Killer Foods! By Dr. Teja Fox

Killer Foods!

What links chronic pain, depression, anxiety, weight gain, and addiction together?

The answer, opiates! That’s right, opiates, as in opium, morphine, Oxycontin and more. Many people reading this post who have suffered from any of the problems mentioned above will probably be confused, thinking they have never used or only sparingly used any opiates, and then only taken them in medicinal form.

But the truth is, the KILLER opiate that I left off the list, the opiate that truly is linking together all of those conditions and many more hormonal issues — including digestive disorders and brain cell damage — is gliadin. Never heard of it? Yeah, that is part of the problem. Gliadin, a now nasty little protein component of gluten, is a mutant version of a once benign element of wheat: our newer, enhanced wheat products now have the kind of gliadin that creates a powerful little opiate receptor binder in our brain. In our breeding and cross-breeding of wheat crops for higher yields, we have managed not only to create this gliadin mutant, we have also modified or created fiendish little biological disruptors like alpha amylase and wheat lectins that mess with intestinal absorption, and amylopectin A , which skyrockets our blood sugars and insulin. And, all these factors are working together to generate new allergies from our modern wheat.

Here is how I think it all ties together. Gliadin is consumed in wheat products — grains, breads, flours, pasta and processed foods — multiple times a day, on a daily or near daily basis. Continued exposure to gliadin (which is in reality an opiate) binds and stimulates our endorphins, the “feel good” receptors in our brains, but eventually, we become desensitized to the effect, and the gliadin actually blocks the opiate receptors in the brain. That is, as we consume foods like wheat we at first get a high, but over time, we need to eat more and more of them to get that high. Yup, an addiction.

With our modern wheat, we have wound up creating competition for the natural and medical opiate receptor sites in our brains that act to relieve our pain, and when we need real medical pain relief, we have to take more and more of the medical opiates to do the trick. According to The New England Journal of Medicine, 2003, this is what sets the stage for opiate-induced pain hyper-sensitivity. Basically, you are blocking these receptors to the point that you need more and more meds to take the pain away (if the medications even can do the trick with higher thresholds needed to work). As we eat ourselves into desensitivity, our overall pain threshold goes down, making our pain hurt more. And the creation of new pain issues can also emerge — hyper-sensitivities….as in fibromyalgia, chronic pain, arthritis and more.

We have long known (since 1981 as outline in the medical journal Metabolism) that chronic opiate receptor issues are mediated through the dopaminergic and serotonergic mechanisms pathways in the brain. In other words, dopamine and serotonin — neurotransmitters that are associated with depression, anxiety, mood, sleep and much more — get thrown off with this chronic gliadin (opiate) exposure. If that weren’t enough, chronic opiate exposure will mess with our hormones as well. Testosterone, estrogen as well as natural human hormones that cause hunger and satiation — or feeling full after eating — are just a few that get out of whack, causing energy issues, sexual dysfunction and libido problems, osteoporosis, infertility. Chronic exposure to giladin can also lead to excessive weight gain and decreased benefit from exercise, along with a long ugly list of other symptoms as outlined by the Rapid Drug Detox Center in
their literature.

So you can see that this little, rarely spoken about opiate can play as huge role in our health — or more in fact — and have just a negative an impact as his big brothers, the controlled substance drugs and heroine. In fact, researchers have even done experiments giving people the non-euphoric opiate medication Naloxone (a medication used in opiate addiction recovery); they observed a decrease in hunger, eating and overall cravings for wheat products among their subjects. In fact, our new enemy, gliadin, alters the average American’s eating/hunger habits by stimulating people to consume 440 calories of extra food per day! That creates over 45 lbs of fat per year! And people wonder why it gets harder and harder to lose weight or keep it off as time goes on. It is not age related, it is due to a food grade opiate addiction reaction!

Clearly, wheat can be a real problem for many people, but you might or might not have negative reactions to this food. Fortunately, there is a way to determine whether this potentially harmful grain is causing issues for your own health – an elimination/challenge diet. Start by removing foods that contain wheat or gluten and keep them out of your diet for one month. After that first month, start testing your body’s reactions to wheat by adding one food back in that contains wheat. After 5 days, see whether indeed you are having a problem — any feelings of illness, such as feeling sluggish, tired, feverish — and whether you seem to want to eat more wheat-containing foods. If so, stop eating that particular test food for 5 days. You can then try another food that contains wheat or gluten. Check your reactions just as you did with the first food. Repeat the process with other wheat- and gluten-containing foods if you want more information about how your body is processing them.

Important: Keep a food journal to track the foods that you reintroduce and any symptoms you may experience. If you are finding you have issues with wheat or gluten, take heart. In our clinical experience it takes just 3 to 5 days of avoiding wheat entirely to break the cycle and stop the cravings. Eliminating wheat or gluten for a period of a few weeks can then not only help with cravings and over-eating but also allows you to see how your body has been reacting adversely.

A final note: You can also try this elimination/challenge diet later with any foods you suspect your body is reacting to. Happy, and healthy eating, my friends!

Edited and reprinted with permission from the author, Don Clum, D.C.