Wheat gluten spurs brain inflammation in mice

Even the faddiest of fad diets might be the first time in decades they've eaten consciously and, what do you know, they are losing weight when they aren't on autopilot filling their gullet. But the weight loss didn't come from a calorie deficit, of course. It came from some magical interaction that seed oils / gluten / MSG / vegetables were having in their body.

There's no (known/convenient) blood test for so many dietary idiosyncrasies.

Also, it's a pretty weak hypothesis to claim that everyone feels better when eliminating flour and other grains because they're no longer experiencing inflammation from overeating and being overweight.

However I do have these symptoms after a few weeks of including wheat in my diet again:

- serious muscle tightness, especially my chest and diaphragm/intercostals

- joint soreness/pain, ankles/wrists/fingers

- constipation

- pimples on my shoulders and chest

- occasional stuffy noses

These symptoms mostly alleviate within a few weeks when I stop eating wheat.

My doctor thinks it's probably some kind of "sensitivity". I don't really know what that means, but she said it's fine to stop eating wheat if that improves my symptoms. So I did. But it tastes so good that every several years I reintroduce it to my diet, and I end up regretting it as the symptoms come back.

Have had this problem with wheat since I was a teenager. Started taking action about it as a young adult. I'm middle aged now.

I only post this disagreement with your post as an autoimmune enjoyer who has 0 genes for celiac (although my dad developed full blown celiac at age 55 without any previous symptoms in his life). Having dealt with autoimmune issues for a while and doing a lot of reading and discussions with my various rheumatologists over the years, I find it amazing how little is truly known about the immune system, role of food, role of microbiome, and root causes of auto immune issues. Moreover, the lack of understanding on how auto-immune disease prevalence has gotten way worse in recent decades (at least in the U.S.), way moreso than can be explained by increased reporting/increased life expectancy.

Some Links: NPR discussion on zonulin: A Protein In The Gut May Explain Why Some Can't Stomach Gluten https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/09/459061317/a-...

An overview written by the author mentioned in the NPR Article: Zonulin, regulation of tight junctions, and autoimmune diseases ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3384703/

I think most people would consider themselves to have a gluten intolerance, not allergy (at least here in the UK).

Similarly my wife is not allergic to milk, but drinking it after now not having it for a long time now gives her a bad stomach and also a rash on the inside of her elbows. But if you tested her I'm sure she wouldn't show as having an allergy.

Also - most gluten-free 'replacement' foods (pasta, bread etc.) have MORE calories than their gluten alternative.

Note that people can be allergic (and anaphylactic) to wheat, which is a very different thing to coeliac disease.

I'm convinced of this as well. People say that they cut gluten but what they really did was stopped eating frozen pizzas and started eating Mediterranean style. It must be the gluten though. /s

Then I got sensitized to wheat around 2018 for a variety of reasons. Mostly work stress, chronic dehydration, drinking too much rye whiskey and beer, occasional tobacco which is really hard on the gut, and a total lack of awareness of how overconsumption of any food injures the body. And getting older, even after 20 years in the gym and generally following a healthy diet.

The main problem is that gluten and other components of wheat/husk make it past stomach acid, and their partially digested compounds injure or kill the villi of the small intestine. We don't notice until middle age, when the villi start losing their ability to regenerate. Then people who succumb enter an IBS phase where their digestion is never the same, and they have trouble absorbing nutrients in their small intestine. Gluten also mimics proteins in the body, like in the thyroid, which can trigger various autoimmune diseases. Glyphosate in high concentrations in wheat and oats also disrupts gut flora and can lead to dysbiosis, which may be the cause of a whole host of autoimmune diseases like arthritis, multiple sclerosis and even cancer. Many older obese people are actually starving, and their body composition looks like one of an alcoholic, with hormone imbalances from a deficiency of key vitamins, and too much fructose which is broken down by the liver once the small intestine can't absorb it.

https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2020/june/th...

There is a wealth of information from the holistic community which hasn't made it into western medicine yet, and tons of books like these which started gaining popularity a decade ago:

https://againstallgrain.com

Another anecdote is that I've struggled with ADHD symptoms my entire life, which can be loosely thought of as having depression and anxiety at the same time. I've found that avoiding the following foods has largely eliminated my symptoms, as well as completely stopped the chronic joint pain I used to have:

* wheat

* unaged dairy

* caffeine

* alcohol

* sugar

Note that caffeine speeds gut motility, which can be mistaken for IBS. I think it hits vegetarians especially hard, because meat slows digestion. I went through a healing journey from around 2019 to 2022, and my comments from that time are filled with me blaming FODMAPs as the cause of my symptoms. But in all honesty, I think that too much coffee could have been as much as 50% of my problem, tied with wheat and dairy. Legumes and nightshades are still inflammatory, but I feel they contribute perhaps 10-25%.

I could write at length about all of this, but I already sound like a conspiracy nut. The big takeaway is that calories-in-calories-out is NOT the cause of obesity - that's propaganda. If you're struggling with your weight and/or mental health, please consider your diet, and get advice from older people. I want to emphasize that I've derived my solutions here as a programmer from firsthand experience, so if something is wrong in my analysis, it doesn't mean that I'm wrong, because I'll just incorporate any new evidence and form a stronger theory. Hope this helps someone!

Edit: imtringued's comment about peppermint tea reminded me that peppermint oil is a traditional cure for diarrhea. It may help get IBS in check long enough for the body to return to a healthy state as long as the guidelines I've mentioned are followed.

Not sure how this is common sense. If it were mice engineered to have celiac disease or recently diagnosed humans, it might make sense. Extrapolating it to the general population of a different species in a part of the body not related to digestion is a bit of a leap.

It's widely known that a bread crumb will have harmful effects if you have celiac disease. A human who has a peanut allergy will have very negative effects from eating a fraction of a peanut.

It's also widely known that foods that are fine for one species can have toxic effects in others. A well-known example is that chocolate is fine for humans (in moderation) but deadly to dogs in similar quantities.

A finding that humans without an allergy or hypersensitivity to it react to wheat gluten with brain inflammation would be big news, as would a finding that a large fraction of the human population has a hypersensitivity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FODMAP

It's a thing that's been messing me up for ages and only just got suggested as the cause/trigger for some remaining allergy like symptoms after my allergies went away (lots of issues besides it, it's just a trigger).