Our ancestors who lived without grains, sugars, and soft drinks enjoyed predictable bowel behavior. They ate turtle, fish, clams, mushrooms, coconut, or mongongo nuts for breakfast, and out it all came that afternoon or evening—large, steamy, filled with undigested remains and prolific quantities of bacteria, no straining, laxatives, or stack of magazines required.
If instead you are living a modern life and have pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast and you’ll be lucky to pass that out by tomorrow or the next day. Perhaps, you will be constipated, not passing out your pancakes and syrup for days, passing it incompletely in hard, painful bits and pieces. In constipation’s most extreme forms, the remains of pancakes can stay in your colon for weeks.
Bran is not the answer to eliminate this embarrassing problem. – Tweet this!
We have been given advice to consume more fiber. So, we eat bran cereal/muffins, whole grain breads or drink powdered fiber supplements. Most of these grain-based foods contain insoluble cellulose (wood) fibers. This does work for some, as indigestible cellulose fibers, undigested by our own digestive apparatus as well as undigested by bowel flora, yields “bulk” that people mistake for a healthy bowel movement. Never mind that all the other disruptions of digestion, from your mouth on down, are not addressed by loading up your diet with wood fibers. What if sluggish bowel movements prove unresponsive to such fibers? That’s when health care comes to the rescue with laxatives.
Drugs are not the answer to eliminate this uncomfortable problem. – Tweet this!
Laxatives are prescribed in a variety of forms, some irritative (phenolphthalein and senna), some lubricating (dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate), some osmotic (polyethylene glycol), some no different than spraying you down with a hose (enemas).
Opiate drugs such as Oxycontin and morphine are commonly constipating. There’s even a new drug being widely advertised to “treat” the constipation side-effect of opiates: Relistor, or methylnaltrexone, an opiate-blocker that requires injection and costs around $700 per month. Those of you who have read Wheat Belly Total Health recall that the gliadin protein of wheat and related proteins in other grains (e.g., secalin in rye) are partially digested to peptides that have opiate (“opioid”) properties, including binding to the opiate receptors in the human intestine. Wheat and grains therefore contain a disrupter of intestinal motility.
Simply remove wheat and grains and constipation, even obstipation (severe, unrelenting constipation with bowel movements occurring every several weeks), can be relieved within days. This works because you have just removed the opiates that slow the intestinal passage of food. You will have removed a source of cellulose fiber, as well as the modest content of prebiotic fibers from grains, namely amylose and arabinoxylan, but these are easily replaced.
This is the Wheat Belly approach to eliminating constipation. – Tweet this!
- Eliminate all wheat and grains–thereby eliminating gliadin-derived opiates.
- Cultivate the garden called bowel flora–by “seeding” with a high-potency probiotic, followed by “water and fertilizer” to nourish desired species with prebiotic fibers
- Hydrate well.
- Supplement magnesium. Virtually everyone begins with a magnesium deficiency. A magnesium deficiency adds to disrupted intestinal motility, reversed by supplementing magnesium. However, the degree of stool loosening varies among the different preparations due to their variations in osmotic (water-imbibing) effects. Magnesium water and magnesium malate are among our preferred forms, as they are least likely to generate loose stools while softly helping with regularity. Magnesium citrate can be used if you do indeed need a bit more stool softening and regularity (which can be due to delayed recovery of intestinal motility after removing wheat and grains).
- Supplement with fiber. This is not necessary for most people living the Wheat Belly lifestyle. Just by adhering to the simple Wheat Belly strategies of consuming nuts; seeds such as pumpkin, sesame, chia, flaxseed, and sunflower; eating plenty of vegetable with limited servings of fruit and legumes like chickpeas, you obtain plentiful quantities of cellulose and other fibers. Additional flaxseed, chia, or psyllium are among the best choices.
You can see that the Wheat Belly approach does not rely on artificial means of reversing constipation to restore normal gut motility. It does not load up on unnatural quantities of cellulose fiber, as you would by eating bran cereals and muffins, nor does it rely on intestinal irritants, softening agents, or opiate-blocking drugs.
Doesn’t that make better sense?
Living grain-free is the answer to eliminate this embarrassing & uncomfortable problem. – Tweet this!
Yours in grainless health,
Dr. William Davis
The GI irritants i found to be Alcohol and Coffee, caffeine also but less than coffee.
