This article is from greenmedinfo.com
Wheat As A Common Cause of Dyspepsia and Irritable Bowel
Could common complaints of bloating, upper abdominal discomfort and indigestion following a meal, and even the increasingly prevalent complaint lazily labeled 'irritable bowel syndrome' by practitioners of conventional medicine , be worsened -- even caused -- by consuming wheat?
It is already well-established that patients with gluten-sensitive
enteropathy, an inflammatory condition of the small intestine caused by
the consumption of gluten-containing grains
like wheat, also frequently suffer from what is known as
dysmotility-like functional dyspepsia symptoms* -- a technical term for
upper abdominal discomfort or pain, with symptoms that include: "early
feeling of having enough to eat, fullness after a meal, nausea,
recurrent retching and/or vomiting, upper abdominal bloating, and upper
abdominal discomfort aggravated by food." (Source) These symptoms occur in the absence of a physical lesion such as an ulcer.
This is why new research performed out of the Hospital San Jorge in
the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in Huesca, Spain,[i] focused on the question: how many patients diagnosed with dysmotility-like dyspepsia symptoms are experiencing adverse gastrointestinal symptoms as a result of eating wheat (gluten) in their diet?
The researchers looked retrospectively at 142 patients who presented
with "dysmotility-like dyspepsia symptoms and normal upper
gastrointestinal endoscopy." First, biopsies were taken of their
duodenums (the first section of the intestine). Second, in patients
with clinically verified enteropathy they performed typical blood tests
for celiac disease (e.g. anti-tissue transglutiminase IgA antibodies),
as well as genetic testing for the HLA-DQ2/DQ8 genes almost always found
implicated in those diagnosed with celiac disease. In addition, they
put the patients on a gluten-free diet if one of these markers were
found.
The results were as follows
- Fifty-one patients (35.9%) had enteropathy
- A positive blood test for celiac was low (6.7%) in mild enteropathy cases
- A positive blood test for celiac was much higher (50%) in more extreme enteropathy cases
- Most patients with enteropathy (84.1%) had positive HLA DQ2 or -DQ8 (the genetic locus of celiac disease susceptibility) genotyping
In essence, the study revealed that intestinal damage (enteropathy)
is relatively high in those diagnosed with dysmotility-like dyspepsia;
basically one in three (35.9%) suffered from clinically confirmed damage
to the intestine. Moreover, most patients in this study with
clinically-confirmed enteropathy (84.1%) had the genetic locus for
celiac disease susceptibility (HLA DQ2 or -DQ8), indicating the observed
intestinal damage (enteropathy) may have a genetic component and may
often be caused by undiagnosed celiac disease.
Even more remarkable was the observation that "Out of the 37 patients who started a gluten-free diet, 34 (91.9%) improved their symptoms, and 28 of 32 (87.5%) had a histopathological or serological response."
Discussion
This latest study speaks to the possibility that many common
gastrointestinal symptoms, including common complaints of indigestion,
may be directly linked to the consumption of wheat. Whereas often the
knee jerk response to this type of symptomology is the prescription of
an acid-blocker, whose clinical efficacy has been shown to be poor to
non-existent for this type of condition, the real solution may actually be removing wheat (the cause) from the diet.
Another similar case in point is irritable bowel syndrome.
A 2007 study published in the Clinical Journal of Gastroentology and Hepatology
found that over one in three patients with diarrhea-predominant
irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) shared the same blood and genetic markers
classically associated with celiac disease.[ii]
Moreover, after 6 months of gluten-free diet, "stool frequency and
gastrointestinal symptom score returned to normal values in 60% of
diarrhea predominant IBS patients who were positive and in 12% who were
negative for HLA-DQ2 and celiac disease-associated serum IgG."
In other words, gluten may cause or worsen the symptoms commonly
associated with 'irritable bowel syndrome,' possibly in as high as
one-third of diarrhea-predominant diagnosed cases, and gluten avoidance
may cause significantly more than half (60%) of those cases to resolve.
Why Wheat Causes Digestive Problems
Wheat contains gluten, and gluten is literally the Latin word for glue. Do you see how that could present a problem for digestive or bowel health?
Furthermore, the "gluten" protein in wheat is actually not one, but a
complex of proteins consisting of over 23,000 distinct biomolecules.
This means that instead of "one" problematic substance in wheat, folks
are dealing with thousands of potential antigens
in one grain. Some of these antigens, such as the 33 amino acid long
sequence known as 33-mer, have structural similarities to pathogenic
proteins. 33-mer, for instance, is almost identical (homologous) with
pertactin, the uniquely toxic sequence in the whooping cough pathogen
known as pertussis.
Another protein within the alpha-gliadin subcategory of "gluten" proteins up-regulates the protein zonulin in the digestive tract, which increases intestinal permeability. This can literally open pandora's box
of diseases, insofar as a leaky gut can cause stomach contents to enter
the blood, wreaking havoc upon the immune system with countless foreign
antigens and bacteria. No wonder wheat consumption has been linked to over 300 adverse health effects.
We are fast moving beyond the outdated notion that wheat toxicity is a
rare situation that only afflicts those classically defined as having
celiac disease; rather, the time has come for us to shift the focus back
on the disease trigger itself: wheat, to stop blaming the victim (it's
bad genes; you are "sensitive or intolerant" to gluten; it is just an
allergy you have) and start focusing on the real problem: wheat represents a human species-specific intolerance, and wheat toxicity is a universal affliction,
differing only in the matter of degree to which it affects us, or the
degree to which we recognize those effects, especially more difficult to
link "out of intestine" effects.
If you are interested in learning more about this topic, read The Dark Side of Wheat.
Resources
[i]
Santos Santolaria, Javier Alcedo, Berta Cuartero, Irene Diez, Manuel
Abascal, M Dolores García-Prats, Miguel Marigil, Jesús Vera, Margarita
Ferrer, Miguel Montoro. Spectrum of gluten-sensitive enteropathy in
patients with dysmotility-like dyspepsia. Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2012 Oct 23. Epub 2012 Oct 23. PMID: 23103052
[ii] Ulrich Wahnschaffe, Jörg-Dieter Schulzke, Martin Zeitz, Reiner Ullrich. Predictors of clinical response to gluten-free diet in patients diagnosed with diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2007 Jul;5(7):844-50; quiz 769. Epub 2007 Jun 5. PMID: 17553753
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