördelen med MixWells produkter. Vi har sedan många år arbetat på att förnya det glutenfria sortimentet på marknaden. Så var vi t ex först med muffinsmixer, året efter vi hade presenterat vår muffinsmix så kom det en muffinsmix från en annan producent. Sedan presenterade vi vår Våffelmix och ja något år senare så kom en pannkaksmix från en annan leverantör. Sedan många år har vi haft vår Fullkornsbrödsmix och nyligen har det dykt upp flera olika fiberbrödsmixer. När det blev mer och mer känt att man kan äta havre (ren havre) om man är glutenintolerant så presenterade vi vår Havrebrödsmix och vad händer? Jo strax kommer en annan leverantör med en havrebrödsmix.
I flera år har jag arbetat med att baka glutenfritt surdegsbröd och så dyker det upp surdegsbrödsmixer på marknaden - det går i dagsläget inte att baka surdegsbröd gjord på torkat pulver, då har alla de goda bakterierna dött - dom behöver vätska för att leva.
Och nu så har vi tagit fram MixWells glutenfria Lingongrova brödmix. Undrar just hur lång tid det tar innan någon kopierar den också. Men så är det: Är man liten måste man vara extremt duktig, kreativ och innovativ. Det är precis det MixWell är vi är ett innovativt företag som andra följer efter.
Men redan är vi igång med nya utmaningar, så vänta får ni se.
Viveca
Här nedan följer en artikel från CNN. Läs och begrunda. Att äta gluten är nog inte bra fr någon.
(Health.com) -- Sarah Cooper was a new mom in her mid-20s, busily juggling her family and a career as an electrical engineer, when everything came to a halt.
She lost all her energy. She developed acne. And she began experiencing gastrointestinal problems: bloating, diarrhea, cramping, constipation. Her doctors, thinking something must be missing from her diet, put her on various vitamins, none of which helped.
"It was all I could do to go to work," she says.
After years of failed treatments, Cooper's luck changed. She saw a doctor who suspected she might have celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that can appear at any age and is caused by an intolerance to gluten.
A protein found in wheat, barley, and rye (and countless food products -- like bread and pasta -- that contain those grains), gluten gradually damages the intestines of people with celiac disease, preventing the absorption of vitamins and minerals and setting off a slew of related health problems, which can include fatigue and bad skin.
Health.com: 13 surprising causes of constipation
Cooper tested negative for celiac disease, but the doctor advised her to try a gluten-free diet anyway.
"Within a week of eliminating [gluten], I started to feel markedly better," says Cooper, now 36, from Melbourne, Australia. "It wasn't a gradual feeling better; it was almost a crossing-the-street kind of thing."
That was 10 years ago. The general practitioner who treated Cooper was ahead of his time, as most doctors are only now starting to realize that some people who don't have celiac disease may benefit from diets free of (or low in) gluten.
In fact, experts now believe that celiac disease represents just one extreme of a broad spectrum of gluten intolerance that includes millions of people like Cooper with less severe -- but nevertheless problematic -- reactions to the protein.
While celiac disease affects about 1 percent of the U.S. population, experts estimate that as many as 10 percent have a related and poorly understood condition known as non-celiac gluten intolerance (NCGI), or gluten sensitivity.
Gluten-free and well-fed: the sneaky stuff
"This is something that we're just beginning to get our heads around," says Daniel Leffler, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a gastroenterologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston. "There is a tight definition of celiac disease, but gluten intolerance has been a moving target."
Health.com: Do gluten-free diets take off pounds?
Growing awareness of gluten sensitivity has led some people who struggle with gut problems but have tested negative for celiac disease to take matters into their own hands and try a gluten-free diet, even though it's an extremely difficult diet to follow.
Sales of gluten-free products increased 16 percent in 2010, according to the Nielsen Company.
"Gluten is fairly indigestable in all people," Leffler says. "There's probably some kind of gluten intolerance in all of us."
The spectrum of gluten intolerance
Experts now think of gluten intolerance as a spectrum of conditions, with celiac disease on one end and, on the other, what's been called a "no man's land" of gluten-related gastrointestinal problems that may or may not overlap.
Leffler estimates, for instance, that half of the approximately 60 million people in the U.S. who suffer from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are probably sensitive to gluten. (Gluten allergies, which are similar to other food allergies, also fall on the spectrum but affect only about 0.1 percent of the population.)
Gluten-free and well-fed: When did G-free get all...sexy?