My name is Joan and live in Australia. I have IBS and I’ve read your books and would like to use your healthy eating plan. Unfortunately for me, we cannot purchase or buy your products on line to make cooking and baking so much easier. Will you be looking at making your grain free products available to us in Australia?
It would certainly make life much easier and more convenient for busy people.
Many thanks,
Joan
Joan Jackson wrote: «Will you be looking at making your grain free products available to us in Australia?»
You’ll need to ask Wheat Free Market Foods about that directly, perhaps via their Contact Page. As far as I know, Dr. Davis’ is just a product/content consultant to them, and does not direct business strategy.
I see that the Canadian partner of Wheat Free Market Foods (thelowcarbgrocery dot com) does export, but in the case of export to Australia, the shipping charges, import duties/taxes, and import controls on foodstuffs might throw up insurmountable roadblocks.
If you haven’t already, use a search engine to find regional discussions about this issue. I was quickly able to find some tips using the phrase “australia low carb sources”.
________
Blog Reply Associate (click my user name for details)
Could psyllium be considered a prebotic fiber? I cut out the wheat and was still having some problems (loose bowels) even after a year. Adding a rounded tablespoon of psyllium to a drink has really helped me.
Katie Baker wrote: «Could psyllium be considered a prebotic fiber?»
When I looked into that while working on my Wheat Belly / Cureality Prebiotic Fiber Sources summary, I concluded: “Although largely soluble fiber, this apparently provides nil prebiotic benefit. It is useful as a thickener and laxative.”.
________
Blog Reply Associate (click my user name for details)
Been doing wheat belly for 5 weeks very successfully. Even with stress my bloating has been gone. I have suffered with terrible bloating with each meal for over 12 years. Strange question. A few days ago I tried a whole foods supplement called vita detox by vita tree. the dosage is 2 tablets twice a day. I did three dosages (6 pills) total and bloated, bloated, bloated and–constipated. I made no other changes. Could this have possibly caused this? A full day later, still bloated, still constipated. Haven’t had either since I began the program. I take a probiotic. Please help bc I can’t face that suddenly the program isn’t working and I’m headed back to the issues I’ve had for all these years.
melissa wrote: «…supplement called vita detox by vita tree.»
What benefit were you expecting? It sounds like you got the opposite.
I’m not familiar with the ingredients in that preparation, but one rang a bell: silymarin
ConsumerLab (an independent supplement testing service) reports that mild gastro disturbance can occur, and more rarely it can be severe.
I’d need to chase down and study all the ingredients to rule others in or out, but I doubt it’s worth the effort. It could be something normally harmless, to which you are, at the moment, still allergic. A further question can’t be answered from the label, which is just how much sugar is provided by all the berry content.
There’s nothing in that product that seems particularly compelling. The dandelion might be a dandy prebiotic fiber, but at $72/month for 100 mg/daily, there are much cheaper ways to get the 20 grams/day we aim to work up to.
I presume you have discontinued the vita detox.
What probiotic are you taking?
What are you doing for daily prebiotic fiber?
________
Blog Reply Associate (click my user name for details)
Wow, thanks for the quick response! its meaningful that this community reaches out and responds. I have felt alone and alienated with my symptoms for so long…
My probiotic is HMF Intensive by Seroyal. I live in ont., Canada. I haven’t really been doing a prebiotic, it was in my next phase of adding to the program, was thinking of doing the potato or banana in a smoothie… to be honest, I was doing so well I wasn’t changing anything to quickly.
If it is this supplement that caused this pain and bloat and constipation, how long could it take to get out of my system? I am so worried that I just had luck for 5 weeks bc every other time I had success with these issues, (none which included wheat belly)they always came back to haunt me. Thanks, Bob, for being so kind and generous!
melissa wrote: «My probiotic is HMF Intensive by Seroyal.»
25 billion CFU. 4 strains of lacto and bifido. Dr. Davis recommends 30-to-50B CFU, and over double that many strains. That HMF product doesn’t look too bad compared to most retail probiotics, but when it runs out you might see what else is available in your market.
In the meantime, the program suggests starting with 5 grams/day of prebiotic fiber, and slowly working up to 20, mixed and varied over time. For the purposes of this reply, my username above links to an article on sources of prebiotic fiber. If the Wheat Free Market Foods Virtue mixes look attractive, they should be available in Canada now, at The Low Carb Grocery.
