This question comes up with some regularity: Is the Wheat Belly lifestyle like the Atkins’ diet? Is Wheat Belly just another name for a low-carb diet?
There are indeed some important areas of overlap. The Wheat Belly lifestyle, for instance, adheres to the concept that carbohydrates, not fats, are responsible for destructive health effects and weight gain. We also need to give Dr. Robert Atkins and his low-carb predecessors great credit for voicing their opinions during an age when low-carb was an heretical, against-the-mainstream concept, given the antics of Dr. Ancel Keys, Dr. Henry Blackburn, the US Department of Health and Human Services and others. Atkins, low-carb, and Wheat Belly all concur: carbs raise blood sugar, generate resistance to insulin, add to metabolic syndrome/type 2 diabetes, and add substantially to risk for heart disease, cancer, and dementia. Cutting dietary fat is unfounded, destructive, and wrong. No differences here.
But we have the advantage of several decades of new information since Dr. Atkins’s book was first published in 1972, including exposure of the workings of agribusiness and geneticists and the evolving science behind issues such as bowel flora and endocrine disruption, none of which was known or fully appreciated until recently.
So Wheat Belly takes the basic Atkins/low-carb arguments several steps further. These are not small steps, but crucial steps that can make the difference between having an autoimmune disease or not having an autoimmune disease, having fibromyalgia or not having fibromyalgia, being infertile or suffering multiple miscarriages or not being infertile and not having multiple miscarriages—big differences.
Among the concepts that are unique to Wheat Belly but never articulated by Dr. Atkins or the low-carb world are:
- Wheat and grains are absolutely banned on the Wheat Belly lifestyle–The Atkins diet and low-carb diets all add back “healthy whole grains” in their latter phases, as they were viewed as healthy and necessary. But those of you familiar with the Wheat Belly concepts recognize that wheat and grains are the worst foods to add back, as they reintroduce gliadin-derived appetite stimulation, gliadin-provoked autoimmune diseases, high blood sugars from amylopectin A, nutrient deficiencies from phytates, allergic reactions to multiple proteins and other issues. Re-exposure also makes you ill and is not a nice thing to endure. Adding back grains also explains why many Atkins/low-carbers regain their weight after an initial success.
- Wheat Belly highlights the addictive, appetite-stimulating effects of the gliadin protein of wheat and related proteins of other grains–Without understanding this issue, people add back grains or have small indulgences, even through medications or nutritional supplements, and then fail to understand why they lose control over appetite and impulse, what I call the “I ate one cookie and gained 30 pounds” effect.
- Wheat Belly addresses the historical and anthropological bases for the destructive health effects of the seeds of grasses–Not only does Wheat Belly reject the notion of “healthy whole grains,” but discusses why this dietary mistake was made and why it is a huge error to view grains as human food.
- Wheat Belly addresses bowel flora disrupted by grains (and other factors)–Cultivating healthy bowel flora improves bowel health and regularity, improves metabolic factors such as blood sugar and blood pressure, improves mood, and reduces risk for colon cancer. Cultivating healthy bowel flora avoids the health deterioration suffered by long-term low-carbers who, over time, develop a rise in blood sugar, a drop in HDL cholesterol, a rise in triglycerides, constipation, depression, and other effects due to uncorrected dysbiosis and lack of prebiotic fibers to nourish bowel flora.
- Wheat Belly addresses other issues crucial for health–Thyroid health and iodine are prominent features on the Wheat Belly discussion. If you have undiagnosed or uncorrected hypothyroidism, for instance, no diet will cause weight loss and you will be exposed to dramatically increased risk for cardiovascular disease and death. Vitamin D needs to be addressed, as do magnesium and omega-3 fatty acids. Not addressing these issues compromises health substantially, while adhering to all Wheat Belly concepts allows a powerful synergistic effect to emerge, what I call the “2 + 2 =11” Wheat Belly effect.
- Wheat Belly shows how to recreate familiar grain-based, high-carb, high-sugar foods–When I first introduced Wheat Belly concepts to patients in my heart disease practice, I was a purist and asked people to eat only real, whole foods and not try to recreate familiar grain-based or sugary foods. But I quickly learned that holidays, kids and grandkids, and entertaining botched things up and people would go off program, then suffer recurrences of numerous health conditions and regain oodles of weight. So I learned how to recreate foods like cookies, muffins, pies, and cheesecake using benign ingredients like almond and coconut flour, stevia and monkfruit. When I shared this with my patients, I witnessed them successfully navigate all these occasions with none of the problems. This is because Wheat Belly alternatives do not provoke high blood sugars, trigger addictive eating behavior/appetite, or create nutrient deficiencies. You can indulge without paying a health price.
