Ever been accused of being an addict! Well, we’ll take care of that in just four short paragraphs. Wheat is yummy. We love warm bread. Every culture around the globe makes warm bread and we find it irresistible. Have a little more. And a little more. A little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Or, a touch of butter and jam. Or some cheese, tomatoes and pepperoni. We love our wheat.

The problem is that we like it just a bit more than we realize. In fact, we eat that little bit more with just a touch of compulsion. We can’t really resist it. Munching on some pretzels? Chewing on a breadstick? You find yourself unconsciously being directed to eat a bit more. Why? Because the proteins in wheat get broken down into characteristic pieces that penetrate both the gut and the blood brain barrier. (Other foods don’t do this – it’s characteristic of gluten from wheat) And there those peptides bind to the brains opiate receptors. Well, that sets off your internal fix and your brain says, “Whoopee” and you eat some more.

Now, the house of medicine has invented some marvelous drugs that reverse and completely block the opiate receptor. If you give it to an overdosed heroin addict in the ER, and give them an IV opiate blocker they get really, really mad because you take away their high. (Never mind you saved their lives) Naloxone and naltrexone are two examples. Guess what happens when you give these drugs to people who are trying to lose weight and being fed a diet of wheat? Come on, commit yourself to a guess! Correct! You give up eating as much. Bill Davis documents in Wheat Belly that folks put on naltrexone will lose as much as 24 pounds in a few months because they just don’t have the inclination to eat that 6th piece of pizza, or 12th bread stick, or 100th Wheat Thin, or…… (My personal record is a clean 12 Krispy Kremes) Twenty percent of human calories come from wheat. If you are inclined to have 10% fewer calories because you eat one piece of french toast instead of three, you might start to lose weight too.

Exorphins is the name for those peptides, and we’ve known about them since the 1970s. There are few other foods that make them. Wheat makes a bunch and we eat a lot of wheat. Combine that with it’s freely and rapidly digested amylopectin carbohydrate, and consequent fast release of insulin, and you take in calories compulsively and your insulin then stores those calories assiduously. You lose.

That’s the argument. Unique among food, wheat provides the easy calories and the addicting exorphins to make each of us “wheat addicts”. And you get fat, from wheat.

WWW. What will work for me. Try the experiment. Go five days without wheat and see how you feel. Watch your own behavior when you start eating it again. The question arises, “what about trying long term naltrexone therapy as a way to lose 24 pounds”? Now that we have named the enemy, you can stand up at group and confess that you too are an addict. To wheat. (Problem #4)

Written by John Whitcomb, MD Brookfield Longevity and Healthy Living Clinic, 262-784-5300, 17585 W North Ave, Suite 160 www.LiveLongMD.com Archives of News Letter at www.NewsinNutrition.com

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Ever heard of “lectins”? You must not have been cruising the obscure corners of the metabolic research libraries. Scientists have been talking about them for over a century but only recently has the bigger picture started to coalesce about the role they might be playing. Here is a primer for you that fits in this series on wheat.

In essence, lectins are proteins that attach to a specific sugar and latch on tight – like a lock on a key. In that regard, the bacteria E. coli uses a specific surface lectin to attach to mannose, a sugar molecule on your bladder wall. Plants have lots of lectins in them where they are thought to play a role in inhibiting bacterial invasion. Sort of a plant based anti-biotic. If that’s all they did, we would likely be fine. The problem is that we eat plants. And the chemicals and compounds in those plants, lectins for one, don’t always just turn into calories and food. Lectins do a bunch of funny things that weren’t “on the menu”, so to speak. For one, they bind to quite a few cells in the small bowel wall and are thought to cause “leaky gut”, allowing other chemicals to leak in. Secondly, they get absorbed and find their way into our organs where their ability to set off chemical cascades sets them apart.

One of the cascades they can set off is the “complement” system. This isn’t a social nicety. The “complement system” is a cascade of inflammation that is usually set off by an antibody and antigen reacting together that signals danger and calls for an immune response. It shouldn’t be called complement, it should be called the “defend and attack back” system, because that is what it does. Lectins can set that off, without a real enemy being around.

