Wheat Belly Book Free Download Pdf
Roman Bayramdurdiyev
Wheat Belly comes from cardiologist William Davis, MD. In his best-selling diet book, Davis recalls seeing a picture of himself from a family vacation that made him realize he was carrying about 30 extra pounds around his middle.
Davis started his own wheat-free experiment and asked his overweight, diabetes-prone patients to do the same. He gave them a list of foods low on the glycemic index. He asked them to eat those instead of foods made with wheat, and to come back 3 months later for a checkup.
Davis reports that most of the patients lost a significant amount of weight, and their blood sugar levels dropped from the diabetic range to normal range. His patients also said they had improved energy; better focus; deeper sleep; better lung, joint, and bowel health; and more.
Davis also suggests cutting out high-fructose corn syrup, sucrose, salt, sugary foods, rice, potatoes, soda, fruit juice, dried fruit, legumes, and more. You should also avoid trans fats, fried foods, and cured meats on this plan.
Limitations: Giving up everything that has wheat in it knocks out a lot of foods, and Davis doesn't recommend some gluten-free products. In some cases, there are other options you can use in their place.
Vegetarian and vegan: It should be fairly easy for vegetarians to adapt this diet to fit their needs. If you're on a vegan diet, you will have a much more restricted list of foods and will have to rely heavily on nuts, seeds, nut butters, olives, and avocados.
If you lose weight on the Wheat Belly diet, it will likely be from making healthy food choices and not because you shunned gluten. There is no scientific evidence that foods with gluten cause more weight gain than other foods.
It is obvious that some of these, like high-fructose corn syrup, soda, trans fats, fried foods, and sugary foods, can quickly pack on the pounds. Getting them out of your diet is sure to help you lose weight. Legumes, however, are a powerhouse of protein and nutrients and can rightfully be a part of any healthy diet plan.
The Wheat Belly Diet may be a good alternative for the small percentage of people who actually are sensitive to gluten. Very often they can fall into the trap of choosing gluten-free foods that have a lot of extra calories. This plan gives them some healthier options.
Most nutrition experts agree that the best way to lose weight is to eat a healthy, balanced diet that has fewer calories and be more active. Banishing food groups is not recommended unless there is scientific evidence to back that decision up. And there is no proof that gluten is the bad guy in the obesity epidemic.
Davis is an unlikely warrior. He was a cardiologist in Milwaukee, trying to lose a few pounds to help fight his type 2 diabetes. He never conducted any of his own scientific studies, but found that after cutting wheat from his diet, his blood sugar levels were significantly reduced and his extra weight melted away.
Joe Schwarcz, a chemist at McGill University dedicated to demystifying science and debunking big claims, says, "This is one of these arguments that has one smidgen of scientific fact to it, which is then exploded into a whole blob of nonsense."
Davis also links wheat to mental illness such as schizophrenia. But the study he based his research on was conducted in 1966, and after almost 50 years of research, no one consulted by the fifth estate could point to any definitive study that specifically links wheat to schizophrenia.
The Canadian Celiac Association, the American Heart Association, the Obesity Society and the American College of Cardiology all refuse to endorse gluten-free diets for anyone who does not have celiac disease.
Yoni Freedhoff, a family doctor and diet expert who runs a nutrition clinic in Ottawa, says the eating guidelines touted in Wheat Belly are similar to other carb-free diets that get results by dramatically reducing the carbohydrates and calories people eat.
Robert Atkins, MD, creator of the Atkins Diet, was upfront with his recommendations to eat a diet almost exclusively made up of meat, poultry, cheese, butter, fish, and eggs, with very little plant-foods. The first Atkins Diet book was published in 1972; since then well-informed people have come to understand (through their own readings and personal experiences) that eating an animal-based, high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet is wrong. They have learned that following this eating pattern causes epidemic diseases, including type-2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and common cancers; and that the livestock industry is at the root of climate change. Many people are also wrestling with their conscience as they deal with the moral issues of animals being killed unnecessarily for food, supporting the horrors of factory farming, and depleting our oceans. Therefore, a diet book titled Eat More Animals to Lose Weight would meet a mostly unfriendly audience.
In order for the authors of these two books to pull off the monumental task of luring otherwise intelligent people into inherently dangerous diet plans, they have had to (1) ignore the bulk of the science, (2) exaggerate the truth, and (3) make false associations.
