Originally posted by Dr. Davis on 2018-08-09
on the Wheat Belly Blog, sourced from and currently found at: Infinite Health Blog.
PCM forum Index of WB Blog articles.

Grains are creating havoc in our brains. IT’S NOT YOUR IMAGINATION!

Something’s just not right: lately you are forgetful, stressed, and tired all of the time. Symptoms can vary from mood swings, to lack of concentration, to feeling chronically tired, and anxious. To top it off, no matter how healthy you try to eat, you still aren’t losing weight. So let’s add frustrated to the list. And you’re finding that all of this is affecting your performance at work, as a parent, and even as a partner/spouse. It’s not your imagination.

Grains are behind it all…

The grains you consume may have numerous damaging effects on your brain and nervous system, not just your gastrointestinal tract. Wheat, barley, and rye are the main offenders, all sharing the same gliadin proteins. These gliadin proteins are digested into to smaller (4 or 5 long) amino-acid peptides, which are small enough to penetrate the brain and bind to opiate receptors. These peptides, dubbed exorphins or exogenously derived morphine-like compounds, are responsible for various ill-effects on the brain. Other non-wheat grains also have potential brain health implications by creating high blood sugar levels which lead to dementia.

Remove grains from your diet and your brain is released from the control of their mind-active components. It is liberating, wonderful, and empowering. Your brain can be restored to its normal alert, energetic, calculating, and creative state. The brain/mind effects of banishing all wheat and grains from you life include:

Eliminate Mind Fog –Disrupted concentration, inability to focus, impaired learning, impaired decision-making ability, and sleepiness are exceptionally common after consuming wheat, rye, and barley. Gliadin-derived opiates are the most likely culprits behind these effects, given their known ability to affect the mind. It’s also likely that the blood sugar fluctuations caused by all grains contribute, especially the low blood sugar of hypoglycemia.

Reduce Anxiety – Many people are plagued by constant low-level anxiety, the sort of pointless and unwarranted unease that makes day-to-day life an unpleasant experience, a layer of worry that is unnecessary, even incapacitating. Typically, such anxieties recede with grain removal. For some, the effect can be dramatic and life changing, sometimes even providing relief from years of phobias such as agoraphobia (the fear of leaving home) or claustrophobia (the fear of closed spaces). For others, it may be a more subtle change, with relief from frequent or pervasive anxieties that darkened your life. Like suicidal thoughts, anxiety is easily reprovoked with any grain exposure, so avoidance is key.

Enhance Learning Ability –Restoration of the capacity for prolonged concentration, clearer thinking, and reduced distractibility add up to an enhanced ability to learn. People listen more effectively, retain more with reading, acquire and synthesize data and concepts with greater ease, and enjoy overall improved memory. They are more focused, more creative, and more effective.

Increase Libido – Removing wheat from the diet increases the libido in both sexes. Because wheat elimination reduces estrogen and raises testosterone in males, and reduces abnormally high estrogen levels in females (and may modestly increase testosterone), libido is increased. Increased libido is generally associated with enhanced sexual performance and drive, which I believe can translate into improvements in other spheres of life.

Improve Mood – People are happier and more optimistic, causing them to become better engaged with the people and activities. Some people experience such dramatic improvements of mood that they are able to free themselves from suicidal thoughts and antidepressant.

Appetite Control – Grain-derived exorphins trigger the grain consumer to take in 400 more calories per day, every day. This is an average value; some people consume more, others less. At worst, it can cause calorie intake to be 1,000 or more calories per day or higher and trigger food obsessions or other addictive food behaviors. With grain consumption, your appetite is specifically stimulated for carbohydrates, such as pretzels, corn chips, and cookies, and it’s stimulated to a lesser degree for fat. The effect tends to be addictive, with cyclic and recurring desire for such foods driving dietary habits and even dominating thoughts and fantasies. Rid yourself of gliadin-derived opiates and calorie intake drops by 400 calories per day. Food obsessions and addictive food relationships are also typically reduced or completely eliminated.

Relief From Seizures – As seizures have been associated with grain consumption, especially consumption of wheat, removal of grains can be associated with relief from seizures if grains were the initiating cause. Most commonly, sufferers of temporal lobe seizures experience a marked reduction or complete relief from these episodes. Although the causal association between grains and grand mal seizures is more tenuous, I am hearing from more and more people who have experienced marked relief from these dangerous events as well.

Benefits on ADHD and Autistic Spectrum Disorder –While these disorders are unrelated, they share a similar response to gliadin-derived opiates. Children and adults with these conditions experience behavioral outbursts, such as temper tantrums or emotional “storms” without reason, and they have an impaired capacity to sustain attention. Kids with these conditions already have an impaired ability to learn and pay attention for more than a few seconds or minutes; grain-derived opiates just make it worse.

Reversal of Neurological Impairment –People with cerebellar ataxia often experience a slow, gradual improvement in coordination, balance, capacity to walk, and bladder control, or at least experience no further deterioration, after grains are eliminated. Likewise, the pain or impaired feelings of peripheral neuropathy recede slowly or stop progressing. Because the nervous system is slow to heal and may do so imperfectly, the process can take months to years, so a long-term commitment is required to gauge improvement.

Prevention of Dementia – High blood sugars that occur day in and day out, many times per day, due to habitual grain consumption are reversed when grains are removed. Clinical trials have demonstrated the powerful association between blood sugars that are around 110 mg/dl (which is below the cut-offs for prediabetes and diabetes and considered just above normal) and the development of dementia. There are even higher risks of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease presented by the higher blood sugar levels of prediabetes and diabetes. Grain elimination is a powerful means of reversing high blood sugar levels (both fasting and after-meals). Some people are also prone to the autoimmune process which is triggered by the gliadin and prolamin proteins. This process leads to dementia; it is likewise turned off with elimination of the inciting grains.

Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders –Studies have demonstrated that removal of wheat, rye, barley, and corn reduce the risk of many conditions that affect the mind. Gliadin proteins contribute to the mania of bipolar illness, the paranoia and auditory hallucinations of schizophrenia, and the impaired learning and behavioral outbursts of children with attention deficit disorder and autistic spectrum disorder, phenomena that are reversible or lessened simply by removing grains from the diet.

Wheat and grains underlie an astounding amount of mental illness and emotional struggles. Yes, the food advocated by virtually all nutritional “authorities,” dietitians, and food companies sets you on a course that takes away your control over mood, clarity, and cognition. Recognize this fundamental fact and you are on your way to being liberated from their awful effects.