Years of agriculture modification has destroyed our wheat supply, stripping it of its beneficial nutrients and increasing harmful elements. I’m joined by Dr. William Davis, author of Wheat Belly, to talk about how we can heal our chronic diseases likely caused by an overconsumption of wheat.
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About Dr. William Davis
William Davis, MD is cardiologist and author of the New York Times #1 bestseller, Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health, and several other books in the series. Most recently, he released his Revised and Expanded Edition of Wheat Belly with updated programs and strategies. His books have sold over 3 million copies in the North American market and are available in 40 countries.
National media appearances include the Dr. Oz Show, CBS This Morning, and Live with Kelly (Ripa), featured on Bill O’Reilly and the Colbert Report, and in print media including First for Women and Woman’s World magazines. Dr. Davis has a substantial online presence on his Wheat Belly Blog with 10 million visitors.
More than a book, more than social media, the Wheat Belly phenomenon has proven to be a movement, growing over time and creating an audience eager for food solutions that are healthy, delicious, and empowering.
About This Episode
Bill joins me to talk about how modern agriculture has changed the core nutrition profile of wheat to actually make it indigestible by our bodies. This change came from good intentions - farmers modified wheat to increase yield for our growing population - but the lasting, negative impact on our bodies contributes to so many chronic and long-term diseases.
Bill encourages you to cut wheat and sugar out of your diet so you can finally start to feel better. Don’t worry, he’s developed some delicious recipes that mean you can still enjoy your favorite foods without using these modern kinds of wheat and sugars! Because Bill also lets us know exactly how much wheat a person can consume before it disrupts their health.
Bill also explains why he’s stopped prescribing statins to his patients with high cholesterol and heart disease. As he says, anything statins can do, diet and nutrition can do better. This includes taking supplements to improve your gut health.
Small Intestinal Bacteria Overgrowth (SIBO) could actually contribute to many of our chronic health conditions. Bill recommends using an herbal antibiotic treatment alongside a change in your diet, including removing wheat and sugar, to treat this chronic problem.
Lastly, Bill shares some of his favorite recipes with us. He’s an advocate of fermented foods like kombucha and his own yogurt (which I’m developing a dairy-free version of). He also thinks everyone should drink magnesium water to improve their health!
Do you have chronic gut health problems? What’s your favorite fermented food? As always, you can ask me anything and let me hear your thoughts in the comments below. If you have questions, email team@drannacabeca.com.
In This Episode:
- What happened to humanity’s health when farming started increasing the yield of wheat
- How you can enjoy your favorite foods without using modern wheat and sugar
- How much wheat a person can eat without disrupting their health
- Why statins aren’t the best way to treat high cholesterol and heart disease
- Some supplements you can take to help cultivate a healthy microbiome
- What Small Intestinal Bacteria Overgrowth (SIBO) has to do with your chronic health conditions
- What role herbal antibiotic regiments have for your health
- How fermented food has a positive impact on your gut bacteria
- Why you should drink magnesium water
Quotes:
“This is not a mystery, it’s not speculation. It is widely established that a modern wheat is extremely destructive to human health.” (6:07)
“Anything statins do, we can do far better with nutrition.” (24:10)
Resources Mentioned
Buy Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis
Follow Dr. William Davis on Facebook
Follow The Undoctored Blog Online | Facebook
Join the KetoGreen Community on Facebook
Buy Keto-Green 16
Transcript
Dr. William:
We now know, for instance, in the modern world that exposure to the gliadin protein in wheat, secalin in rye, hordein in barley, zein in corn, that initiates the increased intestinal permeability that sets the stage for autoimmune diseases, and we know that with good confidence from good science. It's one of the greatest mistakes ever made in human nutrition and health, but the bright side is that if you get this and ignore the nonsense that serves as U.S. dietary guidelines and the marketing of agribusiness, you're given a key to magnificent health and slenderness.
Dr. Anna:
Hi, everyone. It is Dr. Anna Cabeca. I am your Girlfriend Doctor, and it is my mission and passion to help women live better lives before, during, and after menopause. Welcome to The Girlfriend Doctor Podcast, an intimate place for intimate conversation. Remember, I am here for you. Write in to me. You can ask or tell me anything. No shame, no guilt, no apologies. We pull back the curtain on all things related to our health and the health of those that we love. You name it, we talk about it, and our goal is to shine light on your overall wellness.
Dr. Anna:
Today, we are getting started with a dear colleague of mine, Dr. William Davis, famous for writing and publishing his book called Wheat Belly, which has sold over 3 million copies, over 3 million copies. What an amazing feat. Really, he has just done a tremendous amount for our field of medicine. Dr. Davis is a cardiologist and, as I said, the author of New York Times best-selling, number one best-seller, Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Wheat, and Find Your Path Back to Health.
Dr. Anna:
It is recently revised and an expanded edition of Wheat Belly is released now and available. He has been on national media appearances. He was with me in Dr. Kellyann's Late Night and he has been on the Dr. Oz Show, CBS This Morning, and Live with Kelly, featured on Bill O'Reilly, and just name it. He's been in many magazines and his blog is Wheat Belly Blog and I encourage you to take a look at that.
Dr. Anna:
This is a phenomenon and today we're going to really get into some key areas of discussion regarding this including, why is wheat so bad for us? I mean, aren't those ancient grains safe for us? Lo and behold, no, and nor have they ever been. Here, he presents some great science behind this as well as why what's happening. We talk about statin medications. Do you need statins to lower your cholesterol? He is a cardiologist. Wait until you hear what he has to say, and then, what about SIBO, small intestinal bowel overgrowth? How that's affecting all of us. Can that be the reason for fibromyalgia? Wait until you hear what he has to say. It's a really fabulous conversation. I'm excited to tune in with you to our conversation with Dr. William Davis, cardiologist, and author of Wheat Belly. Here we go.
Dr. Anna:
Welcome to The Girlfriend Doctor Podcast, Dr. Davis. Great to have you here with me today.
Dr. William:
Oh, glad to be here. Different kind of venue.
Dr. Anna:
It is a different kind of venue and we were both on Dr. Kellyann's Girls Night Out or Late Night Out early on in the time of the coronavirus pandemic and I just fell in love with your messaging and your pearls of wisdom. I knew that I had to have you on the couch, so to speak, for our Girlfriend Doctor Podcast.
