By
Dr. Liliane Papin
Why has gluten become such a villain? After all, people in
Eastern countries have consumed it for centuries in its pure form. In
China
and Japan, many vegetarian monks and nuns well known for their health
and longevity
have used it to replace meat in their monastic lifestyle. Robust
long-living
Europeans enjoyed bread made from wheat in their daily diet for
centuries, while
Egyptians, Romans and Greeks also included wheat and barley in their
daily fare
in the form of pancakes.
Before we delve into the complexity of gluten intolerance and Celiac disease, let’s make a few observations.
1. The bread that we are eating today is very different from the bread of yesteryear. A tremendous shift happened with the introduction synthetic yeast. Some people who think they are gluten-intolerant actually do not react to wheat as a grain (cooked in a pressure cooker for example) but to wheat contained in bread. In such cases, the intolerance is more related to the yeast than to the wheat itself.
2. Until recently, in the French countryside where I grew up, people ate bread mostly in their soup and never in a “sandwich” form, a fairly recent culinary introduction made possible by industrial flour milling and soft white bread. Bread, in comparison, is a very dry food that one rarely eats without a generous amount of butter, jam or oil. A meal of plain bread actually used to be a form of punishment for disobedient children where I grew up. Many modern Americans suffer from a “yin deficiency” or dryness of stomach (lack of gastric fluids) to which years of peanut butter sandwiches and excess baked flour may have contributed. Dry foods such as bread may then exacerbate or trigger digestive troubles such as acid reflux or bloating but do not constitute per se gluten intolerance.
So, what exactly are gluten intolerance and “Celiac disease”?
It is estimated that about 1% of the American population “officially” suffers from Celiac disease. The most common symptoms include chronic diarrhea, abdominal distention, loss of appetite and vomiting. Since the infancy of Celiac disease, however, the concept of gluten intolerance has been widely broadened and has been implicated in a wide range of diseases and less obvious symptoms leading to various conditions such as anemia, neuropathy, osteoporosis or states of chronic inflammation of joints, skin or organs. Gastro-intestinal distress might include constipation, IBS or Crohn’s disease while, among an ever-growing list of diseases possibly linked to gluten intolerance, one finds listed alcoholism, depression, autism, ADHD, type I diabetes, thyroid disorders, hepatitis, lupus, lung diseases and various neurological and psychiatric diseases.
Celiac disease was first described in 1888 by a doctor named Samuel Gee and, over a hundred years, was progressively individualized and differentiated. In the early 50’s three researchers demonstrated the role played by the protein fraction of wheat in the disease. A few years later, the first biopsy performed on a child identified the characteristic lesions of the small intestine and duodenum linked to Celiac disease.
Recently MS has also been linked to gluten intolerance, although it remains controversial and outside the parameters of present conventional Western medicine. In the 1970,s, a British playwright by the name of Roger McDougall who had been diagnosed with MS, decided to go on a gluten and casein free diet and was able to recover. His pamphlet “My fight against Multiple Sclerosis” was published in 1980 by Regenics. Subsequently, in the medical journal Lancet, a doctor, Dr Norman Mathesons, in turn wrote a letter, “Multiple Sclerosis and Diet” to thank McDougall since the gluten and casein free diet advocated had enabled him to recover as well.
The highest incidence of MS cases occurs in Canada, Scotland and Western Ireland and, generally, in countries that use the highest gluten containing types of hard wheat. MS is by the same token very low in countries that use predominantly millet (Africa) or rice. Some of the symptoms presented by some Celiac disease patients -- neuropathic symptoms ranging from tingling, numbness in their limbs to dizziness and loss of balance --are symptoms also typical of MS.
The research into a connection between MS and diet, however, came to a halt once prednisone and steroids were introduced in MS treatment. What remains to be understood is why gluten is associated with so many health problems.
Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley (not pearl barley) and rye mostly. Oats have very low gluten content while grains such as rice, buckwheat or millet do not contain any. Gluten is a unique kind of protein, one that gives elasticity to the dough made from the flour of those grains. Let’s note first that the grains that we are eating today, however, are hybrids and quite different from the ones originally grown in Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in Egypt and the Middle East where they originated about 10 000 years ago. What we are eating today is the result of increasingly domesticated (from present day as well as early forms of genetic engineering)- grains that were, along the centuries and particularly in the last hundred years, “pushed” to a higher and higher content of gluten, to get both a higher yield of flour as well as fluffier bread. Interestingly enough, people affected with Celiac disease often do not react to older and non-hybrid types of grain such as kamut or spelt that make much denser and heavier bread.
It is of course impossible to know whether gluten intolerance existed before its official discovery in 1888 and whether some people in older cultures were unknowingly affected by it. Some schools of thought—Dr Kousmine and some Taoist traditions in particular --argue that any whole grain is damaging to the human digestive tract because, in particular, of the demineralizing phytic acid contained in the husk, an acid that can only be made digestible through fermentation (which is why macrobiotic teachers insist so much on thorough chewing of grain and the accompaniment of pickles and enzymes). However, the fluctuating severity of celiac disease according to the level of gluten content of the grain, the facts that patients affected by the disease react also to white flour –devoid of phytic acid—do support the specific correlation between gluten and celiac disease. It is also interesting to note that the discovery of the disease coincides with the introduction in the 1850’s of new industrial flour mills from Switzerland, powered by steam that enabled the making of an “extra white” flour on one hand and simplified the large-scale production of flour making on the other hand. The previously labor intensive process of flour and bread had necessarily limited its production and consumption. These new systems were exhibited at the universal exhibits of 1873 and 1879 where Americans discovered them. The Minnesota governor was the first one to “import” workers able to build those new mills. From then on the popularity and demand for that extra white bread increased all over the world.