Another system they set of f is the insulin receptor system. The problem here is that lectins attach and don’t let go. Insulin tells a cell to take up glucose and then it falls off the receptor when its deed is done. Lectins attach and stay there, making the cell continue to take up glucose, and take it up, and take it up, and take it up. Can you see the problem with that? Lectins force you to keep storing sugar as fat, way beyond any normal feedback loop. Your blood sugar falls too far! You feel hungry! You eat more! You store more calories! (Does this strike you as a big problem?)

Where do we find lectins? Wheat is a big source. Beans are too. Most grains have them. Soy, peanuts, legumes have them. They are present in all foods. They are probably higher in GMO foods. Modern drawf wheat has had its chromosome number tripled and many genes inserted into it. It appears extra lectins came along for the ride. Pasteurizing milk inactivates the natural antibodies that bind lectins…

You can block or wash out lectins by sprouting grains or soaking beans. Eating some sugars, like mannose and fucose act like decoys and block the binding sites. Glucosamine seems to also be a specific lectin blocker. Maybe that’s how it helps joints – reducing the attendant inflammation.

WWW. What will work for me? I’m not sure we know this whole story. But there are marketers out there selling you products to protect you from lectins. On your doorstep and in your mailbox this year, you will likely get a mailing on “miracle cure for……yada, yada, yada. There may be a tiny bit of truth in their claims, but maybe not as much as the mailing claims. The research isn’t in yet. But our current level of knowledge is still in its infancy compared to how complex our bodies really are. This may be why low carb diets work, at least in part. If lectins bind to insulin receptors and make you store calories as fat, we do have a problem. With GMO wheat in every product we eat and every meal of every day, having extra lectins that act like insulin, in addition to our own insulin may doom us to storing all our calories as fat, unless we try and avoid wheat. That’s problem #3. Stay tuned.

Written by John Whitcomb, MD Brookfield Longevity and Healthy Living Clinic, 17585 W North Ave, Suite # 160 Brookfield WI 53045 262-784-5300 Archives at www.newsinnutrition.com Please Visit www.LiveLongMD.com

The problem with wheat and insulin is pretty easy. It’s all about how fast the glucose of wheat gets into your blood. The form that carbohydrate is stored in wheat is called amylopectin and is very available to be digested in your gut. It is composed of long strings of glucose attached to each other, and branched every 24 to 30 glucose units making it have many endpoints, each of which can be attacked by a digestive enzyme to release it. You can digest it very rapidly, breaking down the chains of glucose molecules into single glucose units. In fact, white bread has a glycemic index of about 72-75 which means it gets into your blood at about 72% of the speed of pure glucose.

That’s the problem. Your body has a traffic cop called insulin that sees glucose speeding into your blood at 72% of pure glucose when the speed limit is about a glycemic index of 55. Foods below a glycemic index of 55 don’t inspire the release insulin. (The cop stays in his car, eating his own, low glycemic snack of raw broccoli) With a glycemic index over 55, the rapid and efficient secretion of insulin instantly ensues, slowing down the rise of glucose. And guess what insulin does? Exactly! It puts the glucose into the slammer (aka – fat cells, aka, long term storage) and takes no excuses, no lame pleading, no second chances. The glucose gets put into those fat cells, where it stays. Not even three strikes to be out. First time, long term storage. “A minute on the lips, a life time on the…….(need I say it?) We are just getting a real handle on the efficiency of the insulin effect on your body’s ability to mobilize fats. It’s extremely efficient, effective and rapid. It takes just a tiny bit of insulin to shut down the release of fatty acids from your fat cells for hours. That means just only little bit of processed wheat (a donut, a breakfast cereal made from some processed grain, a bagel, a cookie, even just sweetened coffee) and you release some insulin, and your fat cells are slammed shut with about 80-90% efficiency in just a few minutes. Without access to fatty acids, your cells don’t get any energy and you feel tired and hungry. Hence, you have to eat more. Remember last week? Which came first? Overeating is COMPENSATORY, not primary. You eat because you are starving and your cells are crying out for energy. You set yourself up because you released the stupid traffic cop inside you, insulin, who just did his job and put all the glucose away in the slammer without any excuses.

