Avoiding gluten is a must
for people with celiac disease, but a gluten-free diet
can have negative impacts. Watch the video
to find out why. "The Potential Harm in
Unnecessary Gluten-Free Diets" Over the last decade or so,
there’s been a growing interest in the medical literature
on plant-based eating, beyond just exclusionary
terms like vegetarian or vegan. Previous such studies
were somewhat limited because they just split
people up into either vegetarian or nonvegetarian,
excluding some or all animal foods, but without taking into account
the quality of plant foods. Vegans could be living off of
French fries, Oreos, and Coca-Cola. Enter: “Changes in Plant-Based
Diet Quality and Total and Cause-Specific Mortality,”
the first study to investigate the associations between
changes in plant-based diet quality and subsequent risk of death. If you look at overall
plant-based diet scores, the more you increase your
intake of any plant foods and decrease your intake
of any animal foods, the lower your risk of
death appears to fall, but that’s because people
were adding healthy plant foods like fruits and vegetables.
If you just look at people
who ate more processed, sugary junk over time,
their mortality risk goes up, the clinical implications
being that increasing intake of healthy plant foods
and decreasing intake of not just animal foods,
but also animal crackers, could lower the future risk
of premature death. Whereas just reducing the
intake of carbs in general, cutting down not just
refined carbs and sugars, but healthy high carb foods
like fruits and whole grains is associated with
increased overall mortality, which would correspond to years
of your life being cut short, as well as the risk
of dying specifically from heart disease,
stroke, and cancer. Why are whole plant
foods so good for us? Much of the benefit may be
mediated by our microbiome.
There are all sorts of things
threatening our good gut bugs, like the over prescription
of antibiotics, however, the only factor that has been
empirically shown to be important is a diet low in microbiome-
accessible carbohydrates, in other words prebiotics
like fiber and resistant starch only found one place in
abundance, whole plant foods. We went from high-MAC
diets to Big Mac diets and may be suffering
the consequences. Intake of dietary fiber, which is
the main source of MACs in the diet is negligibly low compared
to how we evolved. Such a low-fiber diet provides
insufficient food for our gut microbes, starving ourselves of all the
wonderful things they produce for us.
A low-fiber diet is a key
driver of microbiome depletion, and this loss is implicated
in the rampant increase of chronic diseases that
now plague the modern world. We evolved getting perhaps
a hundred grams of fiber a day. Our gut bugs must
have been in heaven. How do you get even close to that? A cup of fruit may only have about 3 grams, a cup of
vegetables, 5 grams. Why so little? Because
fruits and vegetables are like 80 to 90 percent water. One has to go to the drier plant
foods to really scale it up, like beans, at 15 grams,
or intact grains like barley, over 30 grams per cup. But many people are avoiding
common grains these days, like wheat barley and
rye due to gluten, but there is a dark side
of gluten-free diets.
Now, if you have a condition
like celiac disease, then you absolutely have to
avoid gluten, but if not, the downsides include the potential
for nutritional deficiencies, like not getting enough
fiber, and toxic compounds, for example the
accumulation of heavy metals in people on gluten-free diets. Those following a gluten-free
diet had significantly increased blood mercury levels, more
arsenic flowing through their systems. The arsenic is likely due to
increased rice consumption because rice is a major ingredient
in gluten-free foods, but you can certainly choose
other grains like sorghum— that’s my favorite rice substitute. And the higher mercury may
just be because people eating gluten-free diets were tending
to eat more fish for some reason. But the reason that 10 out of
10 of those without celiac disease or a recognized gluten sensitivity
following a gluten-free diet experienced a pro-inflammatory
gastrointestinal environment is likely due to starving
your microbial self, not getting enough prebiotics,
not getting enough fiber because you’re avoiding
grains like wheat.
So, whatever diet you
choose for whatever reason, make sure you’re
getting enough fiber..
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