Plaque is the stuff of coronary heart disease. It is CONTROLLABLE, it is STOPPABLE, it is REVERSIBLE.
But you must be equipped with the right information on diet, nutritional supplements, and hopefully the avoidance of medication.
This is the blog that accompanies the 
Wheat Belly is finally available in Barnes and Noble and all major bookstores nationwide! Also available at Amazon. Electronic versions for Nook and Kindle, as well as an audio CD, will also be available.
The notion of Wheat Belly got its start right here on The Heart Scan Blog and the diet developed for the Track Your Plaque program to conquer heart disease and plaque.
Chapters in the book include:
Not Your Grandma’s Muffins: The Creation of Modern Wheat
Whence and where did this familiar grain, 4 1/2-foot tall “amber waves of grain,” become transformed into a 2-foot tall, high-yield genetically unique plant unfamiliar to humans? And why is this such a bad thing?
Cataracts, Wrinkles, and Dowager’s Humps: Wheat and the Aging Process
If you thought that bagels and crackers are just about carbs, think again. Wheat consumption makes you age faster: cataracts, crow’s feet, arthritis . . . you name it, wheat’s been there, done that and brings you one step closer to the big nursing home in the sky with every bite.
My Particles are Bigger than Your Particles
Why consuming plenty of “healthy whole grains” is the path to heart disease and heart attack and why saying goodbye to them is among the most powerful strategies around for reduction or elimination of risk.
Hello, Intestine: It’s Me, Wheat
No discussion of wheat is complete without talking about how celiac disease and other common intestinal ailments, like acid reflux and irritable bowel syndrome, fit into the broader concept of wheat elimination.
Here’s a YouTube video introduction to the book and concept posted on the YouTube Wheat Belly Channel. Also, join the discussions on The Wheat Belly Blog and Facebook. Have that last bite of blueberry muffin, because I predict you won’t be turning back!
Change your life in 60 seconds
Good work.
The book is turning up all over the place.
http://suzanneloomscreativity.blogspot.com/2011/09/roaming-ancestors-standing-still.html
Nina
Hi, Nina–
That’s great . . . provided I don’t receive any unmarked packages with a ticking sound!
Congrats Dr. Davis on the new book! Look forward to learning more about the problems wheat can cause the body.
Thanks, soul! Stay tuned. On both The Heart Scan Blog and the Wheat Belly Blog, I will continue to chronicle the growing wheat-free experience, as well as better ways to enjoy diet while remaining 100% wheat-free!
Dr. Davis,
I just posted a review of Wheat Belly on my blog ( see below). I think the release of Wheat Belly will be a watershed event. With the increased focus that has occurred recently on low carb diets and now this, the indictment of wheat as the primary culprit, I think many Americans will finally see a way out of this health nightmare.
http://cravingsugar.net/wheat-belly-book-review-william-davis-gluten-intolerance-diet.php
As I read your book I kept on running across the thoughts that “that happened to me” or “so that’s what happened to one of my friends”. I think many will get the same reactions.
Congratulations on publishing such an important book!
…Joe…
Wow, Joe! You wrote a basic primer on the Wheat Belly project!
Very nice. And thanks!
+1. As someone thats new to the paleo/primal diet and a young heart attack survivor I’m very concerned and confused after watching this.
This was meant to be in response to “The Last Heart Attack” comment above.
RE: The Last Heart Attack, my suspicion is that any diet that gets people off of factory produced food is a giant step in the right direction, whether it’s Dr. Davis’s, or Ornish’s, or Esselstyn’s or Agaston’s. These doctors all blame different foods, but they all advocate eating natural foods and staying away from processed ones.
Yes, Peter. I agree.
An argument could be made for this approach in some genetic types, e.g., apo E4. Note also that neither of these docs are cardiologists and have probably treated as many heart attacks or dealt with real heart disease as the kid working at Home Depot.
We should learn from them what lessons might be useful for people outside of the exceptional apo E4. It was the Ornish diet that, 20 years ago, made me gain 30 lbs, pushed my HDL to 27 mg/dl, increased my triglycerides to 350 mg/dl, and made me diabetic. Going off their diet and eliminating all wheat and sugars corrected everything, including no more diabetes. Having seen a similar scenario play out many, many times, these guys are, in my view, flogging a dead horse. The horse ran a good race while it was alive, but now it’s dead.