Dr. William:
It's going to be fun. It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a fun conversation.
Dr. Anna:
Well, tell us a little bit about your background and your story now as the... Really, I was so impressed by reading this. 3 million of your book, Wheat Belly, 3 million copies sold. I am in awe. I can only hope for the same.
Dr. William:
Well, it's not my charisma, it's not my good looks. I think it's the message that works, that is agribusiness and farmers have managed to dramatically change this thing we all know as wheat and turned it from a four-and-a-half or a five-foot-tall traditional plant into a high-yield semi-dwarf strain. 99% of all wheat now comes from this very different kind of plant. It stands 18 or 24 inches tall. It's very thick, the stalk is very thick, the seeds are very large, and it did accomplish what agribusiness set out to do, which is increase yield per acre. It was a boon to feeding the hungry because it was so cheap and easy to produce.
Dr. William:
The problem is, all of the changes introduced into wheat. Wheat's always been a problem. Even primitive humans who ate the traditional strains of wheat developed explosive tooth decay, knee arthritis, nutrient deficiencies, but agribusiness and farmers amplified all of those problems. To illustrate, for instance, there's something called phytates in grains, and farmers like phytates because phytates resist pests like insects and moles, so they selected strains with greater phytate content. Problem, phytates are very potent binders of all minerals in your gut. It binds all of the iron and zinc and calcium and magnesium and you poop it out. While we're told, "You must eat healthy whole grains for the vitamins and fiber," actually, grains are an enormous source of nutrient deficiencies.
Dr. William:
That's why when there's starvation, say, in Bangladesh or Ethiopia or a place like that, the World Health Organization flies in food that often includes wheat flour and corn. They know, this is in their literature, it's on their website, they know that when they do that, they must address the impaired growth of children and impaired learning because of all of the nutrient deficiencies that develop when kids rely on wheat and corn for nutrition. This is not a mystery, it's not speculation.
Dr. William:
It's widely established that modern wheat is extremely destructive to human health because of phytates, because of gliadin, gliadin-derived opioid peptides that drive appetite, wheat germ, and gluten. It's very toxic to your gastrointestinal tract. The amylopectin A that's responsible for raising blood sugar higher than table sugar, on and on and on. In the context, of course, of U.S. dietary guidelines, it tells you must eat this with every meal and every snack.
Dr. Anna:
I am in awe right now. All ancient grains included... because you hear of Kamut and some of the ancient ryes and different grains that are reported to have these tremendous health benefits, so compared to our genetically-modified versions that we know today, a couple of questions. When did we start modifying our grains? Then, just help me understand that these ancient grains like Kamut and rye are the same, are destructive.
Dr. William:
The push to develop high-yield strains of wheat, and corn and soy, too, by the way, began in the 1950s and 1960s, with a noble purpose, by the way. It wasn't meant to screw with us. It was meant to increase yield per acre to help feed the world, so there's a good purpose here, but the science back then, of course, was very crude. It predated the methods of genetic engineering, so the wheat industry has attacked me and said, "There's no such thing as genetically-modified wheat." Well, they're right. There's no genetically-engineered wheat, they use other methods such as chemical mutagenesis.
Dr. William:
They expose wheat seeds and embryos to very toxic compounds, one of them, for instance, called sodium azide. It's a very toxic industrial compound and there have been, shockingly, instances of accidental human ingestion and the CDC says, "If you witness an accidental human ingestion of sodium azide and that person has a cardiac arrest," which is what happens when it's drunk, "Don't give that person CPR because you'll die also. If the victim vomits, don't throw the vomit in the sink because it may explode." That's actually happened in real life.
Dr. William:
This very toxic compound is applied to wheat seeds and embryos to induce numerous mutations. One of the mutations, for instance, is resistance to an herbicide, Imazamox. Just like genetically-modified corn and soy, it allows the farmer to spray his wheat field with Imazamox. It kills the weeds, it doesn't fill the wheat, but you get it in your rolls and bagels and bread. It's part of the shifting landscape by the way of the microbiome, our exposure to this sea of industrial compounds, including herbicides.
Dr. William:
The push to generate high-yielding wheat now means everything made of wheat in the world, virtually all, is made from high-yield semi-dwarf. You're right, there's been a return to the heirloom strains or the traditional strains. Here's a question I ask. What happened to the first humans who consumed seeds of grasses? That's what wheat is, that's what grains are, so what happened to them? Well, interestingly, before we were agriculturists and we were hunter-gatherers and you get in the morning, took your spear and speared a wild boar or you gathered roots and tubers and put them in your stomach sack that you got from an animal you killed, or you foraged for berries or nuts wild humans ate.
Dr. William:
There was almost no tooth decay. There was one to three percent of all teeth were covered, even elderly people. There was hardly any tooth decay or tooth loss or tooth abscess, any of those kinds of things. There was very little arthritis, and there was nutrient deficiencies only when there was starvation from climate change or drought or something like that.
Dr. William:
When we became agriculturists and purposefully cultivated seeds of grasses, that is grains, which by the way is not an easy thing to do when you think about it. You have to isolate those seeds, dry them, pulverize them on a stone as they did back then, and then reconstitute them as a porridge. That's how you first consumed grains. What happened to those first humans in the Middle East where they consumed wheat? Or in Sub-Saharan Africa where they consumed millet? Or Central America where they first consumed maize, the forerunner of corn? To some degree, the swamps of Southeast Asia where they consumed rice.
Dr. William:
Well, what happened to those people between four and 12,000 years ago? There was an explosion of tooth decay. We went from one to three percent of all teeth being rotten or lost to 16 to 49% of all teeth recovered showing rot, tooth loss, abscess formation. There was a doubling of knee arthritis. There was an increase in other bone diseases. Livers don't fossilize, of course, so we can't tell much about the liver, say, or the heart. There was also a big uptick in nutrideficiencies, especially iron because there are bony changes that occur called porotic hyperostosis in people who develop iron deficiency.
