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1. Wheat Brain
2. 10 Day Challenge - Transformation Diet 
3. When you Lower Your Cholesterol, you lower  you Sex Drive Too
4. What Deficiencies do Statin Drugs Create?

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Wheat Brain - Book reivew of Wheat Belly by William Davis, M.D.
by Sue Westwind

 "It's a sobering thought that wheat has the capacity to reach into the human brain and cause changes in thought, behavior, and structure, even to the point of provoking seizures."  (Davis, 174)

  The biggest surprise about this book is how entertaining it is. Also of note, it's written by a cardiologist, not a nutritionist or naturopath. Instead of promoting the usual overall healthy diet for a healthy heart, Dr. Davis attacks a common food allergen that can wreck the body and mind in so many ways. That one food is wheat, our modern triticum aestivum--plus other grains that contain gluten. The author has a dry sense of humor that never lets up, rather biting toward the food industry that bases itself on wheat, and the role that the grain plays in our epidemic of broken brains and big bellies.

  Dr. Davis is very clear: it's not your fault you crave bread, pasta, doughnuts and cereal. Nowhere do we see this point illustrated more starkly than when it comes to wheat gluten's sabotage of our moods. We should rejoice at the bestseller status of his work because the research on wheat gluten and mental disorders stretches back decades, largely ignored.

Wheat Belly brings the best of this out of obscurity, with the work of F. Curtis Dohan. Dohan noticed that during World War II, in several countries ranging from Finland to the U.S., there were fewer hospitalizations for schizophrenia during bread shortages. Just so: an increase in schizophrenia when wheat was back after the war. He conducted an experiment with schizophrenics (mind you, this was before our concept of informed patient consent), putting them on, then off, a gluten-free diet, noting the marked decrease of symptoms when patients were gluten-free.  Dohan's work was confirmed by universities in Philadelphia and England. Nowadays the gluten-free, dairy-free diet is often recommended for autism and ADHD.

Dohan traveled widely to study the effects of wheat on the schizophrenic brain. He studied a Stone Age, hunter-gatherer culture in New Guinea, where schizophrenia was virtually unknown; after adopting a Western diet, schizophrenia jumped with a 65-fold increase. The late Carl Pfeiffer, a hallowed name in natural mental health research and treatment, also noted increased multiple food and chemical sensitivities in 48% of the 20,000 schizophrenics he studied.

But Wheat Belly insists that mental disorders from wheat/gluten are not just about schizophrenia. Wheat brain can manifest in many ways.

Gluten is the storage protein in wheat, rye, barley, spelt, triticale, and kamut (oats are tricky due to cross-contamination with wheat during harvest). The author takes us on a serious tour of the changes that hybridization (not GMOs, another matter) have wreaked on common bread wheat in the last 50 years. It's not a pretty picture.

Breeding for greater yield, plus disease-and-drought resistance have led to a far cry from the grains of ancient times, let alone the Pillsbury Flour of my grandmother's days. Two slices of whole wheat bread raise blood sugar more than two tablespoons of pure white sugar.

So what is the like to be exposed about "healthy whole grains?" Wheat is a super-carbohydrate, making us fat, diabetic, brain-fogged and depressed. Wheat is singular among foods for its opiate-like effect on the brain. Remember, it's not your fault. Davis says wheat "gains hold of your psyche and emotions, not unlike the hold heroin has over the desperate addict." He shivered with unease when a soccer mom told him, "bread is my crack!" Yet Davis reports how consistently his patients say that eating wheat-free gives them better moods, less mood swings, better concentration and sleep "within just days to weeks of their last bite of bagel or baked lasagna."

What makes us so addicted to this grain? National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers wanted to find out. They discovered that polypeptides from gluten cross the blood-brain barrier and bind the brain's morphine receptor, just like opiate drugs do. NIH dubbed them "exorphins" (exogenous morphine-like compounds) or gluteomorphins. Interestingly, the same drug-naloxone-that immediately reverses the effects of heroin, morphine, or oxycodone, also blocks wheat-derived exorphins' travel to the brain!

  When it comes to certain brain disorders, sometimes the effects of wheat gluten are permanent. Cerebellar ataxia, peripheral neuropathy, "gluten encephalopathy" and even seizures can be the work of gluten. There is a sobering section on cancer and mortality caused by wheat; the connection between mental health and cancer has a history of research. "For wheat," says Davis, "nothing is sacred."

Besides the mental-wellness, weight-loss and anti-cancer effects, Wheat Belly attests that going against the grain can bring clearer skin, stronger bones, fight aging and cataracts, obtain an overall ph balance, and help you ditch your cholesterol-lowering medications.

The only complaint I have is that Davis seems unaware or avoids the issue of dairy foods' similar opiate effects. The recipes in the back of his text are full of cheese. There is no mention of casomorphins, from casein (dairy protein), so similar to the opiate-effect of gluten. In the manufacturing and fermentation of dairy products the peptides become concentrated and the longer proteins are broken down into casomorphins. Cheese delivers the biggest payload. Maybe Davis himself is a cheese addict, or he thought this information would be too much for readers to absorb (final pun, I promise).

A whopping 97% of persons who react to gluten are undiagnosed. Dr. William Davis urges you to schedule your "radical wheat-ectomy" today. 

10 Day Challenge - Transformation Diet 

It's billed as the fastest, healthiest Weight loss diet on the planet. They also say its the simplest and its inexpensive.  

It is said that you can expect to lose 5-15 pounds in just 10 days, plus re-set your metabolism and break your addiction to food. 

Now this sounds like the perfect diet....we haven't heard from anyone whose done it and are researching it.  Meanwhile, read about it

10 Day Diet

When you Lower Your Cholesterol, you lower  you Sex Drive Too

Your medicine might be hampering your bedroom bliss.

What Deficiencies Do Statin Drugs Create?

Recently we wrote about CQ-10 or Coenzyme Q becoming depleted when taking Statin Drugs.

Are there other nutrients?   We checked "Drug Muggers" by Suzy Cohen, Pharmacist and this is what the problems are.

Statin drugs are meant to block cholesterol. The outer lining on the nerve, called the myelin sheath, is made of cholesterol.  Thus, blocking cholesterol can result in the nerves being unable to rebuild this myelin sheath  Cells die and get rebuilt, but without the basic building blocks (the nutrients), the cells cannot rebuild the myelin sheath.  Thus, blocking cholesterol can block this basic function.   

Additionally, statin drugs will deplete most minerals and B Vitamins.  Vitamin D may also be depleted. 

You can find the deficiencies created by most drugs in the Book Drug Muggers.   You can get a copy here Drug Muggers: Which Medications Are Robbing Your Body of Essential Nutrients--and Natural Ways to Restore Them

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