Dr Davis, you seem to have nailed it in my opinion. Still trying to get my wife on board. It was that (Ornish) diet that gave me a heart attack two years ago (34 yo and 155 lbs). HDL was 16! TC 115! I just very recently found the whole Paleo, or eat fats, not grains, diet and I really hope this works for me. I am very very confident it will.
Hi Dr. Davis. I’m reading “Wheat Belly”, and one thing that really jumped out at me were the studies about reduction of intake of wheat-based foods from naloxone administration. Did these studies have any control to measure the amount of appetite reduction for non-wheat foods? Thanks.
Hi, Dave–
The researchers didn’t look specifically at wheat foods, but made statements like “the reduction in unhealthy fatty and sugar foods like cakes, cupcakes, and pie were reduced.” So there was a bit of extrapolation on my part, but the final message, I thought, was pretty clear even though the investigators with their pre-existing dietary biases did not see it.
Right. And presumably they were looking at binge eaters, and I suspect most people don’t have a problem binging on foods which don’t contain wheat and/or refined sugar.
Dr. Davis,
I heard your interview on Robb Wolf’s podcast and I’m eager to read your book after your very convincing appearance! As a Cardiothoracic Surgeon (in Norway), I’ve put my head on the block by both publicly and on my blog recommending people to take grains out of the diet. Imagine my disappointment when I found that I can’t buy the e-book because I’m situated in Norway! Is there any way I can get around “the ban of Europe”?
Best regards,
tg
Dr. Geisner–
I saw your question over on the Wheat Belly Blog. I will need to check into what is going on.
Thanks for asking!
I’m looking forward to reading the new book. I’m going to download it to Kindle as soon as I finish The Art and Science of Low-Carb Living. Based on what I’ve read on you blog in the past, I’m sure I will be recommending it to our RDs and Personal Trainers at Life Time Fitness.
Thanks, Tom!
Looks like a great book. It’s startling to know–for a beginner like me how twisted the food production process has become from the books and documentaries i’ve seen since i’ve converted to eating healthy.
Perhaps William Davis is correct in the claims he makes in Wheat Belly. And perhaps not. Time will tell. Many have made nutritional proclamations about a number of things, including the “fact” that eggs should be avoided, or that red meat can and will certainly cause heart disease, or that we must stay away from anything white, including flour, milk, and yogurt. And now the claim is that wheat is an opiate that must be eschewed at all costs.
Has wheat been genetically engineered—with deleterious effects—for mass production? Probably. But what hasn’t been? Davis recommends eating salmon…is that wild caught or farm raised? Even if advertised as wild caught, how do we know this? There has been some unresolved controversy over mislabeling, and serious concerns over mercury and PCB content in some salmon. Eggs are recommended by Davis— “not in the once a week” style as we’ve been taught—but as often as one’s body tells one to eat them. But what kind of chickens produce these eggs and what are they eating? How do we know? The same holds true for the other recommended items on the Davis diet. Even if all of the “cage-free, grass-fed, wild-caught, organic, super organic, sustainable, pesticide-free” goods were accessible and affordable to the average American (a separate topic, of course), there are all sorts of issues about authenticity—some of which probably won’t surface for years. It’s not necessarily possible for us to each have a plot of land with our own chickens, cows, pigs, vegetable gardens, and spring water.
Among other issues, there are two things that are especially troubling about Davis’s work. One is the polemical tone that allows for nothing less than everyone going off of every form of wheat–and not having wheat in any quantity ever again (unless one wants to face uncomfortable and even dire side effects). Regardless of family history, exercise, indigenous foods, cultural background, etc., the message is the same for everyone. The second troubling feature is that those who write positive reviews on Davis’s blogs are often commended by him, while those who write in to say that perhaps his stance is a little extreme are not even addressed (and perhaps not included?). “Pascal” from Davis’s blog on oatmeal, for example, writes in to say that his glucose level after eating a regular serving of oatmeal is nowhere near what Davis prophesied that it would be—and says that his is not an isolated case. There was no response to this.
Walter Willett, MD, and Chair of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard Public Health Department, argues that it’s not at the starting line that we determine whether or not a particular diet is effective. It is not over the course of three or six months, or even a year or two. All the “before” and “after” pictures in the world don’t really matter if five or ten years down the line, the individuals in question have gone back to their “before” weight and numbers—or worse. What counts is that which can be sustained over a lifetime…and this takes time and resources to chart and scientifically assess. (As a sidebar, Willett promotes certain types and quantities of whole grains, in conjunction with a number of other food types, as well as exercise).