Dr. William:
Of course, back then, they still had celiac disease and autoimmune diseases. These are all diseases of grain consumption. We now know, for instance, in the modern world that exposure to the gliadin protein in wheat, secalin in rye, hordein in barley, zein in corn, that initiates the increased intestinal permeability that sets the stage for autoimmune diseases. We know that with good confidence, from good science like that performed by Dr. Alessio Fasano while at the University of Maryland.
Dr. William:
It's one of the greatest mistakes ever made in human nutrition and health, but the bright side is that if you get this and ignore the nonsense that serves as U.S. dietary guidelines and the marketing of agribusiness, you're given a key to magnificent health and slenderness.
Dr. Anna:
That's that easy. Just avoid it.
Dr. William:
Yeah. Now, people say, "Oh no! I'll never have pizza again you mean? Or, I'll never have biscuits and gravy again? Or I can't have cheesecake or a birthday cake? I can't have cookies or muffins?" You can have all of those things, we're just going to recreate all of those foods with benign ingredients. For instance, I make some blueberry muffins. I won't make then with wheat flour, I'll make them with almond flour, ground golden flaxseed, and coconut flour. I won't use sugar, I'll use some benign natural sweetener like Stevia or monk fruit or allulose. You can enjoy all of those foods, including at holidays with friends and family at gatherings, and enjoy them and they're delicious.
Dr. William:
Oddly, Dr. Anna, this happens a lot. People say things like this. "My husband won't do this, so I got him a regular pizza and I made myself a they call it wheat belly pizza. Well, I found that if he can eat my pizza, and he loves it, but if I try to take a bite of his pizza, I have diarrhea, bloating, anxiety, and skin rashes." In other words, people eating grains can safely eat these non-grain foods, but [crosstalk 00:13:06]-
Dr. Anna:
Exactly.
Dr. William:
People not eating grains can't eat those grains without getting quite ill.
Dr. Anna:
Exactly. That's totally in line, too, with my Keto-Green philosophy. I'm actually working on a recipe now because I'm trying to make blueberries, which are in season here, blueberry rhubarb pie just because to cut down the amount of carbs and create this with this a not crusty cobbler kind of combination. Anyway, you just made me think of that. I love it. I absolutely agree. Keto-Green, we are dairy-free, grain-free in my plans and that's right along the line of this. Now, there's a few things, a few directions, of course, I want to go, so with that question of like, how much wheat can a person have safely, how would you answer that?
Dr. William:
I would say zero. It's like how many Marlboros can you smoke and still be healthy? It's such a destructive effect. There are many long-lasting effects when you're reexposed, even if you endure diarrhea and bloating in the first couple of days that you get with reexposure. There's also a phenomenon such as the provocation of small LDL particles. You and I know we live in this ridiculous world of people being treated for high cholesterol with statin drugs, which is an absurd notion, where the real causes of heart disease... There are many real causes of heart disease like insulin resistance and inflammation, but one of the very dominating causes of heart disease is small LDL particles, not LDL cholesterol, but small LDL particles. Only two classes of foods provoke the formation of small LDL cholesterol, grains, and sugars, that's it.
Dr. William:
By the way, so the American Heart Association diet causes heart disease. The American Diabetes Association diet causes heart disease. The U.S. dietary guidelines for Americans causes heart disease. It just takes exposure to a little bit of grains and, by the way, it's the amylopectin A component that's the kind of super carbohydrate of wheat and grains that account for the fact that two slices of whole wheat bread raise blood sugar higher than six teaspoons of table sugar. It's due to that amylopectin A, a uniquely highly digestible carbohydrate, but it's the amylopectin A that provokes the formation of small LDL.
Dr. William:
Well, small LDL particles are a little bit odd. Once triggered to be formed, they stay in your bloodstream for about five to seven days, unlike the large LDL particles that only endure for about 24 hours, and that's because the shape and surface conformation of small LDL particles is changed by that change in size. The liver no longer recognizes. It doesn't recognize apoprotein B on the surface, so the liver doesn't know these small LDL particles are floating around, so it takes a long time to clear them. Just having, say, a sandwich once a week, or people would say to me, "Oh, I have a bad day on Friday. I have one slice of pizza. Big deal." I'd watch their lipoproteins and I'd see they'd have small LDL particles and thereby cardiovascular risk 52 weeks a year. That one little indulgence one per week is enough to set in motion heart disease risk.
Dr. William:
Another thing that occurs is the protein gliadin in wheat, secalin in rye, hordein in barley, et cetera, is very poorly digested. Humans don't have the enzymes for breaking down the proteins in grasses and gliadin's one of those proteins, so we break it down only partially, down to four or five amino acid-long pieces or peptides. Those peptides are known to be able to penetrate into the brain and bind to the opioid receptors where they stimulate the appetite. I call this effect, I Ate One Cookie and Gained 30 Pounds.
Dr. Anna:
Yes, I know that effect very well.
Dr. William:
Of course, I'm joking. There's no cookie that just by eating it makes you gain 30 pounds at that moment.
Dr. Anna:
I can just smell it.
Dr. William:
That gliadin protein that binds to opioid receptors triggers appetite and it makes you hungry all of the time. That's why people who consume a bowl of pasta, and they're filled to bursting, but they're still hungry because they're being exposed to a very potent appetite stimulant. It's why we have dieticians saying ridiculous things like, "Eat many small meals every two hours all throughout the day," which is very unnatural and, by the way, very destructive advice.
Dr. William:
Take away the gliadin-derived opioid peptides, there's an initial withdrawal process, by the way. People call it a bunch of things, keto flu. No, it's an opioid withdrawal syndrome from the gliadin-derived opioid peptides. It's fatigue, nausea, headache, depression. Lasts typically five days or so and then you're out of it, but when you're out of it, you also find yourself wonderfully freed from appetite. You're no longer hungry anymore.
Dr. Anna:
How did you, Dr. Davis, as a board-certified cardiologist begin your focus on this area of medicine, on wheat restriction? I will tell you, too, with the high cholesterol thing, in my Keto-Green communities, when I've monitored my clients in my online program, Magic Menopause, and watched their cholesterol with unanimity, everyone has gone from that had a pattern B small particle LDL, they shifted to pattern A.
Dr. William:
Oh, it's excellent, excellent.
Dr. Anna:
Now, a couple of questions with that is like, if they are pattern A, what level of cholesterol would you then consider treating or intervening with? If not with a statin, what?
