Tammy posted this astounding story of a life saved by the Wheat Belly message:

I have been off wheat since November, 2012, and I can tell you that it was life changing.

September and October were very scary months for me. I was very close to killing myself. I imagined taking pills and just ending it. I was terrified to go to bed because that was when the darkest thoughts would come. I was in constant pain, all of my joints were inflamed, and I was getting to the point where I couldn’t walk.

I was getting heart palpitations every time I ate. The acid reflux was awful. I felt like I was never digesting my food. I was diagnosed with IBS [irritable bowel syndrome] and was constantly vacillating between painful constipation and diarrhea. I was also diagnosed with cluster headaches and I was becoming incapacitated.

I felt like I was living a nightmare. I was trying to eat a “heart healthy diet,” according to the Canadian Food Guide. I was so tired that I couldn’t make it through the day without sleeping in the afternoon. I was at the end of my rope.

It was my mom who went wheat-free before me and she was seeing some dramatic results. By this time, I had tried to remove meat: no change. Dairy: no change. Nuts: no change. Sugar: no change. Canola/soybean/hydrogentated oils: no change. Eliminated any source of artificial sweeteners. I really didn’t know what to do. I had even been tested for celiac with no markers.

Anyway, in October she gave me the book and it was like a lightning bolt went off in my brain. I read the book in one day. I just couldn’t believe it.

I eliminated every ounce of grain in my diet and started increasing my intake of meat, dairy, and nuts with coconut oil and olive oil. I was already eating lots of fruits and veggies. It took one week! One week! I have had one headache since I went off and that was because I accidentally ate wheat. I hardly take any painkillers anymore.

The pain in my joints: gone! IBS: gone! Heart palpitations: gone! Bowel movements: regular and painless with little odour! Acid reflux: gone!

All in one week. Thank you Dr. Davis for writing that book. You saved my life, literally.

Tammy is a perfect example of just how bad health–mental and physical–can get with negative markers for celiac disease. This is the fiction that the Wheat Lobby propagates: They claim that wheat is a problem only in the 1% of the population with celiac disease. This is not true.

Beyond the gastrointestinal, joint, and heart effects Tammy experienced with wheat, the most disturbing aspects of her experience were the mind effects, in her case the dark nocturnal thoughts. How many other foods can make someone suicidal?

Wheat is a mind-active drug Just as wheat (specifically the gliadin protein) can cause paranoia in people with schizophrenia, mania in people with bipolar illness, 24-hour-a-day food obsessions in people with binge eating disorder, behavioral outbursts in children with ADHD and autistic spectrum disorder, so wheat can also cause dark, self-destructive, suicidal thoughts. And such profound impulses do not require an entire loaf of bread, as Tammy discovered: just an inadvertent exposure in, say, soy sauce or salad dressing can be enough to re-trigger the whole collection of wheat-induced phenomena, dark thoughts included.

Obviously, there are many other causes and contributing factors in depression and suicide. But how many can be corrected as easily as not eating a pretzel?