Time will tell whether or not Davis’s work is the best thing since sliced bread—or not.
If you’re going to go on like that, I think it would be best to leave a name or identifier. Nothing like throwing rocks and then running.
One issue: There is absolutely no question that wheat has changed genetically. Ask any agricultural geneticist. This is not concealed; in fact, it is openly talked about, even proudly. The incredible thing is that it is not seen as the cause of multiple health problems.
And I have to pick my battles. Some are simply not worth fighting.
Please forgive me if my response seemed too strong. As I say, you may be right about everything in your book; you certainly make some fine points and have given people good things to think about. My point was simply that some claims in Wheat Belly may need to be mitigated or adjusted over time—and that there are medical professionals, researchers, and scientists with varying opinions on the topics you present. Hopefully that is a good thing in that it encourages further thought and study in an ever-changing field. Your diet may work perfectly for some people, and that is great. For others, perhaps your recommendations work in modified form. And for yet others, maybe another nutritional plan works best. Hopefully that’s okay. Thank you for taking the time to respond, and for helping people to consider such an important topic. And thank you for helping me to think carefully about some new ideas.
Ah, THAT anon.
Please keep in mind that it is a book. It is not a round table discussion.
From where I view the world, wheat looks to me like the biggest nutritional blunder ever committed on a large scale. Removal of it yields some of the most incredible weight and health turnarounds I have ever seen. It doesn’t have to work for everybody and it’s okay with me if this makes some people angry. My concern is that people need to hear the side of the argument that few are talking about . . . while being inundated with proclamation of the benefits of “healthy whole grains.”
I just bought your book today. I’m only about a quarter-way through it, and it’s excellent so far. Intriguing, and very well written.
I’m full blooded Mexican born and raised in the US on a pretty typical American diet. Rice and beans were staples in my house, but we favored bread and flour tortillas over corn tortillas like good Americans. Everyone in my family has struggled to varying degrees with weight. I’m by far the thinnest because I’ve worked very hard to stay fit and trim. I work out about 4-5 times a week, lifting and doing cardio. I can’t eat like most other guys who seem to be able to consume 50% more than I do, workout less, and look just as good or even better. When I was younger I thought maybe Mexicans were just prone to more pudge around the middle. Even at my thinnest, fittest, and buffest I still maintain some semblance of a belly. It’s frustrating.
When I was 15 I traveled to Mexico for the first time to visit extended family. I wasn’t in as good of shape then as I am now (at 35), and had more belly fat. A very curious thing happened on that trip: In spite of eating copious amounts of my grandmother’s delicious food for a solid month – 3 hearty meals a day including “cena”, the last Mexican meal of the day which happens right before bed – I shed pounds. To my American friends this seemed implausible. “But Mexican food is soooo fattening!” “Eating right before bed? That’s the worst!” “All that cheese?” etc. Still I lost weight without any physical effort, and while eating way more than I did as a self-conscious teenager back in the States.
I’ve since traveled to Mexico more times than I can count, and every single time without fail, I eat more and lose weight, noting the difference especially in my belly. Chilaquiles (fried strips of corn tortilla with cheese), chiles rellenos (stuffed peppers with cheese), tamales made with lard (yes, lard), etc. Doesn’t matter. Pounds come off without additional exercise, indeed without the exercise I’m used to in the States. It dawned on me one day that maybe there’s something about the American diet and our processed food that makes it so challenging for me to stave off gut flab.
I just spent a month there this summer, and this time I did do a little exercise (push ups and sit ups in my hotel 3 times a week and running on the beach just a few times – far less than I do at home), but I certainly didn’t skimp on food. By the end of my trip, my stomach was the flattest it’s ever been in my life, finally exposing those two elusive cans on my lower abdomen to reveal my six pack.
A couple of weeks after my return to the States, I was back to my four pack in spite of eating much less and ostensibly healthier food, and working my ass off at the gym.
All this to say, maybe it’s the wheat. (You nod.) When I’m in Mexico my main source of carbs is corn not wheat. Could it be that that simple switch is why my belly flattens out when I’m in my ancestral homeland? I’m going to put it to the test, and will let you know how it goes.
Hi, Alejandro–
Wonderful observations! You seem to have a gift for connecting cause-effect relationship.
While corn is, by no means, without its own set of concerns, given a choice of corn vs. wheat, I’d pick the corn. Perhaps that’s at least part of the reason you experience the weight loss with each trip.