Dr. William:
As time has gone on, years ago I used to prescribe statin drugs ad-lib. I used to speak for the statin drug industry. I used statins and niacin and fibrates, all of the garbage they advocate for treating cholesterol. Well, what I found was as the tools for correcting lipoprotein abnormalities, metabolic distortions like high blood sugar and insulin resistance, and the thiols function that accounts for abnormal arterial behavior, constriction.
Dr. William:
The nutritional methods made the drugs look like nonsense. The drugs hardly achieve anything and we all know that. When the GP says something like, "Oh, take this Lipitor. It reduces heart attack risk by 36% or 50%," of course, we know that's nonsense. It does not. Maybe a 1% best-case scenario, often 0%. That's the magic of marketing and twisting statistics to exaggerate the benefits of these things.
Dr. William:
The reason I got started on this path many years ago, 20-some years ago, was we set up the first CT heart scanner in Wisconsin. It was very early. It wasn't even a CT heart, it was an EBT heart scanner, that's how long ago this was, and we're scanning people. It's called Milwaukee Heart Scan. We were scanning people left and right and uncovering tons of hidden heart disease. You get a score on these things, of course, calcium score zero and up. People coming in getting scores of 300, 500, a thousand and they're freaking out. "What do I do?" Back then, I told them, "Take Lipitor, aspirin, a low-fat diet, exercise, everything in moderation."
Dr. William:
Well, we know that if you did nothing, the score goes up 25% per year, taking you closer to closer to a heart attack or death. If you take optimal medical therapy, as my colleagues call it, aspirin, low-fat diet, a statin drug, et cetera, how fast does a heart scan score go up? 25% per year. It does not a damn thing-
Dr. Anna:
Wow.
Dr. William:
But people are freaking out on me. Of course, my colleagues who are notorious for doing unnecessary procedures, put these poor people through heart catheterization, unnecessary stint implantation, unnecessary bypass surgery because it pays so well. I wanted a way to put a stop to this. In other words, if you have a score of 300 and then 385 and onward up, that person is going to be in trouble in short order.
Dr. William:
Well, I admit, I stumbled about for some years, but it led to lessons like if you eradicate, as you have, the small LDL particle by eliminating all grains and sugars, magnificent success. When I added vitamin D many years ago, it was the first time I saw heart cardio calcium scores drop, and I mean really drop by 24%, 36%, 48%, 64%.
Dr. Anna:
You're not just talking alpha-Tocopherol, right? You're talking mixed Tocotrienols with vitamin E?
Dr. William:
Vitamin D [crosstalk 00:21:31]-
Dr. Anna:
Oh, vitamin D. I thought you said E. Okay.
Dr. William:
All right, yeah.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah.
Dr. William:
No, I'm in a northern climate, so maybe the effect is a little stronger here, but as you know, even in Georgia, even in Miami, even in Honolulu, there's plenty of vitamin D deficiency. IT as the first time I saw coronary artery calcium scores drop, among other beneficial effects. It became clear that the result we are attaining did not need a statin drug, did not need niacin, did not need any of those other ridiculous drugs. We were doing it exclusively with nutrition and some additional things like cultivating a healthy microbiome.
Dr. Anna:
So true. My cousin is a cardiologist in Texas, the DeBakey family, so one of the original bypass surgeons. This is his nephew, and so I had a discussion with him there in Texas about statin drugs. This is in maybe 2010, 2011, and I'd just been learning through my own journey just been learning about statins interfering with CoQ10 and causing congestive heart failure and these other issues. I started this discussion and he says, "This is nonsense. This is ridiculous. Statin drugs should be in the water." This was the reaction that I've gotten, but I'm like, "Well, look at the science. This is said in the PDR, our Physicians Drug Reference as they can cause CoQ10 insufficiency."
Dr. Anna:
Because statins are still so widely prescribed today, what do you say? How do you handle this CoQ10 insufficiency or this in your practice? Again, what you say in Wheat Belly, the Wheat Belly Program, that shifting of your body's ability to sustain healthy nutrients and get what you need from whole foods essentially and avoiding sugar, that that is going to create the best cardiovascular profile. Now, what about those statins?
Dr. William:
The way I get around it is just don't use them. That is, so if you restore vitamin D, HGL goes up, HGL becomes bigger and more protective. If you add fish oil, omega-2 fatty acids, you reduce fats and triglycerides, you reduce after-meal triglycerides, you reduce VLDL particles, you make HDL particles large and more protective. You push small LDL towards large LDL. If you add iodine and achieve optimum thyroid function, HDL goes up, triglycerides come down, small LDL comes down, the LDL particles come down. In other words, you can mimic everything and much more. Anything statins do, we can do far better with nutrition.
Dr. William:
If we looked at a lipoprotein panel and other metabolic markers like insulin, blood glucose, et cetera, the effect of nutrition when done right, is far superior to what you can achieve with a silly statin drug, but they get all of the dough. They get all of the money to persuade, unfortunately, some of my colleagues that this should be in the water and idiotic things like that, which is completely absurd, and the science is quite clear. Statin drugs hardly achieve anything.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah, I know. I agree, and then also vitamin D for creating insulin sensitivity, another big factor, right?
Dr. William:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Anna:
That we know that it's worked as well, if not better, than many of the blood glucose medications, just optimizing that and combining even with metformin. I love everything that you're saying and it's so along the lines and definitely what I've seen clinically. Also, in the statin research, one of the things that I present in some of my lectures training physicians in hormones is about hypogonadism, testosterone. Statin use causes hypogonadism. It causes low testosterone. The reaction is, "Well, your testosterone's low. Let's give you more testosterone," versus, "Well, let's rebuild your body's own natural production and get you off the statin drug that is also affecting your low testosterone." That's been a fascinating thing. What about the APOE genotypes?
Dr. William:
Boy, that's a big conversation. I'm not too worried about APOE2, provided you do all of the basic things. Your listeners may remember that APOE2 means you delay the clearance of post-print after meal particles. The downside of APOE2, it tends to reduce your heart disease risk but there are some issues in there such as the persistence of small LDL particles. Small LDL particles last longest in APOE2 people. With APOE4, what we do there is just address the inflammasome.
