Why Wasn’t Gluten an Issue 50 Years Ago?

Coming up on this week's episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

Hundreds of years ago, we were eating gluten, we were eating wheat, and we didn't see the levels of autoimmunity. We didn't see the levels of celiac disease that we do now. Is the world overreacting to this gluten issue?

Is it a fad or is there something there? Hi, I'm Kiera Perowitt, one of the producers of the Doctor's Pharmacy podcast. We are all aware that gluten has become a major topic when it comes to our food and our health. In this mini episode, Dr. Hyman speaks with GI health expert Alessio Fasano about the rise in celiac disease and gluten sensitivity and why so many of us are suddenly experiencing challenges when it comes to eating gluten.

My wife now is in Sardinia. I wish I was there with her. And she has trouble eating pasta in America because she always gets a stomach ache. But she said she's in Italy now and she doesn't. I know they don't allow GMOs in Italy, although wheat is not GMO, although they spray our wheat here with glyphosate at harvest, which may have an effect on the microbiome. But How do you sort of explain why we all of a sudden got this way? What are the changes that happened that make people more susceptible? Because the gluten has always been there. Is the gluten different in the wheat we have? Is something else changed in our guts and environment? Like, what is this driving force?

First of all, the timeline that this epidemic is materializing is telling us that it's not genetic mutation in humankind that makes us more susceptible. So most likely we're changing the environment way too fast for us to adapt. and the example you were mentioning about your wife, and actually I hear this many times.

You hear it a lot. I hear this all the time.

They say, how come that I go to you?

You're right, I bet I'm fine.

And looks that I can tolerate stuff that I cannot even look at when I'm in the United States. Definitely I don't think the GMOs is an issue because, of course, Europe in general have very strict regulation GMOs, more much stricter than us. But when you talk about grains like wheat, there is no such a thing. And it's not an isolated, you know, phenomenon. Every chronic inflammatory diseases are on the rise, you know, allergic disease, autoimmune disease, neurodegenerative disease, like Alzheimer's. Everybody's inflamed. That's right. We as human beings, we do not have enzymes to completely dismantle gluten in its basic elements, amino acids. What we do is a partial digestion and what is left over are these undigestible fragments that can instigate inflammation. We know that. To make bread, you take yeast, you take water, you take the flour, and you make your dough. Yeast have those enzymes that can completely dismantle these toxic elements. In Europe, bread is still made the old fashioned way. This is an overnight process. So you have 10, 12 hours that these enzymes can dismantle the load of these fragments. Not here. The process takes two hours because now it's accelerated artificially. So you give only two hours to these enzymes to decrease the load. So the grain is the same, the culture is the same. What about the pasta? Same story. No, but again, the way that you prepare pasta is there are processes that you have to go through the essications, the drying of the pasta and so on and so forth. Again, give less time if you speed up the process to make this right. That's one. the other is, as you were alluding to pesticides, we use pesticides here, they are not allowed in Europe. And again, that changed completely the landscape because now you introduce another variable that can affect the way that we, in terms of our immune system, can react to any given product. And it happened to be grain, but it can be any other product that can give you the same kind of reaction. And then of course, the great unknowns that we still don't understand. Because even here in the United States, it's not homogeneous. So you have pockets of places in which this phenomenon seems to be much stronger than other pockets of the place. So gotta be some environmental situation that we still poorly control.

So there's the quality of the food, how we produce the food, all those things in terms of traditional methods that may affect people's sensitivity. But you also talk about the changes in the gut microbiome. And you originally came into this through your study on cholera.

That's right.

And now you're sort of coming back to it, looking wait a minute, why are people so sensitive? It's not, oh, you're sensitive to gluten, let's get you off gluten. It's like, why is this happening? And how is our change in our environment, toxins, stress, diet, antibiotics, C-sections, how has that led to this increase in autoimmunity, increase in celiac disease and allergic and inflammatory disorders?