Wheat Belly is, first and foremost, a program to restore health by rejecting many pieces of conventional “wisdom,” a dietary program and lifestyle that reverses many of the modern diseases that plague us. Atkins and low-carb simply provide one piece of that solution, but far from the complete picture. Follow the Wheat Belly lifestyle and you obtain the same initial health benefits as the Atkins/low-carb approach, but you will take health and weight loss farther and have more enduring results.
Also, know that Wheat-Free Market provides products that are consistent with the Wheat Belly lifestyle, and therefore with both the Atkins and low-carb lifestyles, as well.
I fully concur with WB science, but how can it apply to the billions of poor who depend on grains to live and cannot afford to eat fats?
William Jones wrote: «…how can it apply to the billions of poor who depend on grains to live and cannot afford to eat fats?»
What do you propose?
It’s taken more than 10 millennia, plus a half century incompetent science and corrupt politics, to get the world into its current dietary state. It’s going to take some time to unwind it.
For anyone with any personal choices at all, it’s a question of prioritization and choosing your battles. If you’re in North Korea, for example, your options are clearly limited. If you’re in the US on food stamps, for example, you need to figure out how to optimize what that program presently allows, engage in whatever alternate food sources you can, plus endeavor to get free of that program.
This recent blog post contained some tips for constrained budgets:
https://drdavisinfinitehealth.com/2016/07/9-budget-friendly-ways-live-grain-free-lifestyle/
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William Jones wrote: «…how can it apply to the billions of poor who depend on grains to live and cannot afford to eat fats?»
They can start by avoiding wheat. Many (most?) of those billions belong to cultures where wheat is not a major part of the cuisine, or which are at least not as wheat-obsessed as in the west.
Unfortunately, those billions have almost nothing else to eat except wheat, rye, rice and other grains.
William Jones wrote: <>
I get your point. It seems like you’re missing or ignoring mine. I said they should “start by avoiding _wheat_.” I didn’t say “grains”. Even as Dr. Davis has become increasingly critical of grains in general over the years(something one can argue about), he has always maintained that wheat is far, far worse than anything else.
I think you missed my point. The question was rhetorical. These people are trapped by ten thousand years of history. There is no way they are going to find, or even realize that they should find, a better source of food when there is nothing around them but wheat, rye, rice, barley — or potatoes for the lucky ones. .My point is that, as with most improvments in the human conditon, they rarely “trickle down” to the masses. The rich get richer and healthier, the poor get poorer and sicker.You and I are healthier on WB. The blacks, Latinos and poor whites in my city will get fatter and sicker — not to mention the poor Indians, Asians, Africans, etc. There is much more to this, of course, but social media discussons like this too often come of as simplistic.
William Jones wrote: «Unfortunately, those billions have almost nothing else to eat except wheat, rye, rice and other grains.»
If you want to argue for the current problems, you may get to keep them.
«I think you missed my point. The question was rhetorical.»
Does that explain why you ignored my earlier query of:
What do you propose?
«These people are trapped by ten thousand years of history.»
If change isn’t recognized as needed, it’s not going to happen at all. If change doesn’t start somewhere, it’s not going to happen at all.
«The rich get richer and healthier, the poor get poorer and sicker.»
That populist meme ignores the role of government and politics in our present mess. Official diets, agricultural policy, food supply regulations and subsidies all around are major contributors to our grain-based, full-time glycemic, nutrient-poor, PUFA-loaded toxic diets.
«There is much more to this, of course, but social media discussons like this too often come of as simplistic.»
Indeed.
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Yes, I understand all your comments and did not reply to “what do you propose” because I thought I made it clear that there was nothing that could bedone for those people for many generations, if ever. I just thought that we, in our incredibly lucky 1st world situation, should at least be aware that so many people simply cannot be picky about what they eat. We owe them recognition as fellow humans.. BTW, populist or not the “meme” applies regardless and it’s getting worse by the year.
At any rate, I did not intend to get into a spitting contest with anyone and I’m not attacking WB; it cured me of a serious health problem among other things. I suspect we are on the same side — just approaching from different angles. I’m 75 and have spent all of my life fighting for the defenseless creatures including humans. Read my last novel, Mere Being, (Amazon ebook and paperback concerned mainly with indigenous people of the Amazon) to get a better idea of what I intended on this post.
