Discover the hidden dangers of gluten and how it affects your health. Learn about symptoms, risks, and alternatives for a better lifestyle.
Unveiling the Risks Associated with Gluten Consumption
Dr. Peter Osborne highlights the significant risks associated with gluten intake, emphasizing its detrimental effects on both gut and brain health. His research indicates that gluten may play a crucial role in the development of autoimmune diseases and various neurological disorders. One of the key issues discussed is the concept of leaky gut syndrome, which occurs when the intestinal barrier becomes permeable, allowing toxins and undigested food particles to enter the bloodstream. This condition is increasingly linked to gluten consumption, raising concerns about its widespread presence in modern diets.
Furthermore, Osborne cautions that gluten-free alternatives, such as corn and rice, may not be the safe substitutes many believe them to be. These options can also trigger similar health issues and may not provide the relief expected by those suffering from gluten sensitivity. The discussion delves into the neurotoxic effects of gluten, outlining the potential for nutrient deficiencies that can arise from a diet high in gluten-containing foods. This comprehensive examination from a functional medicine perspective offers valuable insights into dietary management for improved health outcomes.
Unveiling the Gluten Trap: What You Didn’t Know Could Be Harmful
one of the re newer research studies and I said this has come out in the last 10 years or so shows that gluten exposure can cause leaky gut it doesn’t matter who you are whether you’re Gluten Sensitive or whether you’re not Gluten Sensitive so um that’s one of the downfalls to having a high gluten diet.
Is that it actually you know punches microscopic holes in your gut lining allowing your poop basically to leak into your bloodstream and everything else and so that’s precursor to most forms of autoimmune disease so we don’t want that obviously but gluten also is a neurotoxin there’s a there’s a group of researchers at Oxford who’ve been.
Studying this for decades now and they have MRI evidence that shows how gluten can form antibodies against brain tissue nervous tissue actually shrink areas of the brain causing diseases like imbalance vertigo tentis um and even gluten has been linked to diseases like bipolar and schizophrenia it’s actually actually.
It’s a original name was bread Madness um which is which is an interesting history about gluten itself yeah what is the mechanism for that how does gluten what does gluten do in the gut that will then cause increased intestinal permeability in the key gut yeah so there’s an interaction that occurs in the immune system once once your immune.
System sees gluten and it presents it to your your immune cells your dendritic cells will then launch into two possible uh scenarios one of the scenarios is you’ll make antib bodies against that uh these antibodies are basically little weapons that are trying to neutralize gluten but in the process of neutralizing gluten they cause.
Inflammation to the surrounding tissues so it’s kind of like yeah Friendly Fire killing killing the wrong person right so if if that inflammation is occurring in the gut you get inflammatory damage to the gut that’s what leads to the classic celiac disease or villis atrophy is is the Hallmark you know sign of that which is basically just an erosion of.
The folds of the intestines so it causes malabsorption and uh and and really severely can affect a person’s health we see the same kind of antibody reaction also occurring in brain tissue um there’s an enzyme called tissue transglutaminase or TTG that that is present also in the brain and so some people when they’re exposed to gluten.
The antibody responses are occurring in the brain tissue and so you can get the outcome of that can be what we call Brain inflammation right BL brain inflammation which can contribute to depression and anxiety and bipolar situations even schizo effectives or schizophrenics have been shown to have a high percentage of them have been shown.
To hot gluten U gluten antibodies we’ve actually seen in our Clinic a number of schizophrenics get better now I’m not saying that all schizophrenia is caused by just gluten there’s certainly an an array of different potential things that can happen with neurological disease but gluten is a major trigger as far as the the madness component there’s a there’s.
A mold component to to gluten and originally when it was when it was called bread Madness it was because um the grain flowers have a high propensity to grow mold on them and there was an alkaloid of mold called Ergo ERG T that was a a hallucinogenic mold by product and so individuals eating moldy bread for example would develop bread Madness.
Right that have schizo effective hallucinations and that’s where that term comes from oh yeah that’s really interesting now a lot of people will go gluten-free and they’ll buy stuff gluten-free a lot of it’s made with cons what’s considered gluten-free sources like corn and rice um what are your thoughts on those those types of things.
They’re bad news for several reasons one rice has a form of gluten in it called Orin and corn has a form of gluten in it called Zane these types of glutens are equally inflammatory to people with gluten sensitivity in my experience we see this all the time we actually have named it it’s called GL gluten-free Whiplash is when a person origin.
Generally goes gluten-free generally they go wheat barley Ry free there’s a period of improvement that they start feeling better but once they start discovering that gluten-free food aisle with all the corn and rice products they start going backwards they start whiplashing backwards into health issues again so um it’s not something I.