And of course, you're losing some of the factors. So, you know, our lifestyle, you know, mostly we're living a rural lifestyle, you know, one or two generations ago. So living, you know, in the vicinity of animals.

Or expose a lot more microbes.

That's right. A variety of them, but you name it, parasites, viruses, you know, bacteria. But there was a full exchange. And then again, we make again this other convention that we are isolated, zilas in terms of environment. We are in a continuous secular life. So soil, animal, human, back to soil, and the waters, you know, we conventionally analyze them separately, but we are a unified ecosystem.

Yes.

And we are whatever we are because we co-evolve with microbes. It's not that we came from Mars. That's right. And then all of a sudden we've been exposed to something we've never seen before. We look and act and, you know, are shaped the way that we are because we co-evolved with this ecosystem. If you affect foods, you affect the composition of microbiome. If you put the microbiome back in balance where it's supposed to be based on our evolutionary plans, the immune system will defend us rather than be beligerent against us and will unleash inflammation only when it's definitely needed. If you have a balanced microbiome, you also will have a gut permeability that will go back to the way it's supposed to be. And a good gut permeability will make the immune system to be less vigilant. So it's all interconnected.

It's all connected. One of the things I read, I don't know if it's true, is that in the effort to increase food production, we hybridized and bred wheat to contain more starch and to be shorter and drought resistant and grow better and produce more carbohydrates, which is a dwarf wheat. And in the process, we combined the genes of different wheat strains, which led to more gliadin proteins in the dwarf wheat. and that those gluten proteins seem to be more of the ones that trigger inflammation. Is that part of why we've seen this increase?

There's been such a change, no question about that. So Romans and Greeks, they used to eat, you know, a very tall, you.

Know, very different wheat.

Wheat, you know, the wheat we eat.

Is not the wheat we ate.

No, no, absolutely. But, you know, was it all plants, you know, only 5% of the top had seeds, 4% of the dry weight was gluten at that time. Then later on during the Renaissance, we increased the heel to make more producible and useful wheat by doubling the amount of gluten in there. So from four to eight percent. And then the last iteration was during the Agricultural Revolution that we had this dwarf wheat. So one third of the plant now is seeds, so the efficiency is much higher. And now we're to about 12% rather than 4% as we started 2,000 years ago. The epidemics that we have seen materialize after this event. So I don't think that is the cultivars that have been pretty much fueled by farmers to increase, you know, heal. That's what it is, is fueling the, you know, the epidemics. I really do believe that is more the way that we handle the products and, you know, what your wife is experienced in Sardinia, is testimonial that it's not that the genetics and the load of wheat, a load of gluten in wheat is the culprit.

It's not like they grow more ancient strains there anymore.

No, well, you know, of course there's gonna be less gluten in there and ancient grains can be beneficial, for example, where people would not see the gluten sensitivity.

Like the ancient corn wheat.

That's right, you know, to decrease the load of gluten would not be beneficial for celiac because no matter if it's 4% or 12%, It's way too much.

Yeah, yeah. Fascinating.

Gluten has been found to negatively impact the lining of the gut, creating leaky gut or intestinal permeability, even in those who do not have celiac disease. This is why, as a part of his Pegan diet, Dr. Hyman recommends avoiding gluten. As you've surely noticed, many food companies, restaurants, and supermarkets have hopped on the gluten-free bandwagon. Don't let the food industry fool you. Gluten-free junk food is still junk food loaded with artificial sugars, processed vegetable or hydrogenated oils, trans fats, added gums, and other additives to increase their shelf life. Pay attention to the ingredients in the food you eat and the order in which the ingredients are listed. If a real food is listed at the end and sugar or ingredients you don't recognize are listed at the top, it might be best to avoid the food. The most abundant ingredient is always listed first. Others are listed in descending order by weight. If you see any words on a label you can't pronounce, you might also want to avoid the food. As much as possible, take it one step further and avoid foods with extensive labels altogether and stick to real whole foods. Thank you for tuning in to this mini episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

I hope you enjoyed it. Hi everyone.

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