Let’s end this on a constructive, friendly note.
William Jones wrote: «…nothing that could be done for those people for many generations, if ever.»
Well, there are two separate problems:
1. prospects for personal liberty and prosperity, and
2. how to optimize what choice and resources you do have, on diet
Topic #1 is out of scope for this blog.
I pushed on “what do you propose” because we occasionally get visitors who declaim “this program can’t be delivered to everyone overnight, so it’s a waste of time”. The former is true; the latter is not. I might add that we have had visitors from locales with limited choice, and we work with them to get the most out of the alternatives available.
«…should at least be aware that so many people simply cannot be picky about what they eat.»
And what do we do with that awareness? A sad fact about the world of nutrition is that the world looks to the US for guidance on diet – big mistake. Fixing the world’s food problem requires first fixing US policy. It’s clear from the on-going politicking surrounding the minor shift that was DGA2015, that such change is not going to be top down.
This is not a sustainable situation. Healthcare costs are rising faster than GDP, and the major adverse ailment trends are a direct result of official dietary advice.
Individuals need to arm themselves with information, vote with their dollars to bias market forces, and use communications media to protest, if not mock, deadly dogma like the USDA’s MyPlateOfMetabolicSyndrome. The policy will come around, but probably after a majority of US residents are obviously contravening it with fabulous health outcomes. This is a grass-roots movement. Don’t eat the grass seeds.
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In oz what does moderate protein constitute on a daily basis. ?
Sara Ann Stephens wrote: «In oz what does moderate protein constitute on a daily basis?»
I presume that’s in response to my thumbnail description of the overall WB diet in a reply above.
Perhaps I need to footnote “moderate protein” and explain that this is usually what people end up choosing to do. It’s necessary to say something about protein because:
a. otherwise it would get no mention at all and be the suspiciously missing macronutrient, and,
b. too many people assume that a low-carb diet is a high-protein diet (this is a major problem with misleading nutrition papers)
Wheat Belly, in fact, has no specific target for protein, for example, see:
https://drdavisinfinitehealth.com/2013/04/am-i-too-skinny-2/
“The Wheat Belly approach does not limit calories nor fat or protein.”
Some boundaries that might be set are:
⇑ Eating too little protein, and/or incomplete protein, could result in key amino acid deficiencies.
⇓ Eating too much protein could promote glucogenesis, which would show up in elevated BG, HbA1c and TG readings.
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Sara Ann, shoot for one gram of protein per pound of lean body weight. Keeping the math simple, if you weigh 100 pounds and you measure 20% body fat, then eat 80 grams of protein a day.
As Bob says, if your blood sugar pops up, back off a bit.
My personal guidelines are:
1. Follow all wheat belly guidelines.
2. Fewer than 20% of my daily calories from carbs, sourced from non-starchy vegetables.
3. 120-140 grams of protein.
4. The rest of my calories come from fat, scaled depending on whether I’m trying to lose a few pounds or not.
It’s a good life.
If you are at a healthy bmi, and your health markers were appropriate. is there any reason you would go wheat belly?
jethro wrote: «If you are at a healthy bmi,…»
What do you consider a healthy BMI? It’s an extremely vague measure, and one that gets even more vague for the very tall, and falls apart completely for the extremely fit.
«…and your health markers were appropriate.»
Which markers, and what values? There are a couple of separate issues here.
One is that consensus medicine routinely fails to run some very important tests, such as:
☤ thyroid: fT3, fT4, rT3, TA
☤ lipids: advanced lipoprotein panel reporting LDL-P & other values
☤ Omega 3 index
☤ Vitamin D titer
☤ phenotype: ApoE & Lp(a)
Another is that for the tests they do run, their “normals” are pathological:
☤ TSH considered normal when actually too high
☤ lipid panel: myopic focus on the near-useless TC & LDL-C
☤ lipid panel: TG normal is actually way too high
☤ HbA1c: normal is actually way too high
☤ BP: normal upper limit is actually elevated
«…is there any reason you would go wheat belly?»
What aspect of it in particular are you asking about? To pick just one aspect (wheat), even for someone with perfect labs, wheat consumption enables needless malaise and ailments, particularly auto-immune conditions arising from leaky gut.
Keep in mind that WB is not merely wheat free. It’s also grain-free, low net carb, high specific fat, moderate protein, low inflammatory, and attending to both microbiome and pervasive micronutrient deficiencies. It all matters.