Dr. William:
Dr. Dale Bredesen, who wrote The End of Alzheimer's, I disagree with a lot of the things he says. He's doing great work and I applaud him for the courage he has in telling us that the drugs for dementia do nothing, yet there's so much you can do. He published a very important paper, he and his team, that showed that APOE4 is the activator of the inflammasome. It activates numerous genes, hundreds of genes that all drive inflammation, so that's I think the core of the issue. I don't think it's LDL cholesterol.
Dr. William:
We know, for instance, if you give an APOE4 with high cholesterol a statin drug, it does not reduce dementia risk at all, zero, even though it's often used for that purpose. It's inflammatory, so what we do with APOE4 is focus on all measures inflammatory. C-reactive protein, of course, IO6, IO1 beta. You don't have to check all of these things, but at least follow a program designed to reduce inflammation. Wheat and grains, hugely inflammatory. Sugars, hugely inflammatory, lack of vitamin D, lack of omega-3 fatty acids, hypothyroidism, and dysbiosis, disrupted bowel flora.
Dr. William:
As you know, SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, where bacteria have proliferated, e.coli, shigella, campylobacter, Citrobacter, et cetera, they've proliferated. They've outmuscled the beneficial bacteria like lactobacillus, bifidobacteria, and others, and they ascend up the 24 feet of the small intestine. You have essentially a 30-foot collection of bacteria, which is huge. Of course, the trillions of bacteria don't live 70 years like we do or whatever. They live hours, so there's a huge turnover of bacteria living and dying in your gastrointestinal tract. Well, those byproducts of death, a lot of it enters the bloodstream. There is as much as a 400% increase in the bacterial breakdown products in your bloodstream that process, discovered in France, called metabolic endotoxemia.
Dr. William:
That's the way SIBO is a huge activator of body-wide inflammation and it's how bacteria in the gut can be expressed as skin rash, as rosacea, or psoriasis, or as neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Lou Gehrig's Disease, or as restless legs as in Restless Leg Syndrome or as numerous other health conditions. It's this very critical observation that SIBO leads to metabolic endotoxemia, and that's how we get all of these coronary diseases. It's looking like a disease of metabolic toxemia and SIBO, to at least some degree.
Dr. William:
Now that we've been correcting SIBO, looking for it... Oh, by the way, this is the device that we use to detect SIBO. I have no association with the company, a company called FoodMarble, invented [crosstalk 00:28:48]-
Dr. Anna:
FoodMarble?
Dr. William:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). The device is called AIRE, A-I-R-E. Now, very nice. You blow into it and then it registers hydrogen gas on your smartphone. It tells you how much hydrogen gas you have.
Dr. Anna:
Very cool. I had not heard of this device.
Dr. William:
Bacteria produce hydrogen gas, humans don't produce much hydrogen gas, so we do a little protocol where we challenge your cells with prebiotic fiber that nourishes bacteria, and then we check hydrogen gas levels over three hours. You can do a formal hydrogen gas test also in the lab, but it's kind of a pain in the neck to do. It takes about four hours, and this you do at your kitchen table or your living room. Costs a few dollars, but it's far cheaper in the long run than the formal testing. One of the problems is the guy who invented it, Dr. Angus Short in Dublin, thought it was only a device to navigate a low FODMAPs diet.
Dr. William:
I called him. I said, "Hey, Angus, this is a device for SIBO, but it will help people navigate all of the food intolerances, whether it's FODMAPs or fructose or nightshades or lectins or histamine-provoking foods. These are all SIBO questions and they thought it was just for FODMAPs, so if buy the device, it will come with instructions on how to navigate FODMAPs, so I think they're going to change that. They're a little bit worried about tangling with the FDA and FTC when you make claims, so again [crosstalk 00:30:14]-
Dr. Anna:
Sure [crosstalk 00:30:15]-
Dr. William:
Trying to be careful. Dr. Anna, I liken this to glucose finger sticks. You may remember up through the 1980s before we had glucose finger sticks and only urine dips, what did you do when your two-year-old became unconscious? Is his blood sugar 900? Or 30? Will he die in a hypoglycemic coma in the next five minutes? Or is he going to have diabetic ketoacidosis? You can't tell because all you have are silly urine dipsticks.
Dr. William:
People were having kidney failure, blindness, amputations in their 20s. Ever since we had finger stick glucose, there's precision now managing insulin and diabetes drugs and all of those complications have been stalled, have been delayed in managing diabetes. Despite the blundering of the American Diabetes Association, despite that, finger stick blood glucose was a game-changer for diabetes.
Dr. William:
This is the game changer for intestinal health. It tells you, and by the way, Angus Short tells me that later this year they're going to rerelease the device and it will test for hydrogen gas, for 90% of SIBO is hydrogen gas-producing, but also methane from methanogenic SIBO, where 10% of people with methanogenic SIBO and hydrogen sulfide gas also, so that's later this year, so they think/
Dr. Anna:
Wow, that is really cool. Let me understand here, too, with that. Hydrogen gas production, that is also when you have a food intolerance to nightshades and these other foods as well? I mean, beyond our wheat, beyond our grains, there are certain specific foods that are feeding SIBO that have to be eliminated as well?
Dr. William:
Yes, exactly [crosstalk 00:31:54]. What this is really, it's like a sonar unit for mapping out where bacteria are. Let's say I take inulin powder, which is prebiotic fiber, in my coffee. A couple of teaspoons inulin powder in my coffee. I drink it and then 30 minutes later, I've got diarrhea, anxiety, bloating, a panic attack. If I get that within 30 minutes, that means bacteria way up high because bacteria is supposed to be in the colon, but if it occurs within 30 minutes, there's no way for that inulin to have gotten to the colon in 30 minutes. It's any positive... This thing measures hydrogen gas zero to 10 with each unit one, two, three equal to five parts per million in H2 gas on formal testing.