Recommend Al although technically you know the FDA considers those grains glutenfree they do have they’re just different types of gluten that can stimulate similar types of inflammatory reactions H so glutenfree sources not necessarily good especially you know if they’re labeled gluten-free what what what should people stick with when it.
Comes to an anti-inflammatory diet how do you approach that in your clinic we test them I mean the best thing to do is test open guest that’s my opinion of it um so we test to see because person could be Gluten Sensitive but they could also be reactive to Dairy they could be reactive to broccoli I see people reactive to blueberries I mean.
It’s it’s a it’s a it’s an array of potential possibilities and so when when we establish a person’s diet we first test them to discern what their immune systems perceive to be the threat right and then we can modify their diet based on their own uniqueness and in that way that’s that’s the ultimate personalized you know anti-inflammatory diet now if.
We’re generalizing you know a safe bet would be bu organic foods if when you’re talking about you know plant-based products um try to avoid processed food at all costs there’s studies coming out now on Ultra processed food really causing a lot of inflammation and damage and so it’s just a safe betat to stay away from those types of things so Whole.
Food organic food when it comes to meat grass-fed free range organic wild caught or some good General guidelines to follow if you’re just trying to make sure that you’re avoiding the chemicals and the processing and some of the other things that are just not good for any human yeah yeah that makes sense so obviously trying to get rid of the.
Processed foods really sticking with whole real foods it’s a great Baseline as far as nutrition goes now what what are some of the nutritional deficiencies that you see associated with people that you know may be dealing with uh autoimmunity gluten sensitivity a lot of different issues that you’re seeing in your in your clinic yeah we’ve been.
Tracking this now for over 20 years and the top five deficiencies um that I’ve recorded through testing on individuals with gluten issues uh number one vitamin D number number two iron number three B12 number four zinc and number five omega-3 fatty acids um so those five are the most common we see and so it’s it’s you.
Know you’re if you’re at home you know watching this and you’re thinking should I maybe take some supplements you know think about those five based on my own my own clinical experience but um but really ideally go get them tested like work with your doctor to get those levels tested because you may not have one of those five you may have something.
Totally different and you may need need something different so it’s always best to get a personalized recommendation in my opinion through through lab testing yeah especially with some of those like iron for example um a lot of people have high iron right so certainly we we see iron deficiency anemia um which tends to be a lot more common in menstruating.
Females in particular or people that have inflammatory bowel disease where they’re they’re they have malabsorption then it’s then those individuals are at higher risk but most men for example actually have too much iron already so if they start supplementing with iron it’s actually going to cause more oxidative stress and.
Inflammation in their system so yeah you just don’t want to you don’t want to guess um I know you you didn’t mention magnesium is that somewhere in your top 10 actually no it’s probably in my top 15 but I know that’s probably counter to what a lot of people see on the internet and I’m not saying that magnesium is not important but I don’t think that many.
People at least not in my experience in over 10,000 tests actually more than 10 probably closer to 50,000 tests uh but over 10,000 individual people where we just don’t see magnesium as frequently as what it’s being reported now I think a lot of people benefit from magnesium because it actually has therapeutic effects right it’s a natural muscle.
Relaxer if you’ve got anxiety or muscle tension it’s going to have a therapeutic effect it and and that that effect may not be correcting a deficiency per se it may just be the relaxation effect that magnesium presents and makes a person feel better but we don’t see the level of deficiency that’s often times reported I i’ I’ve seen reports where.
It’s like you know eight out of 10 people are deficient in magnesium and that just has not been my experience yeah that’s really interesting I see a lot of people respond really well putting them on magnesium but like you said maybe the calming effect the effect on helping balance the glutamate to Gaba ratio in the brain glutamate is the the.
The gas pedal and GAA is the brakes and most people when they have inflammation particularly brain inflammation too they have a distorted ratio too much glutamate not enough Gaba the nervous system is overe excited and magnesium is a real powerful um calming break like effect uh and a lot of people are noticing improvements there with.
Improved sleep um relaxation better stress resilience things like that yeah for sure and and on the gut too with constipation a lot of people use it it’s an you again it’s it’s I look at magnesium as the almost like a one of the antidotes for sympathetic dominance so when somebody’s in chronic inflammation mode their their their.
Nervous system is generally sympathetic dominant and so magnesium can kind of help balance that um and certainly therapeutically can be very effective and there’s not really a great danger to using magnesium so I think I think if it helps a person more power to them but I’m always cautious in practice that we don’t try to use what I call Green.
Medicine which is where you use supplements to appease their symptoms without digging for why their symptoms exist so I’m I’m perfectly fine with saying yeah take the magnesium for now to improve your quality of life but let’s really try to understand the Deep underlying reasons as to why your problems exist so that you don’t need to.
Take magnesium forever for the rest of your life in extra high doses yeah that’s that’s always a good idea just try to find the root cause factors