Wheat has never been refined like we have it in America today. When you eat it as a whole grain, the glycemic index is about 38. That is below the 55 speed limit and doesn’t set off the insulin response. We only discovered how to make fine white flour 150 years ago in Minneapolis when Pillsbury came out with a series of inventions on how to make fine white flour. Whole wheat flour is not much better. It’s glycemic index is 72, just the same. The tiny bit of retained fiber doesn’t slow down the speed of digestion. (Traffic cop is perfectly color neutral)

WWW. What will work for me. This is JUST the first layer of trouble. We have more to go. But trouble #1 is that wheat is processed into fine white flour and our body is completely unable to handle it. Still, we refine wheat and make it into about every product we eat. And that pesky glycemic index is incredibly rapid, merciless and ever watchful. You inner sugar cop is ALWAYS on our street corner. You just can’t cheat, unless you want all the calories you are eating to go into storage. Think of it. 90% efficient at marshaling (get the pun with the cop?) your calories into storage. You then are starving. You eat more to compensate for your hunger when you have all the calories you need, sitting there on your hips, unable to be released, because you just ate another free carbohydrate. Your homework: just try and make it through one day without ANY processed wheat. Just try. I’ve been at it for a week. I’m currently O for 7. Did I lose any weight this Holiday week? No no no.

Written by John Whitcomb, MD Brookfield Longevity and Healthy Living Clinic, 17575 W North Ave, # 160 Milwaukee, WI 53045 262-784-5300 www.LiveLongMD.com and newsletters archived at www.NewsinNutrition.com

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We have always defined obesity as YOUR problem. You got fat because you ate too much and were lazy! That definition doesn’t get us very far because all of us are now fat. I bet most of you don’t think of yourselves as lazy. So, we come up with simplistic answers like, “you are fat, therefore, don’t eat fat”. In 1978, our food guidelines from our own government came out with the biggest public health disaster in modern history. We said to stop eating fat and stoke up on healthy carbs. As many as you want. Our FDA said it so our Diabetes Association, our Dieticians, our American Heart association all chanted the same mantra. You get fat because you eat too much fat. And in the next thirty years, we all cut down on our fat, and got fatter.

Someone needs to tell the Emperor that his clothes don’t fit! In fact, that theory is dead wrong. There is now an emerging consensus from both research on humans and population studies all around the world in “non-obese” populations that we get fat when we eat our unique, Western, wheat and processed carb (including sugar) diet dominated diet. I’m going to discuss this for a couple of news letters, but first, we are going to start with a new definition of obesity and how you got there. Then, I’m going to prove it to you! If it’s outrageous and different enough, we’ll both learn something here. So, bear with me and enjoy this ride.

Here goes. # 1 What is obesity? Dr Westman proposes that it is a disorder of excessive fat accumulation. NOT overeating, NOT energy balance, NOT sedentary behavior. You are accumulating fat because your hormonal response to the food you eat is all messed up by insulin sensitivity. YOU ARE NOT TO BLAME!

#2: The PRIMARY DEFECT is in the body, NOT the brain. Our fat tissue is tightly regulated with incredible sensitivity to our insulin levels. That’s what’s messed up. Our bodies think we are hibernating for winter, and store calories willy-nilly.

#3 OVEREATING and SEDENTARY behaviors are COMPENSATORY, not primary behaviors. We’ve had chicken and egg backwards. We eat to keep up with our fat tissue accumulating fat. We rest because we are exhausted, and don’t have the energy to exercise. Your calories are all going to fat, and not to energy. You get starving hungry so you eat again, and again, and again. And when you eat wheat, you force yourself to release insulin, store more calories and get fatter.

#4 THE CORE PROBLEM is that insulin is exquisitely capable of defining how much fat we either STORE or BURN. Hence, if we force ourselves to secrete insulin, we lock up fat calories, and force ourselves to put on weight. We’ve had our strategies all backwards because we based them on the concept that we simply have to eat less not realizing the incredible power of appetite to drive our behavior. We have to change the food we eat to get away from the vicious circle. And wheat sits at the center of that circle. That’s just one of the problems with wheat. There are more.