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I consider myself at a healthy BMI. I’m 5’11” weight 150, can do 20 pullups in a row and a 10K in 40 minutes.
My numbers, obtained at a health fair at work, were BP 96/68, blood glucose 90, cholesterol 205. Nurse told me I was in good health.
I read all of this fabulous things about wheat belly so to repeat myself again, is there any reason I should go wheat belly?
jethro wrote: «…BP 96/68, blood glucose 90, cholesterol 205.»
BP is great.
Was that a fasting BG?
TC (and LDL-C) are essentially meaningless. TG and HDL would interesting.
As I hinted in my prior response, there are a number of markers that are truly indicative of health (and risk factors), and that are almost never run. Instead people get vague tests for which target normals are very far from healthy or optimal.
«…is there any reason I should go wheat belly?»
Just the same reasons I do it. I only started it to support a family member who had independently discovered wheat sensitivity. I became convinced that WB is as close to an optimal generalized human diet as we can so far puzzle out. I stay on it to support my thyroid (some family history there), avoid completely optional ailments (like T2D), and reduce my risk for what may also turn out to be optional ailments like Alzheimer’s, cancer and Parkinson’s.
To re-phrase my other question on the prior reply, what is it that you think WB is asking you to do, that you aren’t already doing?
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I usually don’t eat breakfast so I guess BG was fasting except for 2 cups of coffee black no sugar.
I eat bread, sweets and other carbs.
jethro wrote: «I usually don’t eat breakfast so I guess BG was fasting except for 2 cups of coffee black no sugar.»
That FBG of 90 mg/dL is right at the upper boundary of the WB target range. It’s also the least informative of the various blood sugar metrics, as FBG can easily be at 90 in actual diabetics (which you probably are not). What really matters is postprandial BGs (a series taken after a meal), which are ideally flat-line, but more typically are a bump, and not uncommonly a spike. How much above 100, and for how long (the Area Under the Curve), is a significant health marker (and rarely done, due to inconvenience, and needing to be done after multiple representative meals). However, even one reading 30 to 60 minutes after meal start can be telling.
More interesting would be a number you might have gotten (triglycerides, TG) and one you probably didn’t get: HbA1c, which is a decent proxy for PPBG AUC. Bottom line, no real assessment can be made from that FBG.
«I eat bread, sweets and other carbs.»
The consequences of that can be current problems, and/or long-term problems.
Anyone who wants to argue that they are perfectly healthy on their current diet first needs to actually be sure that they are in fact perfectly healthy. Consensus medicine, such as a routine physical, is largely useless on that. You have to specifically ask for, if not fight for, truly informative tests.
For people with issues like weight to lose, T2D to reverse, heart disease to arrest/reverse, mysterious ailments to eliminate, medication burden to reduce, general malaise to perk up, the WB offer is pretty simple and clear: try it for 30 days and see what happens.
Waiting until issues arise is unwise.
As you can see from the thyroid article that Dr. Davis posted today, not all of the long-term problems are necessarily reversible (and thyroid has the further insult of being routinely mis-tested, mis-diagnosed and mis-treated under the Standard of Care).
For people without obvious current issues, consider the arguments in Wheat Belly Total Health, and get some of the suggested tests run.
I don’t have a full picture of the balance of your diet, but be clear that this is not just about wheat and net carbs. There are multiple serious problems in what passes for modern diet, and WB hits all the significant issues.
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To be fair, Dr. Atkins delayed grains till the final phase and directed folks to include them ONLY if they were well tolerated and did not stop or reverse the individual’s weight loss.
Time and again I tell people that the ORIGIONAL Atkins Diet was ground breaking in its time, that Atkins got it right, and that Dr. Davis and others are standing on the shoulders of a man (Atkins) who doesn’t get nearly the credit that is due.
David Schmidt wrote: «Time and again I tell people that the ORIGIONAL Atkins Diet was ground breaking in its time, that Atkins got it right…»
Dr. Davis might disagree on the “got it right” part. Here’s a blog post from 2007 with an Atkins reference (originally on TrackYourPlaque): http://www.cureality.com/blog/post/2007/01/21/how-good-is-the-south-beach-diet.html
«…Dr. Davis and others are standing on the shoulders of a man (Atkins) who doesn’t get nearly the credit that is due.»
Atkins is to some extent a US phenomenon. In other parts of the world the FAQ might as easily be “Isn’t this just Banting?” (1860s or 1920s; one has to ask which Banting).