Dr. William:
If I start at the beginning, let's say 1.2, and then I have teaspoons of inulin in my coffee, at 30 minutes I blow a 10. I have SIBO I can stop. That reaction, by the way, to prebiotic fibers, inulin, legumes, nightshades, all of those reactions, those all indicate that bacteria way up high. We now know, for instance, irritable bowel syndrome is probably synonymous with SIBO. In fact, the gastroenterologists, the ones who know something about this, are saying, "Maybe we don't call it IBS anymore. Maybe we just call it what it is, SIBO and fibromyalgia." You know, Mark Pimental's data at Cedars Sinai L.A., he would tell us that 100% of people with fibromyalgia have SIBO. By the way, once you get this and you manage the SIBO, you have spectacular results.
Dr. William:
A woman just recently, 20 years of incapacitating fibromyalgia, and she couldn't garden, she couldn't walk. She was confined to bed a couple of days a week. On Lyrica, on prednisone, on nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and not having any effect. She tests flagrantly positive H2 gas. Takes one of our herbal antibiotic regimens. There's only two regimens that have proven efficacy, and some other efforts to augment efficacy and prevent recurrences because there's a big problem with recurrence with SIBO. Within five days, she was freed for the first time in 20 years from all of the aches and pains of her fibromyalgia. She got off all three drugs.
Dr. William:
Wonderful, spectacular successes like that once you address SIBO, and all of those people who think they are intolerant to nightshades, legumes, all of those things, almost always they can go back to eating those foods.
Dr. Anna:
Once they clear the SIBO?
Dr. William:
Once they clear the SIBO [crosstalk 00:34:22]-
Dr. Anna:
Those foods just aggravate it, and once they clear the SIBO, once they heal that, repopulate healthy gut bacteria. Let's talk about this herbal antibiotic, Mojo Magic, you've got now. Share that with us, please.
Dr. William:
Well, there's a small... I was very skeptical about herbal antibiotics because you just can't throw a bunch of, oh, sorry, throw a bunch of herbs together and say, "Here you go, take this." You can't do that. In other words, you can't say, "Okay, take berberine because it's effective against e.coli. Take oil of oregano because it's effective against enterococcus." I was very skeptical, but the Hopkins people published a study that compared the conventional antibiotic, Rifaximin, versus two herbal antibiotic regimens, the CandiBactin regimen, and the [inaudible 00:35:06] regimen.
Dr. William:
Lo and behold, the herbal antibiotic regimens were slightly better than the CandiBactin. The CandiBactin was only about 60% effective. They treated the CandiBactin failures with one of the other herbal regimens and they worked in both of those [inaudible 00:35:24] and the Rifaximin caused some C. diff, Clostridium difficile enterocolitis. The herbal antibiotics so far, cross my fingers, have never caused C. diff.
Dr. William:
I started using one or two of those herbal antibiotic regimens and, lo and behold, we're seeing these spectacular results, though I'm tending towards pushing people towards the CandiBactin regiment because CandiBactin has two built-in antifungal agents also. It's got oil of oregano, berberine, and it's becoming clear and there's recent evidence to tell us that about 60% of people with SIBO also have SIFO, small intestinal fungal overgrowth.
Dr. Anna:
I agree I agree. That is something I've seen over and over again, and that leads to other debilitating conditions, lichen sclerosus and the list goes on.
Dr. William:
It also, of course, generates some of the most dramatic emotional effects when you do this, so people have to know that when you eradicate bacteria and fungi, there's also a lot of panic, anxiety, depression. It is one of the most challenging things I've ever gotten involved with.
Dr. Anna:
Cravings, right?
Dr. William:
Cravings, mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Anna:
Yeah, and mood swings for sure. I think that's incredible to heal from that because the gut-healing the microbiome, healing the gut, then you'll repopulate after these herbal antibiotics. You repopulate with probiotic strains. Any particular strains that you love?
Dr. William:
Well, you're bringing up one of my favorite topics to talk about, and that is the lactobacillus reuteri. A fascinating story. I know you've heard this from me before, but for your listeners, so Lactobacillus reuteri is a strain that everybody should have gotten from their moms when they breastfed and past through the vaginal canal, the birth canal. Everybody should have this thing, but we've lost it. 96% of all Americans have lost their lactobacillus reuteri for a variety of reasons. Maybe the mom didn't even have it in the first place, or they got exposed to antibiotics somewhere along the line, or they got exposed to glyphosate. Glyphosate is a very potent antibiotic. It's an herbicide, but it's also a very potent antibiotic. Or, other herbicides, other pesticides.
Dr. William:
The long list of things we're all exposed to that are damaging our microbiome, one of the casualties is lactobacillus reuteri. Well, there's a whole bunch of important effects from lactobacillus reuteri. One of the things it does is via a retrograde vagal mechanism, vagus nerve, it causes the hypothalamus and pituitary to release oxytocin.
Dr. Anna:
My favorite hormone. You are music to my ears, Dr. Davis.
Dr. William:
You know that oxytocin is the hormone of love, of empathy, of desire for human connection, so think about this. 96% of us have completely lost lactobacillus reuteri, and thereby the boost of oxytocin. We live in a time with record-setting social isolation, suicide, divorce, even putting aside the pandemic, just even without that. When we restore it, you see a wonderful restoration of empathy for other people, deepening of affection for the people close to you, and understand the side of other people. People say, "I like my husband better. I like my children better. I like my neighbors better." There's that part.
Dr. William:
The other thing about this is when you boost oxytocin as we do with this reuteri, you also exert some very interesting effects. Many people lose wrinkles starting within four weeks because of the explosion of dermal collagen. As you know, when we age, we lose dermal collagen. There's an explosion of dermal collagen. There's an acceleration of healing. There's a restoration of youthful muscle and strength because we lose about 35, 40% of our muscle and strength over the years. There's a preservation of bone density. That's all been, by the way, corroborated in humans. There are other effects not yet corroborated in humans that I think are true. What we're trying to perform [inaudible 00:39:14] with studies to corroborate this, but it's going to take a while.
Dr. William:
In mice, there's a restoration of thymic involution, the shrinkage of the thymus gland that's responsible for loss of immunity in the elderly. That's why they die of the flu or pneumococcal pneumonia or sepsis because they've lost their thymus gland function, thereby T cell immunity against viruses and bacteria. Well, this restores the thymus back to where it was when you were young. There's also a tripling of growth hormone and a quadrupling of low testosterone. This is in elderly mice. We have to corroborate that in humans. Our little clinical trial has been stalled because of the pandemic. We can't do elective types of clinical trials for a while, but we're going to try to corroborate that.