We are doing it to ourselves, that we must admit. But it has been upon the advice of all our experts from the FDA, to the ADA, to the American Heart Association to EAT MORE WHOLE GRAINs. And that means eat more wheat. Next week: a whole new world. “The problem with wheat”.

WWW. What will work for me? The bread of life. Wheat is a problem. It makes us sick. It makes us fat. It forces us to secrete insulin. Now that I have your attention, I’ll show you how in about 5-6 newsletters. We will learn more about “the trouble with wheat”. You got fat because the food we have invented in the 20^th century is poisoning you in unique ways that play upon the core mechanisms of our metabolism. You need to understand those mechanisms and how to get around it. But it all starts with wheat.

Written by John Whitcomb, MD Brookfield Longevity and Healthy Living Clinic, 17575 W North Ave, # 160 Milwaukee, WI 53045 262-784-5300 www.LiveLongMD.com and newsletters archived at www.NewsinNutrition.com

To unsubscribe, please just write back. And please forward this email to a friend. That way, you learn it too!

Fay McCabe had tried several programs to lose weight: Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, LA Weight Loss.

She lost 10 pounds on Jenny Craig but grew tired of the prepackaged meals. Once she stopped eating them, she gained the weight back. Weight Watchers was better, but she didn’t like attending meetings and talking in front of people. She didn’t want to hear their issues either. And the LA Weight Loss bars and supplements got old.

So she turned to someone else to help her with her weight loss: her doctor, Dr. Rebecca Hunton. The result: a 50-pound weight loss in two years.

“I eat regular food, and I eat a lot of food,” said McCabe, 57, of Viera. “I just eat healthier things, vegetables, lean meats, nuts, a piece of fruit for a snack. I also exercise more. I go to the gym five times a week.”

For years, people who wanted to lose weight turned to commercial diet programs, such as Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem and Slim Fast, among others, their ads touting the program’s ease, testimonials and unbelievable before and after photos. Some tried fad diets, such as South Beach, Atkins, Cabbage

Soup and the Master Cleanse, the lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper concoction Beyonce drank to slim down for the movie “Dreamgirls.”

In the meantime, Americans continued to get fatter. Today, two-thirds are overweight or obese.

So perhaps it is time doctors got involved in weight loss. And no, we’re not talking Physicians Weight Loss Centers or a doc simply looking at a BMI chart and telling a patient to lose weight.

Hunton recently introduced the Wellspring Healthy Weight Loss Program at her practice in Suntree. The program uses Metagenics’ FirstLine Therapy, which incorporates an eating plan, exercise, supplements and stress management. FLT is described as a therapeutic lifestyle change program that also treats chronic health problems, such as high cholesterol, metabolic syndrome (a precursor to diabetes) and unhealthy body composition.

Hunton said she started the program because so many of her patients wanted to lose weight.

“A lot of them were going elsewhere and losing the weight, but not necessarily getting healthy, and gaining it back and then some,” she said.

Her program begins with blood work. Hunton then makes specific recommendations based on lab results to determine a person’s nutrient needs and metabolic profile.

For example, Tina Lange’s blood work revealed she is prediabetic and vitamin D deficient. So the 37-year-old mother of two, who also is the public relations manager for the practice, takes a vitamin D supplement, a supplement to fight fatigue, fish oil, which is recommended for all the patients, and makes sure to eat three meals a day plus snacks.

She also was advised to start exercising for 30 minutes a day three times a week, in addition to her one-day-a-week roller derby practice. Her goal: Lose 25 pounds.

“She takes your whole lifestyle into account,” said Lange of Satellite Beach, about Hunton. She had tried Weight Watchers but was looking for a more personalized program.

“She’s not only looking at your weight. She’s looking at your blood work, stress level, sleep patterns, that’s all part of this FirstLine Therapy idea. It’s basically the idea of taking all these things into account in formulating a strategy for wellness.”

Three-phase program

Hunton’s program has three phases. Phase 1 is the cleanse. Patients are asked to slowly eliminate processed foods, caffeine and bad carbs. Processed foods create inflammation, which can lead to patients holding on to unwanted weight, according to Hunton. Phase 1 also focuses on getting the body rehydrated.

