

What Grain Is Doing To Your Brain - unclebucknasty
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2013/11/14/what-grain-is-doing-to-your-brain/

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yesiamyourdad
My wife went gluten free and sugar free about 18months ago. That's led to
losing 30 lbs, reduced incidence of numbness in the extremities (residual
effect of west Nile) & heart murmurs. In addition she seems to be functioning
at a higher cognitive level. She has suddenly taken a huge interest in reading
and has written over 300,000 words of a series of novels. She is negative for
celiac or any food allergies.

I go on and off gluten free and I'm starting to realize that while the effects
are less profound for me, I do better without grain (we do eat a lot of oats).

The business of eating exclusively meat and dairy is due to ignorance. You
should be eating large quantities of vegetables, particularly leafy greens.
The hardest part of changing your diet is re-learning how to eat.

OTOH I find the historical perspective somewhat suspect. If you believe Jared
Diamond, grain led to the rise of civilization. I think that it's incredibly
difficult to understand life for the majority of humans. 100 years ago there
were no antibiotics. 200 years ago there was no refrigeration. 300 years ago,
the fastest way to move goods was by horse, which meant farming was naturally
local. 500 years ago, corn and potatoes were unknown in the European diet.
Humans have been around for about 2 million years. The best analogues are the
abject poor in underdeveloped parts of the world, which makes the advice in
"Born to Run" about "eating like a poor person" take on a new light.

~~~
sasas
Hey that's fantastic about your wife.

I was recently diagnosed with Narcolepsy. After the meds did not seem to help,
I decided to experiment with my diet. Removing gluten was the key. I
experienced what it was like to wake up refreshed for the first time in over a
decade. My productivity has increased to a level where I get the same work
done in 8 hours where before I'd push 12 hour days on average. The removal of
Gluten has had a profound positive change.

Have you any references on gluten sensitivity that is isn't new age rubbish? I
would like to know why gluten has caused brain fog and fatigue on such a
detrimental level.

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wdewind
This article is bad, and while there are certainly reasons to think cutting
wheat out of your diet could be helpful, it's certainly not a slam dunk case.
The confidence level here is absurd, and some of the translation to laymen's
speak is completely misleading.

> And yet Perlmutter argues that his recommendations are not radical at all.
> In fact, he says, his suggested menu adheres more closely to the way mankind
> has eaten for most of human history.

The human race has had an extremely varied diet based on geography, and even
today doesn't really have a standard diet. (Sidenote: this is also the major
flaw with labeling of diets like this as "paleo:" there was no "paleolithic"
diet. Yes some populations ate about 50/50 meat, fruits and vegetables, but
few of today's agriculture resembles that available even 20k years ago, so
using that as justification is weak).

> Perlmutter says we need to return to the eating habits of early man, a diet
> generally thought to be about 75% fat and 5% carbs.

He gets more specific here, but he gets even more wrong. There are some
populations who had a diet of up to 95% carbs.

> “Perlmutter uses bits and pieces of the effects of diet on cognitive
> outcomes — that obese people have a higher risk of cognitive impairment, for
> example — to construct an ultimately misleading picture of what people
> should eat for optimal cognitive and overall health,” St. Catherine
> University professor emerita Julie Miller Jones, Ph. D., told the website
> FoodNavigator-USA.

This is the biggest issue with the article. Perlmutter (or at least the journo
covering him) does not do a good job of untangling obesity's and caloric
intake's effect and the effects of wheat specifically.

> Further research published in the New England Journal of Medicine in August
> showed that people with even mildly elevated levels of blood sugar — too low
> to register as a Type 2 diabetes risk — still had a significantly higher
> risk of developing dementia.

Blood sugar does not necessarily come from ingesting sugar, it also comes from
fat.

> “This low-fat idea that’s been drummed into our heads and bellies,”
> Perlmutter says, “is completely off-base and deeply responsible for most of
> our modern ills.”

He's almost right here: the idea of low fat diets is stupid. We should focus
much more on food quality and overall caloric intake.

> “People are getting to this place of understanding that their lifestyle
> choices actually do matter a whole lot,” he says, “as opposed to this notion
> that you live your life come what may and hope for a pill.”

Yes. Good.

> "The exact parts of the brain that allow people to become addicted to
> narcotics are stimulated by gluten,” Perlmutter points out.

Oh come one. Gluten and EVERY OTHER FOOD.

> “Nutrition matters,” Perlmutter says. “The brain is more responsive to diet
> and lifestyle than any other part of the body and until now it’s been
> virtually ignored. We load up on medications when our mood is off, we hope
> for an Alzheimer’s disease pill when we get older. I submit that we need to
> take a step back and ask, ‘Is this really how we want to treat ourselves?’”

Absolutely.