Dr. William:
What you see in real life is a magnificent restoration of youthful characteristics. It's the closest thing I've ever seen to... You know, we've heard this with growth hormone and progesterone, and I know those are wonderful, but I've never seen the magnitude of change as with this crazy thing. The problem is, when you buy this organism, there's two of them. There's a company called BioGaia in Sweden, they patented it, and they sell it to you as a product Gastrus, G-A-S-T-R-U-S. These tablets are made for infants because the reuteri reduces infantile regurgitation of breast milk or formula and it also reduces colic, cuts colic in half. These tablets are made for babies.
Dr. William:
Well, a hundred million counts of each bacteria, which sounds like a lot, but as you know, that's a trivial count. I took the tablets, crushed them, made yogurt with them, but I didn't make yogurt like they do in commercial production where they ferment for a very short time. I used 36 hours because that's where most of the bacterial counts increase at the end of fermentation. I fermented for 36 hours in the presence of prebiotic fibers that nourish bacteria. End result, a rich, thick, delicious yogurt. A little tangy because of the lactic acid, lactose being converted to lactic acid. You obtained all of these incredible effects. There's also some anorexigenic effect that turns off your appetite. Not everybody gets this. I get this to an extreme. I'm a chronic insomniac. I can't sleep. I just never sleep, for years and years and years.
Dr. Anna:
For how many [crosstalk 00:41:33]-
Dr. William:
I-
Dr. Anna:
Hours? What do you mean never sleep? How many hours a night?
Dr. William:
Before the yogurt, I'd go to bed at two, wake up at 3:30, wake up at five, try to go back to sleep, get up. It was always a struggle to sleep. On the yogurt, with nothing else, no melatonin, nothing, just the yogurt, I sleep like a baby nine hours-plus a night straight through with vivid dreams, longer REM sleep, by the way, so profound sleep effects. We make this yogurt, we get about 90 billion bacteria, CFUs, per half-cup serving. By the way, I know there's problems with dairy.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah, I should [crosstalk 00:42:13] not do any dairy. Will, you got to give me another option. Can I use coconut milk yogurt?
Dr. William:
You can. It's fussier. You have to add a few additional steps, and by the way, all of my recipes are in my Wheat Belly Blog, how to do it with dairy. We use, by the way, organic half and half, high fat, 18% fat, or coconut milk. Either of those, whether it's dairy or coconut milk, you can't have any kind of additives. Can't have xantham gum, guar gum, gellan gum, carrageenan. It will make it kind of a soupy mess.
Dr. Anna:
Okay.
Dr. William:
With coconut milk, you have to do a few extra things. You have to add gelatin or pectin to it, deactivate it, and also use a blender to emulsify the fats, but all in that recipe, but when you ferment this way, 36 hours in the presence of prebiotic fibers, unlike commercial yogurt fermented four hours, let me just talk about that for a second. It's like that old riddle to kids. How much money will you have if I give you a penny on day one and double it every day for 30 days? Kids say, "Oh, $10,000?" It's $5.5 million but thinks about it. Day one, one cent. Second day, two-cent, four cents, eight cents. Going nowhere, but day 28, 29, that's where you get into millions.
Dr. William:
Same thing with bacteria doubling. First few hours, you got nothing. It's the late hours where you get these huge increases and that's why we ferment for 36 hours. By doing so, you not only increase bacterial counts dramatically, you also exhaust lactose as [inaudible 00:43:44] converted to lactic acid. That's why it's so tart. It denatures. There's a drop in pH from lactic acid, the pH of this yogurt, about 3.5. That pH denatures or breaks down the casein beta A1. It doesn't eradicate it, but it breaks it down into small peptides, making it less immunogenic. You can pour off the whey or strain it like in Greek yogurt to minimize the insulin-provoking effect of the whey. We don't eradicate the problems with dairy, but we minimize them.
Dr. William:
Or, people who are intolerant to casein beta A1 can use A2 milk or sheep or goat. I know those are, of course, A2 sources. The lactose is gone. You can work around the casein by these means because I will tell you, the dairy form I know has issues, but it's so much more forgiving when you make the yogurt than the coconut milk. I've still not perfected the coconut milk yogurt recipe. It's okay.
Dr. Anna:
I'm going to have to play with it. You know, it reminds me of the Middle Eastern Labneh, the dish Labneh that my Mom used to make that she would make her own yogurt in the big pot and heat it, cover it overnight, check on it, and then strain it in cheesecloth in a strainer and cover it, put it in the fridge. Let all of the water strain and you get this thick spread. It's Labneh and you'd eat it with tomatoes and all of this good stuff, but you know it's that fermentation has occurred. It's got a rich bacterial count. It sounds similar, but you're adding in the L. reuteri strain and that thickening, that little bit of the thickening.
Dr. William:
Excellent.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. I love it and we eat it with our tomatoes and cucumbers.
Dr. William:
Oh, wonderful. I'll mention one more thing about the reuteri because it's so interesting. One of the unique aspects of Lactobacillus reuteri, most probiotic species, of course, prefer the colon and its unhealthy species that manage to ascend. Lactobacillus reuteri is unique in that it prefers to colonize the upper GI tract, the stomach, duodenum, jejunum, and ileum where it takes up residence and produces what are called bacteriosis, which are natural antibiotic effective against the organisms of SIBO.
Dr. William:
I think, tough thing to prove, I think the loss of Lactobacillus reuteri in 96% of Americans is probably at least one of the reasons why there's been an explosion in SIBO. We also put that to work. After we eradicate SIBO, we use Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt to prevent recurrences because recurrences are a problem.
Dr. Anna:
That sounds really good. Now, as we wrap, I'm going to ask you a couple of surprise questions, okay?
Dr. William:
Okay.
Dr. Anna:
Tell us a day in your life. What is a day in your life look like, Dr. Davis?
Dr. William:
I work from home nowadays and, of course, it's modified because of the pandemic, but I work a lot. I work on a book manuscript and I take care of social media responsibility, write blog posts, talk to colleagues, talk to people who I need to talk to for the purposes of this book. A little exercise thrown in. I live in an old house, 90 years old with a big yard, so I go out and take care of the gardens. That alone takes about an hour or two every day just to keep this old place going.