Phase 2 is the personalized weight-loss plan. There is no calorie counting. Rather, a certain number of servings are recommended from various food groups. Patients are encouraged to eat three times a day, plus drink two Metagenics’ UltraMeal shakes. The shakes, full of vitamins and minerals, are not meal replacements but can be substituted for a meal if combined with something else, such as fruit or nuts.

“We’re going to guide you on what types of food you’re supposed to eat every day,” Hunton said. “We’re supposed to eat those variety of foods for our bodies to be healthful. There’s nutrients in foods that we need.”

And phase 3 is the stabilization phase, where a patient transitions from weight loss to maintenance.

Hunton said she occasionally recommends B-12 vitamin shots to give patients increased energy. These do not replace regular multivitamins. She also may use hCG shots as a “plateau buster” for patients stagnant in their weight loss. hCG, which stands for human chorionic gonadotrophin, is a hormone produced during pregnancy. Some believe it helps to curb appetite. She does not use it in conjunction with a low-calorie diet like many other programs.

The program costs $60 a week, including supplements. Patients are expected to lose two to four pounds a week.

Joan Salge Blake, a registered dietitian and clinical associate professor at Boston University, praised such an integrated approach to weight loss. She would like to see dietitians and doctors work together more.

But she prefers people make up for nutritional deficiencies with food, not supplements. For example, B-12 can be found naturally in animal products and in synthetic forms, such as fortified cereals.

“It’s always food first,” she said. “Because it’s not just one nutrient in food. I’m not just going to have milk because it’s a good source of calcium. But it’s also a good source of vitamin D, potassium. But then, after we try food first, for some reason you’re not meeting your nutrient needs, you go to a supplement.”

‘Treat the whole person’

Dr. Lance Maki, who owns MAKImd Restoration Medicine on Merritt Island, also is taking a comprehensive approach to help patients lose weight. Like Hunton, he incorporates Metagenics’ FLT, using the FDA-approved medical foods as part of a healthy eating plan. He also does lab work, looking at a patient’s cholesterol levels and performs a micronutrient analysis.

He even has Annette Sallee, a health and wellness coach, work with patients to figure out why they medicate with food. She teaches them how to eat properly, exercise and set realistic goals in addition to holding them accountable in a nonjudgmental manner.

“We want them to eat healthy, every three hours, not allow themselves to get hungry,” she said. “Good high-quality nonprocessed foods. Fruits and vegetables and lean protein, drinking half their body weight in ounces of water, and sleeping. Sleep is huge for weight loss.”

Maki’s program is 12 weeks and costs less than $100 a week, including the UltraMeal shakes, bars and weekly consultations with Sallee. Some participants receive B-12 shots at an additional cost. Patients are expected to lose one to two pounds a week.

“We try to treat the whole person,” said Maki, adding he spends a lot of time with the patients, not only discussing what to eat but overall health and wellness concerns. “We are not recommending that people diet, rather that they change their diet to eating healthy the rest of their lives.”

Of course, this all sounds like a no-brainer, especially for someone who has struggled with their weight for years. They know the refrain: Diets don’t work, lifestyle changes do.

But when people get to the point where they are seeking “this kind of help, they will do whatever is necessary to lose weight and be healthy,” Sallee said.

Plus, a physician can make recommendations based on lab results, medical history, body composition and a person’s symptoms and tailor a plan that works for them.

So far, Hunton’s patients are pleased with the results. Some, like McCabe, started before it was even an official program.

Debbie Pedicini, 55, of Melbourne, has lost 8 pounds and dropped one dress size in six weeks. She even has stopped taking medicine for her arthritis. She is no longer in pain. She said she is happier, more energetic and more alert.

“Some days I would get up and say, ‘Oh I want to go back to bed.’ I don’t have those days anymore,” she said. “It’s an easy program to follow, and it works. It definitely works.”

McCabe, who is maintaining her weight, has had to make some sacrifices: no ice cream, cookies, white flour or white sugar. But she doesn’t miss those foods.

She still comes to Wellspring for supplements, B-12 shots and lab work. She no longer takes prescription drugs. She was on high blood pressure pills.

“I’m happy,” she said. “My blood work is good and I feel good.

“I needed to be healthier if I was going to be around,” she added. “I didn’t want to be around and not be healthy.”

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