Dangers Of Wheat

Wheat is now the preferred swallow meal for many Nigerian families particularly in the urban cities. Sadly, some rural dwellers have hooked onto the fad that wheat is a "healthy" food.

What an irony? Otherwise, how do we explain the preference of wheat to pounded yam, which the people have been eating for good health and vitality centuries back?

The prevalent consumption of wheat across the across the country has clearly shown that in the absence of knowledge, people can accept poison as therapy. After all, wheat is the first choice food for diabetes on the strength of doctors' advice. Nationwide, wheat has overshadowed yam flour and other starchy foods that peculiar to our culinary culture in Nigeria.

Unfortunately, this is one dietary change that may prove suicidal for many people given the inseparable linkage of diet to health or ill health.

Though wheat, like other grains, is rich in fiber and some other nutrients,it is one food anybody that desires wellness and long life should be kept at arm's length 

WHY?

There are inherent dangers in the chemistry of wheat that makes it a classic destroyer of health. I call them the downsides of wheat.

The Downsides Of Wheat

Wheat Contains Gluten: A protein that causes inflammation, a systemic process that has harmful effects across all the organ systems in the body including the brain, heart, joints, eyes and digestive tract. . As a matter of fact, inflammation does not only precede all degenerative diseases like diabetes, cancer, stroke, glaucoma, arthritis and Parkinson’s disease, but also fuels their insidious

progression. A review paper in the New England Journal of Medicine listed 55 DISEASES that can be caused by eating GLUTEN-CONTAINING foods. The diseases include osteoporosis, anemia, cancer,canker sores, fatigue, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. 

Link With Psychiatric & Neurological Diseases: The same paper, New England Journal of Medicine also linked gluten to many psychiatric and neurological diseases including depression, schizophrenia, dementia, nerve damage,epilepsy and autism. The paper concluded that there are 120 or more diseases associated with eating foods that contain gluten. Dr. Joseph A. Murray, MD states that he is surprised how often gluten affects the brain.

Link with Autism & Schizophrenia: WHEAT study by Dr .J. Robert Cade, MD of the University of Florida showed that people with autism and schizophrenia have high level of PEPTIDES in their urine. These PEPTIDES, according to Dr. Cade, come from CASEIN (protein in milk and other dairy products) and GLIADIN and GLUTEN in WHEAT, BARLEY,  and RYE. 

Risk of Cancer: Another study of 30,000 patients analyzed from 1969 – 2008 reported in the journal of the American Medical Association found that people diagnosed with GLUTEN-SENSITIVITY had a higher risk of death from cancer and heart disease than the normal population. Worse still, the bulk of wheat being consumed in the country is the AMERICAN HYBRID STRAIN, which has much HIGHER GLUTEN content than the European wheat.

Wheat aids Weight gain: Inherent DANGER in the Chemistry of WHEAT is its High GLYCEMIC Index GI. Glycemic Index is a scale that ranks carbohydrate rich foods by how much they raise blood sugar level compared to low glycemic foods. Wheat has GI of 71 compared to yam and sweet potato with GI of 49 and 54 respectively. Invariably, eating food with high GI like wheat regularly promotes WEIGHT GAIN and makes DIABETES INTRACTABLE. According to Dr. Mark Hyman, MD “WHEAT is a MAJOR contributor to OBESITY, DIABETES, CANCER, DEMENTIA,DEPRESSION and many Modern ills.”

IF ONE MAY ASK, WHAT IS THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE RECOMMENDATION of WHEAT as a MEAL to FIGHT HIGH BLOOD SUGAR?