«If it is this supplement that caused this pain and bloat and constipation,…»
Well, that would be the obvious guess, but we can’t rule out some infectious agent, or something else that changed in your diet or personal environment (which could be as unobvious as some stealth wheat or a different municipal water).
«…how long could it take to get out of my system?»
Without knowing the cause, that would be even more of a guess. No scenario quite like this has arisen on the blog previously. People can get reactions to starting either probiotics or prebiotics, but it sounds like you were already on the pro’ and hadn’t changed anything relative to pre’ lately.
________
Blog Reply Associate (click my user name for details)
If you’ve cut out wheat, great, but cutting out all grains, as difficult as that is initially, will yield wonderful results. I also attribute regular and comfortable bowel elimination to daily small servings of fresh fruit and include avacado in my daily salads. Stick with it and good luck – you’ll feel better and younger than ever!
Right on. Thanks
How’s the autism research going, Bob?
DM wrote: «How’s the autism research going…»
It got put on hold for other projects (like prebiotic fiber sources, and exogenous ketones, which are in my article index, which may be linked below in a markup test – if it works).
An ASD article might be next in the queue (and is apt to leverage those two articles). Leads to investigate on ASDs presently arise faster than they can be integrated into the draft.
________
Blog Reply Associate (click my user name for details)
Wordpress markup test:
Well, it looks like WordPress serves out the BC, but with only one lead curly double quote, and with the cite intact, but it’s not hypertext. Interesting.
Anyhow, for the purposes of this response, my user name on this reply links to that index.
________
Blog Reply Associate
I never remember getting constipated when I was eating grains. It was only after I ate a lot of meat in a certain time period I’d get severely constipated like when I’d have no choice or time but to buy gas station food like pre-packaged meat and cheese or pepperoni.
DM wrote: «I never remember getting constipated when I was eating grains.»
I do. I used to be a loyal Metamucil customer. A couple of years after starting WB, I came a across a package of that brand in a cabinet, and noticed it was long expired. Never bought any again, nor any similar preparations (there are multiple issues with the ingredients in almost all of these products).
Constipation is an issue rarely reported by those switching to the WB way of eating. When it is, odd favor explanations that include dietary fiber (esp. prebiotic), fluid intake and gut flora status.
________
Blog Reply Associate (click my user name for details)
Unrelated WordPress markup tests: acronym, plain text:CSS text, entity [ ω ]
codeI never understood why my bathroom problems went away when I ate a low carb diet. After all eliminating fiber (bread) from my diet should have crippled me bathroom-wise. But it didn’t. Now I know it’s the grain! Makes perfect sense! Thank you for taking me beyond low carb to a grain-free diet. I feel great!
Jo R. wrote: «I never understood why my bathroom problems went away when I ate a low carb diet.»
A diet that is just “low carb” is of course implicitly low grain, but it’s also low in other carbs that can foster non-optimal gut flora, and it’s usually low in processed foods, which reduces other gut antagonists such as emulsifiers, preservatives and pesticides that can further distort gut flora.
Don’t overlook Dr. Davis’ remark in the article above: “You will have removed a source of cellulose fiber, as well as the modest content of prebiotic fibers from grains, namely amylose and arabinoxylan, but these are easily replaced.”
To ensure smooth outcomes, see the gut flora topic in the current Wheat Belly books, or the various articles on this blog on the prebiotic fiber topic.
«I feel great!»
Excellent. Thanks for the report.
________
Blog Reply Associate (click my user name for details)
Unrelated WordPress markup tests: abbr,
strike, strong, b, iIn a short 2 month period, I have been grain-free a don a ketogenic diet. I have lost 30 lbs, my blood pressure as retuned to normal. I am totally prescription-free. I feel great. Thank you Dr. Davis and Public Television.
Ann Hawk wrote: «Thank you Dr. Davis and Public Television.»
For anyone wondering what the Public TV reference is, I take from Ann’s remark that PBS stations are still running the WheatBelly PBS Specials.
________
Blog Reply Associate (click my user name for details)
I cut all wheat and grains from my diet and have lost 85 pounds over the last 9 months. I feel better than ever. I am 55 years old and complemented my wheat free diet with a gym membership. I am in great shape now, putting to shame many of the youngsters at the gym.
Don’t believe me? Email me and I’ll send you dated pictures of me before and after.
Thank you, Dr. Davis. Your advice works. GET OFF THE WHEAT!!!!!!!