~~~
yesiamyourdad
I mentioned it in another post, but we do have significant evidence that
grains led to the rise of civilization, so I think that the "gluten is toxic"
line is quite hyperbolic. However, the nutritional content of wheat is very
low relative to the calories received.

~~~
codex
Grains can support a large population even while causing dementia in later
life. The two are not incompatible.

~~~
wdewind
That's maybe true but doesn't mean anything. As far as I know there is no
reason to suggest grains specifically cause dementia, and as I said the
article doesn't do a good job showing that it is specifically grains and not
the obesity itself which causes the issues.

~~~
codex
Having not read the book, I imagine the argument is that grains are carbs and
carbs cause obesity and dementia. Most Americans over consume refined grains
[1] despite the government drastically reducing grains share of the food
pyramid.

[1] [http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err-economic-
research-r...](http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err-economic-research-
report/err50.aspx#.Uoes1_u9LCQ)

~~~
wdewind
Which does not point to grains causing dementia, being poison etc., it points
to overeating being really bad for you. Possibly that has to do with carbs,
probably not because your body ends up doing pretty similar things with an
overabundance of fat or protein. The difference is these foods make you feel
fuller, and so you are less likely to overeat them. But there is still little
evidence that overeating one specific macronutrient is worse for you than
another.

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stinos
Anybody read this 'Ten Health Benefits of Fiber' thing? Who writes this stuff?
I'm sure it's with good intentions, but the way it is written now doesn't
sound convincing _at all_ : every single sentence except the one for picture
6, contains 'may' or 'can'. I feel this just doesn't cut it in a world where
proper education about food is a must since so many are suffering from not
eating healthy. Suppose I'm desperate for a new healthy diet and want to go
for fibers (after all, the title says there are ten reasons why I should) and
read this, I just might think 'well it just could be better, but it could as
well not be, screw this'

~~~
markbernard
Increasing fiber was originally used to reduce sex drive.
[http://www.marksdailyapple.com/dietary-fiber-is-bad-for-
sex-...](http://www.marksdailyapple.com/dietary-fiber-is-bad-for-sex-thats-
the-only-claim-about-it-that-isnt-a-myth/)

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skore
> a diet rich in extra-virgin olive oil, grass-fed beef and wild fish provides
> “life-sustaining fat that modern American diets are so desperate for.”

So a diet completely unsustainable when considering a human population of 7
billion?

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WalterSear
Twaddle and pseudoscience.

People who cut out grains invariable also reduce their simple carb load and
are surprised at how much better they feel.

~~~
codex
Perhaps you didn't read the part of the article where carbs are ultimately
blamed.

~~~
WalterSear
I did, also the part where gluten was ultimately blamed.

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a8da6b0c91d
There's decent evidence that avoiding grains like wheat is a good idea, but I
don't think there's any reason to think sugars and simple starches are bad for
you. The article insinuates orange juice is bad for you because it has sugar
in it. So what? People in Cuba get something like a third of their calories
from cane sugar and are quite healthy; healthier than Americans. Many healthy
cultures have subsisted on milk, which is loaded with sugar.

Cutting out sugars and simple starches like rice is just a convenient way for
fat people to lower calorie intake. If you're lean I've not seen any
convincing arguments to avoid sugars.

Also, a lot of the paleo way of looking at diet as _the cause_ of diseases is
I think way over done. Some folks will insist almost any disease can be traced
to diet, but I think there's good evidence that yet to be isolated infections
cause things like rheumatoid arthritis and MS and some other stuff. For
example, skeletons show rheumatoid arthritis existed only in the New World and
spread after contact to Europe and Asia. Another aspect is mutational load.
People with weak immune systems or poorly tuned cell metabolism used to
regularly die in childhood. Now these people survive to adulthood and
eventually exhibit various degenerative diseases. They also pass their genes
on, increasing prevalence in the population. Diet surely matters, but
population increases in various middle age degenerative diseases probably has
other factors totally independent from diet.

~~~
markbernard
It's not the fact that you are eating sugar from an orange. It's the fact that
most people drink a glass of orange juice that is made from 5-6 oranges. Would
you eat 5-6 oranges in one sitting? no. So you are getting 5-6 times the sugar
you would normally get eating the fruit whole. Secondly juicing something
drastically increases it's glycemic index. Eating a lot of high glycemic foods
leads to insulin resistance, which contributes to systemic inflamation. This
leads to a number of conditions that affect the organs in your body, like your
brain or your pancreas.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
> you are getting 5-6 times the sugar you would normally get eating the fruit
> whole

So what? If I'm hungry and need the calories provided by the sugar, what's the
problem?

> Eating a lot of high glycemic foods leads to insulin resistance

Sugar has lower glycemic index than starch. And in any case I don't really buy
the whole idea that eating carbs causes insulin resistance. Being fat causes
insulin resistance. If you're not fat, sugar is fine.

~~~
markbernard
Just because you don't "buy it" doesn't change the science.