Sensitivity to gluten and its ensuing inflammation implies an immune reaction and, therefore, an antibody that has been found in the blood of up to 40% of American people. Symptoms typically start to occur when the auto-immune reaction and inflammation start to damage the intestinal tract, and, more specifically, the small intestine and duodenum. At that point the disease might manifest itself through it typical symptoms of cramps, gastric reflux and various digestive problems. Some reactions might be acute while some might be milder and more “hidden” in chronic diseases. The underlying condition is basically a chronic inflammatory response due to over acidity in the intestinal tract (the intestinal flora and vili get destroyed) leading to what, in Chinese Medicine, would be described as chronic intestinal toxic Damp Heat environment. The constant heat/inflammation produced can then lead to a Yin deficiency – a lack of lubrication and fluids in tissues or organs and a host of various diseases characterized by dryness and constant inflammatory responses.
The chemical characteristic of gluten is its high content in nitrogen. Wheat, particularly rich in gluten is also a grain high in nitrogen. The urinary nitrate concentration in the urine is often used as a barometer to determine both the presence of celiac disease and its severity. In one study that included 116 children affected by celiac disease, the morning urine sample of the children was analyzed for content of urinary nitrate concentration in order to determine how the inclusion of oats, a grain low in gluten, affected the results. The study however did not focus on the relationship between gluten, the nitrogen content and celiac disease.
Nitrogen (N2) is naturally present in the atmosphere and in soil and water. It is a molecule found in chlorophyll as well as many parts of the mineral and vegetal kingdom. However the ratio has been radically changed over the last century, mostly due to its use in fertilizers as well as its heavy use in food processing and emission by various industries and cars. The level of nitrogen is routinely checked as part of air pollution in big cities while the greatest single commercial use of nitrogen is as a component in the manufacture of ammonia, subsequently used as fertilizer and to produce nitric acid. Liquid nitrogen (often referred to as LN2) is used as a refrigerant for freezing and transporting food products. In the environment, excess use of nitrogen as fertilizer as well as depletion of topsoil has led to the leaking and abnormal level of nitrogen into the water tables. The use of chemical fertilizer is one the best tools to increase the nitrogen content of the soil and, therefore, the gluten level of grains such as wheat.
In such a context, gluten intolerance might be seen as an alarm signal and indicator of that overall chemical imbalance in our bodies and environment. In people whose immune system has already been compromised by excess nitrogen, it could be that the body reacts to any grain or food characterized by a rich content of nitrogen. The increasing number of MS in gluten-rich wheat producing regions and countries as well as the overall increase of celiac disease points to that correlation.
Excess nitrogen binds with hemoglobin in the blood and diminishes its capacity to transport oxygen to cells,lowers the production of vitamin A and contributes to the production of nitrosamines, known as one of the most common causes of cancer. Yeast, moreover, contributes to the release of ammonia and gases that would certainly exacerbate the problem.
It
is likely that the number of various food allergies will increase from
a
combination of the weakening of our overall health, the increasing
genetic
engineering of food that compromises the delicate balance of nutrients,
minerals and chemicals in our food staples and the industrial overuse
of
chemicals in processed foods. The quickly increasing rates of allergies
to corn
or soy are part of the same process. Our bodies are simply trying to
adapt and
protect us from toxic excesses that poison our blood.
If you suspect an intolerance to gluten or would like to check how gluten affects your health and possibly some plaguing, stubborn symptoms, the best solution, to avoid complicated and expensive tests, is to simply take out wheat and gluten containing products (which requires keen scrutiny since gluten and wheat are often “hidden” in foods) for at least three months up to, ideally, one year. At that time, evaluate changes in your health. Slowly re-introduce items one at a time, starting with the safest ingredients such as, for example, good quality shoyu containing a small amount of wheat, low-gluten grains such as oats first, then sprouted breads and yeast-free breads made of old grains such as kamut. Re-introduce one ingredient at a time over several weeks and assess if any symptom or discomfort re-occurs.
In my Chinese Medicine practice, I often see patients who suffer from gluten intolerance, many of whom do not suspect it but come with a host of long plaguing stubborn ailments. In their past one usually finds heavy intake of dairy, sugar, white flour products or abuse of drugs and alcohol, all of which have weakened the gut and made it particularly sensitive to the chemical imbalances in our environment. Anyone with an overly acidic body environment is likely to be sensitive to gluten.
What,
of course, remains to be discussed is the place and role of wheat and
high
gluten grains? Are they best avoided altogether? Some argue that gluten
is used
in the making of glue and is not suited to human consumption. Or is it
simply
our human greed and desire for increasing “yields” that has turned
beautiful
grains into toxic products for so many? Certainly it seems wise, even
without
gluten intolerance, to limit the use of gluten and gluten-rich grains
as well
as the consumption of bread, emphasizing naturally made sourdough,
older types
of grain and yeast-free breads…all of which has actually always been
part of
standard macrobiotic recommendations.