Healthier without Wheat

The Book, Healthier without Wheat is written by Dr. Stephen Wangen. Dr. Stephen Wangen is one of the world’s leading experts on IBS, food allergies/intolerances, and the ecosystem of the digestive tract.

I read this book in the 5 hours it took to go visit my grandson, so you know it isn’t a difficult or laborious book to read.

Dr. Wangen discusses wheat in our diet & doesn’t believe it belongs there — just like Dr. Davis in “Wheat Belly”.
He discusses celiac disease, non-celiac forms of gluten intolerance, testing for all forms of gluten intolerance and for wheat and gluten allergies and then treatment of gluten intolerance. Oh I wish he was my doctor, but he’s on the other side of the great big wide US of A 😦

Dr. Wangen bellieves that wheat has been bred to have three major beneficial traits that were absent in its wild ancestors: (1) larger grain, (2) grain easier to remove from stalk and (3) extra large seeds cannot disperse on their own–dependent entirely on people to reproduce. Hmmm, sounds healthy to me! My husband was reading a book the other day, “The Butterfly Effect” by Andy Andrews and came across the name of the man who started the whole wheat manipulation. I’d so love to go back to the 1940s and stop him. But then, someone else would have picked up the torch 😦

Alright, why’d you let me get off topic–gheez. Wheat isn’t grown because it’s the best fuel for our body. It’s grown because it provides us with an amazing amount of food per acre and is very economical to produce. Hmmm, guess money really is the ROOT of all evil–get the joke, ROOT. Oh, forgetaboutit!

Dr. Wangen states that Americans eat more wheat per person than any other country.
Also, the United States is the most affluent country in the world with an incredibly hi-tech healthcare system. According to the World Health Organization’s evaluation, the USA ranks 37th in health 😦

Also, 60 million Americans (20%) have Irritable Bowel Syndrome or chronic digestive problems.
40% get heartburn
10-20% have severe fatigue
and the list goes on and on and on.

Wheat is not necessarily bad for everyone, and it isn’t necessarily the cause of all the health problems known. However, says Dr. Wangen, it is a threat to the good health of millions of people whose bodies are not able to process it–yeah, mine.

Gluten intolerance can dramatically affect the skin, nervous system, musculoskeletal system, immune system, energy levels, joints, teeth and even behavior and mood and, of course, the digestive system. I have not read the following book that Dr. Wangen recommends by Dr. Rodney Ford yet, so I cannot comment on it, but will provide the link here if you wish to investigate it. It’s called “Full of It“.

Back to Healthier without Wheat. Non-celiac gluten intolerance can be diagnosed. When your immune system attacks food in a person with a food intolerance, it creates antibodies. The antibody is called gliadin antibody.

To have a correct diagnosis, the proper tests must be run. The patient must be eating offending foods to have antibodies present at the time of the test. The lab must be high quality and the physician has to keep in mind all the symptoms that can be triggered by the food (as does the patient, and the food must be eliminated for a long period of time for healing to take place).

Gliadin antibodies are made when your system encounters GLUTEN. I won’t get into the technical stuff, but there are three different gliadin antibodies of interest to Dr. Wangen, IgA, IgG and IgE. There are labs that can run these tests, along with the ELISA profile (stands for Enzyme Immunoassay). Unfortunately, this test is expensive, insurance companies tend to NOT pay for it because it involves 96 different tests. I do know this because I’ve asked. The doctors around here either don’t know about it, or they don’t ever deal with it 😦

I think there needs to be a scholarship for people with gluten/wheat intolerance to go to Seattle and be treated by Dr. Wangen. I bet he could just about wipe out digestive disorders and all the other nasty stuff that goes along with it. Wouldn’t that be wonderful 🙂

That’s the end of my notes. Rats, I want more and I read the book! I think he probably gets very technical about the tests and also about testing for bacteria, parasites and yeast with a stool sample test. My doctor here won’t do that test unless you have diarrhea. Rats, double Rats!

I hope this book review helped you. Have a great day, go and make some GF Rice Krispie treats from the YELLOW box, not the blue and put a smile on your face.