I recently read the book Wheat Belly. The author of this book, William Davis M.D. is a real doctor, which is generally a good thing. The reason why I say this is because the last book I read before this was the pH Miracle, written by Robert Young, who claims to be a doctor, but is really just an idiot. For my post on Robert Young and his book, see here.
Now being a cardiologist likely does not make someone an expert on nutrition, however that is not one of the things I hated about this book. It was actually refreshing that the author had actually earned the credentials he claims to have. Moving on from that point (book cover), I became increasingly disappointed with this book.
My very first blog I ever wrote was on the problems with the holistic nutrition industry (see here). One of my main points was that the industry uses clinical studies out of context to “prove” their nutritional claims. If I had read this book at the time of that post, I would have references this book as a perfect example of this. Dr. Davis consistently references Celiac Disease studies (and incorrectly at times I might add) as proof that removing wheat/gluten will improve the health of EVERYONE. Furthermore, Dr. Davis sights research on Schizophrenia, ADHD, and other diseases as well. These are all very complex diseases that the extreme majority of the population is not dealing with. For example, the occurrence of Celiac Disease is less than 1% of Americans. Also, approximately only 6% of Americans are actually gluten sensitive. (Celiac Centre)
Dr. Davis does a very poor job of actually proving a causational effect between wheat consumption and poor health. He no doubt makes a case that there is a correlation between the average American’s health and his/her wheat consumption, however other aspects of our diet may explain this. Rather than wheat specifically being the culprit, I say it is more likely that the excess weight gain occurring with many people comes from too much carbohydrate in general. Davis even admits that when removing wheat from the diet, you cannot replace it with other starchy grains if you want to lose weight. In fact, Davis explains the mechanisms behind weight gain after consuming large amounts of high glycemic carbohydrate, but then very un-academically blames wheat and only wheat for the weight gain.
So what is the difference between wheat and other high glycemic starches such as potatoes or rice? That is what I am going to talk about in Part 2 of Things I hate about the book Wheat Belly.
My very first blog I ever wrote was on the problems with the holistic nutrition industry (see here). One of my main points was that the industry uses clinical studies out of context to “prove” their nutritional claims. If I had read this book at the time of that post, I would have references this book as a perfect example of this. Dr. Davis consistently references Celiac Disease studies (and incorrectly at times I might add) as proof that removing wheat/gluten will improve the health of EVERYONE. Furthermore, Dr. Davis sights research on Schizophrenia, ADHD, and other diseases as well. These are all very complex diseases that the extreme majority of the population is not dealing with. For example, the occurrence of Celiac Disease is less than 1% of Americans. Also, approximately only 6% of Americans are actually gluten sensitive. (Celiac Centre)
Dr. Davis does a very poor job of actually proving a causational effect between wheat consumption and poor health. He no doubt makes a case that there is a correlation between the average American’s health and his/her wheat consumption, however other aspects of our diet may explain this. Rather than wheat specifically being the culprit, I say it is more likely that the excess weight gain occurring with many people comes from too much carbohydrate in general. Davis even admits that when removing wheat from the diet, you cannot replace it with other starchy grains if you want to lose weight. In fact, Davis explains the mechanisms behind weight gain after consuming large amounts of high glycemic carbohydrate, but then very un-academically blames wheat and only wheat for the weight gain.
So what is the difference between wheat and other high glycemic starches such as potatoes or rice? That is what I am going to talk about in Part 2 of Things I hate about the book Wheat Belly.
RSS Feed