Ignoring the Science: Low-Carbohydrate Diets Contribute to a Higher Risk of Death and Disease
Low-carbohydrate diets can cause weight loss, but weight loss should not be the primary goal of individuals, medical doctors, dietitians, insurance companies, or governments. The goal is to live longer and stay healthy. Three major scientific reviews show that low-carbohydrate diets increase the risk of sickness and death.
Exaggerating the Truth about Inflammation
Promoters of low-carbohydrate diets, those high in meat, dairy, fish, and eggs, claim dietary carbohydrates are packed with inflammatory ingredients, and that inflammation is at the heart of virtually every disorder and disease. The evidence linking carbohydrates to inflammation is convoluted, theoretical, and largely limited to an uncommon condition, Celiac disease.
Inflammation is the consequence of injury, such as from a cut, burn, or infection. The pain, redness, swelling, and heat that follow are natural, necessary processes for healing. These symptoms and signs of inflammation resolve after the single event. However, with repetitive injury, inflammation can become long-standing, referred to as "chronic inflammation." One common example of chronic inflammation is bronchitis from inhaling cigarette smoke 20 times a day. Stop smoking and the inflammation stops, and the lungs heal (scar tissues and other residuals of the damage can be left behind).
For dietary diseases, including atherosclerosis, primary sources of repetitive injury are meat, cheese, and eggs. Once the injury is stopped, then healing occurs and the inflammation resolves. Reversal of coronary heart disease is seen on follow up examinations.
Research does not support the theory that carbohydrates from wheat, other grains, or starchy vegetables are the source of injury that leads to chronic inflammation. In contrast, scientific research does solidly support that the source of injury leading to chronic inflammation is animal foods.
The 2013 Nutrition Reviews published the article "Dietary Pattern Analysis and Biomarkers of Low-Grade Inflammation: a Systematic Literature Review." A major conclusion: Patterns identified by reduced rank regression as being statistically and significantly associated with biomarkers of inflammation were almost all meat-based or due to "Western" eating patterns.
The 2014 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published the article "Associations Between Red Meat Intake and Biomarkers of Inflammation and Glucose Metabolism in Women." Their conclusion: Greater red meat intake is associated with unfavorable plasma concentrations of inflammatory and glucose metabolic biomarkers in diabetes-free women.
The 2010 Journal of Nutrition published the article "Whole Grains Are Associated with Serum Concentrations of High Sensitivity C-reactive Protein among Premenopausal Women." Their conclusion: Women who consumed >or= 1 serving/d of whole grains had a lower probability of having moderate (P = 0.008) or elevated (P = 0.001) hs-CRP, according to the AHA criteria, compared with non-consumers.
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain how animal foods injure our bodies. For example, atherosclerosis (chronic inflammatory artery disease) has been explained by the "cholesterol hypothesis" and by the "TMAO hypothesis." Another sound mechanism identifies cow's milk as the culprit. Most important for the consumer to understand is that these mechanisms consistently blame meat, dairy, and/or eggs as the source of the repeated injury and chronic inflammation. No debate here.
The main take-away that readers will get from Wheat Belly is that wheat is the major cause of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and almost all other major health problems that people suffer from. Wheat can be very troublesome for a small percentage of the population. Celiac disease is a condition that affects fewer than one in one hundred people following the Western diet. These people must avoid gluten, found in high concentrations in wheat, barley, and rye. However, to put this real concern into a global, historical perspective, consider the importance of these three grains: they have served to fuel the development of civilizations throughout human history and still are a major source of calories, protein, vitamins, and minerals for billions of people. People without celiac disease, or the few other conditions that warrant elimination of these three specific grains, will find them an excellent source of nutrition.
Even those few people intolerant of gluten (wheat, barley, and rye) can healthfully consume non-gluten rice, corn, oats, and other grains. Low-carbohydrate promoters enthusiastically demonize these grains too.
Making False Associations about Diabetes and Carbohydrates
The main take-away that readers will get from Grain Brain is that grains and other starchy foods are the cause of type-2 diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, obesity, and most of the other chronic health problems suffered in the Western world. The truth is that people with type-2 diabetes are ill with many disorders of the body and brain. But grains and other starchy vegetables do not cause type-2 diabetes. The Western diet, loaded with meat, fat, and empty calories, makes people overweight and diabetic.