Gluten intolerance of any kind -- including celiac disease -- is often underdiagnosed (or misdiagnosed) because it manifests itself in many and murky ways that can baffle doctors.
People with celiac disease and gluten sensitivity usually have stomachaches, gas, and diarrhea -- as do people with IBS.
Health.com: 10 risk factors for inflammatory bowel disease
Celiac patients can also develop headaches, tingling, fatigue, muscle pain, skin rashes, joint pain, and other symptoms, because the autoimmune attack at the root of the disease gradually erodes the wall of the intestine, leading to poor absorption of iron, folate, and other nutrients that affect everything from energy to brain function.
People with gluten sensitivity sometimes experience these far-reaching symptoms as well, though it's less clear why.
Gluten intolerance "starts in the intestines as a process, but doesn't necessarily stay in the intestines. It may affect other organs," says Alessio Fasano, M.D., medical director of the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research, in Baltimore.
Celiac disease can be definitively diagnosed using a two-step process: Doctors test the patient's blood for the presence of intestine-attacking antibodies activated by gluten, and, if those tests come back positive, they order a biopsy (or series of biopsies) to look for intestinal damage, any evidence of which confirms the diagnosis.
Health.com: Medical tests women need this year
Gluten sensitivity, on the other hand, is a gray area that "lacks any defining medical tests," Leffler says. People who fall into this group exhibit the classic symptoms of celiac disease yet have no detectable intestinal damage, and test negative for certain key antibodies (though in some cases they may have elevated levels of others).
Gluten sensitivity is a kind of "non-diagnosis," in other words -- a diagnosis by default for those who don't have celiac disease but feel better on a gluten-free diet.
A recent study by Fasano and his colleagues offers some clues about what gluten sensitivity is, and how it differs from celiac disease. Although they show no signs of erosion or other damage, the study found, the intestines of gluten-sensitive patients contain proteins that contribute to a harmful immune response, one that resembles -- but is distinct from -- the process underlying celiac disease.
Blood tests that can diagnose gluten sensitivity by measuring these and other proteins are in the works, but they are still a ways off.
"The reason we don't have tests yet is mainly because we don't have a clear definition of [gluten sensitivity]," Fasano explains.
How much gluten is OK?
People with celiac disease must commit to an absolutely gluten-free diet, as eating the protein can, over time, increase a person's risk of osteoporosis, infertility, and certain cancers, in addition to worsening short-term symptoms.
"You're going to be on this diet for life, and it has to be extremely strict. Even crumbs can turn on the autoimmune process typical of celiac disease," Fasano says. "If you make a mistake with celiac disease, you pay the price on the spot, but there can be a cumulative price, too."
Recommendations for people with gluten sensitivity aren't as clear-cut. Unlike celiac disease, gluten sensitivity hasn't been linked to intestine damage and long-term health problems, so some experts say that people on the less severe end of the spectrum should feel comfortable eating as much gluten as they can handle without feeling sick.
"Some people can be exquisitely sensitive and have to be as strict as people with celiac disease, while others can eat a pizza," Fasano says.
Health.com: How to estimate carbs in 10 common foods
The impact that gluten can have on those without celiac disease was illustrated by a recent study in Australia.
When gluten-sensitive people were asked to eat bread and muffins every day that, unbeknownst to them, had been laced with gluten, 68 percent saw all their old symptoms come back rapidly, compared with 40 percent in a similar group that ate only gluten-free products.
"People complained that they felt like they were pregnant, had gut pain...and tiredness increased," says the lead researcher, Jessica Biesiekierski, a Ph.D. candidate at Monash University Department of Medicine and Gastroenterology.
Sarah Cooper participated in the study and felt like she had been "hit by a bus" after the first day of gluten snacks. Her symptoms got so bad that she had to drop out halfway through the six-week study.
People with gluten sensitivity who don't respond this way aren't necessarily in the clear, however. Experts like Marlisa Brown, a registered dietitian in private practice in Long Island, N.Y., and the author of "Gluten-Free, Hassle-Free," worry that gluten could have long-term negative consequences that just haven't been identified yet.
Even if you feel better, "definitely don't try to add it back in," she urges. Brown counts herself among the gluten sensitive.
After enduring sinus infections, hair loss, sensitive skin, and fatigue since she was a little girl, and despite a negative celiac-disease test in her 20s (which she thinks may not have been thorough enough), Brown finally cut out gluten in her late 40s.
"I felt better in a week," she says.