But sure, if New Delhi had a statue of Atkins, instead of Borlaug, perhaps they wouldn’t now be a runaway diabetic culture.
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“Cultivating healthy bowel flora avoids the health deterioration suffered by long-term low-carbers who, over time, develop a rise in blood sugar, a drop in HDL cholesterol, a rise in triglycerides, constipation, depression, and other effects due to uncorrected dysbiosis and lack of prebiotic fibers to nourish bowel flora.”
While I think that cultivating healthy bowel flora may (or may not) be beneficial, I was low carbing a LONG time before attempting to cultivate “healthy” bowel flora, and NEVER had any of the problems in that quote. It’s still an open question for me whether low carbers have to have prebiotic fibers or probiotics. I’ve both used and not used prebiotics and probiotics (in pill form; I usually eat probiotic foods with or without prebiotics), and am struggling to find much of a difference. It seems to me that prebiotics cease my weight loss and also can (will) cause extreme flatulence. Do they have a benefit? It’s unclear to me. I can’t tell of a lower morning blood sugar level, although perhaps there’s a minor benefit to having more volume in stool. Other than that, I’m having a hard time determining the benefit. However, I’m going to start two weeks without prebiotics and two weeks with to see what happens.
BobM wrote: «…I was low carbing a LONG time before attempting to cultivate “healthy” bowel flora, and NEVER had any of the problems in that quote.»
I suspect it depends on how people are approaching low carb, esp. those doing full keto. Someone doing a zero-carb (all meat) diet is getting little or no prebiotic fiber, and eventual dysbiosis in that scenario wouldn’t surprise me at all.
«It’s still an open question for me whether low carbers have to have prebiotic fibers or probiotics.»
I expect that we are going to discover that everyone (not just low-carbers) needs prebiotic fiber, and perhaps even more than the modest 20 grams/day that Wheat Belly encourages. Surviving ancestral cultures are in some cases getting 7× that much.
The controlling factor in this mystery is probably the gut flora themselves. Our knowledge of this is still at a very early state, and urbanized cultures may have seriously disturbed spectra, due to pervasive anti-microbial factors, from treated water, through gut-adverse processed food-like substances, to excessive antibiotics.
«It seems to me that prebiotics cease my weight loss and also can (will) cause extreme flatulence.»
When a weight loss stall develops, the first suspicion is that the fiber is not as resistant as imagined. A glucose meter is telling on that. I opined on plantain flour in that regard on an earlier thread.
When discomfort, excess gas and motility issues develop, the usual cliché is that this is saying more about your microbiome than it is about the food.
«However, I’m going to start two weeks without prebiotics and two weeks with to see what happens.»
Keep in mind that this is a binary process. There are two ingredients: prebiotic fiber and gut flora to consume it. Both must be present. As we add/subtract/change fiber, the gut flora spectrum shifts to match what the substrate can support.
I expect that many moderns have either/both overgrowths and/or extinctions. You can run a uBiome, but it only looks at bacteria.
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Whenever comparing any program to Atkins, a question to keep in mind is: which Atkins?
? The original program as it existed at the time of Dr. Atkins’ passing (2003), or
? The transitional program from 2003-2010, owned for part of that time by North Castle Partners (which Wiki tells us diluted the low-carb message), or
? The current program, which is owned by Roark Capital Group.
Perhaps the most revealing insight into the current program is found by studying an assortment of the processed foods sold under the brand. Although they claim to be low net carb, they may not actually be, due to their choice of sugar alcohols and complex carbs. On the Wheat Belly net carb calculation, one bar is often at, if not above, the 15 gram full-meal/interval limit. A glucose meter would settle the matter.
More disturbing is the whole spectrum of ingredients used. This is from a survey of several products, including the drinks and meals.
▼ grains: oats, wheat, wheat gluten
▼ artificial sweeteners: sucralose, AceK
▼ iffy complex carbs: polydextrose, soluble corn fiber
▼ Omega 6 linoleic acid from: canola oil, corn oil, sunflower oil
▼ emulsifiers: cellulose gum, guar gum, gum arabic, soy lecithin, xantham gum
▼ iffy proteins: whey, soy
▼ sugar alcohol: maltitol
▼ questionable fortification: calcium compounds, folic acid, cyanocobalamin
▼ “natural” and artificial flavors
▼ food coloring
▼ other: sodium aluminum phosphate
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Thank you so much for these reminders! It’s easy to forget WHY I’m following the Wheat Belly lifestyle and this reminder keeps me strong in my commitment.