Dr. Anna:
Okay. How about meals and exercise? What's your meal regimen like and your exercise regimen? Activity regimen?
Dr. William:
With the lack of gliadin-derived opioid peptides, high fat intake, and the anorexigenic effect of reuteri, I typically eat twice a day, late morning, and maybe early evening like five or so. As you know, you'll float through your day and you don't really think much about food because it doesn't have the same kind of... Food, of course, still tastes wonderful and I just eat the kind of stuff in your diets also, that is eggs, olive oil, avocados, meats, of course, fish, poultry chicken, and lots of vegetables, of course.
Dr. William:
I also make it a point to include prebiotic fibers whenever possible. The evidence looks pretty good that you get kind of a plateau effect at 20 grams per day of prebiotic fibers, so I work in [inaudible 00:47:49]. We also work to include variety in forms of prebiotic fibers so that we don't encourage overgrowth of a specific species because different bacteria, of course, prefer different prebiotic fibers. I'm making a point to do that. I spend a lot of time fermenting things, also, so I've got some kombucha going. I've got some veggies going. I don't want to convey the idea this is a full-time job. It's not. It takes very little effort.
Dr. Anna:
I love it. What about your supplement regimen? Last question.
Dr. William:
I do what we do in my programs, that is vitamin D, of course, sufficient to raise 25 hydroxyvitamin D to 60 to 70 nanograms per milliliter. Omega-2 fatty acids, so supply 3600 milligrams EPA and DHA per day. That's the dose that provides maximum cardiovascular protection, postprandial like a protein suppression, and protection from cognitive decline. Iodine because there's so much iodine deficiency now. Magnesium because we drink filtered water.
Dr. William:
I have a recipe for magnesium water. It's a reaction between the magnesium hydroxide of the unflavored Milk of Magnesia and the carbonic acid of seltzer or other carbonated water. You react to them and you get water, if you write out the chemistry you'll see you get water plus magnesium bicarbonate. Magnesium bicarbonate is by far the most absorbable form of magnesium. I use this with a lot of people with migraines, osteoporosis, heart rhythm disorders, or hypertension. It's by far the most absorbed and most rapidly raises tissue and serum levels of magnesium. Far faster than some of the oral supplements, the tablet forms
Dr. Anna:
Was that recipe on your website, too, at Wheat Belly Blog?
Dr. William:
Yep, it's on there, too. I call it Magnesium Water.
Dr. Anna:
Magnesium Water, I love that. That's good. That's basic.
Dr. William:
Very basic. It doesn't mean there aren't benefits to other things. Like we'll use things like curcumin in antifungal efforts. We use other things, but for the basic efforts, we also make efforts to cultivate a healthy microbiome, so starting efforts would be a high-potency multi-species probiotic, accepting that nobody knows what a probiotic should look like, though that's starting to get clearer and clearer.
Dr. William:
I think what we should be doing with probiotics is rebuilding the so-called "keystone species." These are the species that support the growth of other healthy species. I think Lactobacillus Reuteri, by the way, is one of those, and there's several others like Akkermansia and bifidobacteria, infants, and several others. Prebiotic fibers, but that comes from food, and of course, fermented foods. That's pretty much all I do.
Dr. Anna:
You are so Keto-Green without even knowing it, Dr. Davis, and I'm going to get you hooked on my Mighty Maca supplement before you know it as well.
Dr. William:
Fair enough.
Dr. Anna:
I want to thank you so much for being here today and share with our audience how they can continue to learn from you. I love your Wheat Belly Blog, so I'm telling everyone right now, check out wheatbellyblog.com. He has a free membership and a paid membership, so you can get a certain number of articles free each month, and check out these articles, take a look, join the membership. How else can we get ahold of you?
Dr. William:
Wheat Belly Blog. I recently re-released the Wheat Belly Book as a revised and expanded edition because people, "Where do I get this kind of concise, one place?" I do have an old book, but it's still very popular, called Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox that comes with a private Facebook page that you can sign up for. That's the kind of, "Do this on day one, do this on day two." Some people just like that. They don't want to hear about the science or the [inaudible 00:51:16]. It was like, "Tell me what to do." That's Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox.
Dr. Anna:
Perfect. Thank you so much, Dr. Davis. Thanks for your time and thanks for all of this important work you're doing in the world. You're certainly walking your talk and I'm glad you are out there and representing the field of cardiology, spearheading really a movement. Thanks for this information. You taught me so much today in this ancient wheat history, so I'm glad. I know my audience is going to love this information. I look forward to catching up with you again.
Dr. William:
You keep on doing the great work you're doing.
Dr. Anna:
Thank you, thank you.
Dr. Anna:
You guys, wasn't that a fabulous discussion? It was great to talk with Dr. William Davis, Dr. Bill Davis, about this topic. I mean, we have learned so, so much and he is saying what you know to really resonate truth within you and check it out. Test these things. The L. Reuteri yogurt, that recipe is available on his website at Wheat Belly Blog. I am working on a coconut milk version because I can't do cow's milk, sheep's milk, goat's milk, none of that. I am very, very sensitive to dairies. I'm going to try a goat's milk version and make that, so stay tuned. Hope to have that out to you soon.
Dr. Anna:
In the meantime, really look at some of this information. Read Wheat Belly because it is cutting-edge information. He's a highly researched and esteemed scientist and physician and has taken care of patients and has seen this transformation. I love what he said about statins. I loved what he said about healing the gut and the microbiome and also just really that hardcore stance on wheat. We really need to think about this. We really need to check it out for ourselves and then recognize when we eat something, how do we feel? Especially after we've been away from it, our body has detoxed from it for quite a long time.
Dr. Anna:
I want to thank you for being with me on The Girlfriend Doctor Podcast. Be sure to write and share this episode. You have so many people in your life that need to hear this and we need to keep spreading the message. I hope you will connect with me live sometimes in my Keto-Green community, in my live events that I have going on there, and in my Keto-Green 16 Challenge Group. It has been amazing to start and finish our Keto-Green 16-day Plan together. What a great community. Thank you. Remember, I am here for you and so happy to be your Girlfriend Doctor. Bye till next time.
