Book Review

“Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight”

– Dr. William Davis, 2011

By Linda Driskill

For the Blue Mountain Eagle

A debate is going on around us these days regarding genetically modified foods, and specifically their being labeled as such.

Dr. William Davis, cardiologist, presents one side of the story in his book, “Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight”

Wheat is one of the most modified foods. Strains have been hybridized, crossbred and introgressed to improve yield per acre but also to be drought- and pathogen-resistant. This has resulted in drastic changes in the genetic code from the original wild grass which has now exploded to more than 25,000 varieties.

Davis is worried that there has not been a single effort at safety testing.

Wheat today has an uncommonly high glycemic index. This means that wheat triggers higher blood sugar (and thus insulin) more than nearly all other foods.

Whole wheat bread has a glycemic index of 72, which increases blood sugar as much or more than table sugar at 59. The author believes that aside from some extra fiber, eating two slices of whole wheat bread is little different and often worse than drinking a can of soda or eating a candy bar.

This has important implications for body weight, according to Davis. Glucose in the body is accompanied by insulin, which converts the glucose to fat. High blood insulin provokes visceral fat accumulations, the body’s means of storing excess energy.

The only recognized wheat illness is celiac disease, which provokes an immune response causing serious inflammation. This currently affects just 1 percent of the population, but it is increasing along with diabetes, autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease and allergies.

Today diabetes is epidemic and the number of sufferers growing faster than any other disease condition, with the exception of obesity (if you can call it a disease).

Obesity is Davis’s concern.

He feels that the proliferation of wheat products in our diet parallels the expansion of our waists. Advice to cut fat and cholesterol intake and replace the calories with “healthy whole grains” was issued by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute through its National Cholesterol education program in 1985. This coincides precisely with the start of a sharp upward climb in body weight for men and women.

Ironically, 1985 was also the year when the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention began tracking body weight statistics, tidily documenting the explosion in obesity and diabetes that began that very year.

Davis states that the cost associated with Americans becoming increasingly obese far outweighs the money spent on cancer. The good news is perhaps that among 30 of his patients who eliminated wheat from their diet, there was a loss on average of 27 pounds over 5-1/2 months.

The book is published by Rodale press, which also publishes “Prevention Magazine.” Their readers obviously are spreading the word, and that is one reason you can find “gluten-free” pizza locally.

Linda Driskill is a Grant County resident and volunteer at the Grant County Library. “Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight” can be found in the new book display at the library.