I’m not coeliac, should I not eat Gluten?

I’m not coeliac, should I not eat Gluten?

If you’ve read my blog on Gluten you will have learned that it is a type of Lectin.  A lectin, is an anti-nutrient, its job is to provide protection in and around a plant seed to stop them from being eaten by bugs or get a fungal growth.  As a protective agent and not a nutrient, they are predominately indigestible by us as the structure can’t be broken down by the enzymes we make for digestion.

Because of this, they can irritate the wall of the intestines and can influence our immune system, by getting through the cell wall by splitting the cells apart, termed leaky gut, or they can actually go through the cell to get to the immune system on the other side and set off a response.

It is this immune response that can trigger a cascade of tissue responses.  The Wheat Germ Agglutinin (WGA) is the most researched and problematic.  The antibodies to wheat germ agglutinin can also bind with the skin, mouth, stomach, intestinal wall, colon, thyroid, cartilage, liver, pancreas, kidneys, prostate, muscle, heart, breast, eye and brain.

So you can start to understand that it doesn’t just affect the gut, but has systemic effects.

The most serious effect on the gut is Coeliac disease where the body has an auto-immune response to Gluten.

Then there is non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS), where people experience symptoms similar to those of coeliac disease but instead of an auto-immune response, it is what is called innate immune response.  This is the first response the immune system has towards invaders, so when you eat gluten, it stimulates a leaky gut. This is where the joints that hold the cells together loosen and allow gaps for the gluten to cross the gut barrier and may instigate cross-reactivity on the other side of the gut lining.

Here’s where it’s important for those with Auto-Immunity, especially Hashimoto’s and those with Thyroid disorders.

In Hashimoto’s disease, you have antibodies to anti-thyroid peroxidase (TPO) and these antibodies can be set off by eating foods that you think are unrelated to the thyroid. However, wheat germ agglutinin cross-reacts with the TPO antibodies!

‘Molecular mimicry’ is a term that is used when the way a molecule or pathogen that enters the body has a similar pattern of make up (amino acids) that already exists in the body with an antibody made to it. This may activate an antibody immune response towards both tissues, creating cross-reactivity.

In 2017, 210 foods were tested again thyroid hormones T3 and T4 for cross-reactivity and many were found to have this cross-reactivity see table below:

Table1.

So, if you know you are a coeliac, you have antibodies to gluten. These antibodies trigger inflammation in other tissues of the body including the thyroid, brain, joints, heart and neurotransmitters.

If you know you are NCGS, you may be reactive to Gluten.  By consuming, you may be activating the cross-reactivity and inflaming the thyroid hormones.

If you don’t think you have an issue with gluten, you may unknowingly have issues with WGA that stimulates TPO antibodies or have molecular Mimicry to T3 or T4 thyroid hormones.

I know all of this information can be overwhelming and confusing.  The good thing is, that there are simple solutions available and you don’t have to stress about how to remove gluten from your current eating because I have that all covered with my gut restoration and whole food nutrition methods, that are adapted for weight loss, hormone balancing or thyroid support.

If you’d like to know more about this or other topics, you are welcome to join my free membership on face book. Thyroid, Metabolic, Hormone Harmony Hub. 

I’d love to see you there

Inspiring Wellness

 

Beth

 

References:

Lambert J, Vojdani A (2017) Correlation of Tissue Antibodies and Food Immune Reactivity in Randomly Selected Patient Specimens. J Clin. Cell Immunol 8: 521. doi: 10.4172/2155-9899.1000521

Vojdani A, O’Brayn T, Kellermann GH. The Immunology of Gluten Senstivity Beyond the Intestinal Tract: Immunosciences Lab. Received October 16, 2007 – Accepted January 18, 2008 European Journal of Inflammation. Vol. 6, no. 2, 49-57 (2008) 

Killilea DW, McQueen R, Abegania JR. Wheat germ agglutinin is a biomarker of whole grain content in wheat flour and pasta. J Food Sci. 2020;85(3):808-815. doi:10.1111/1750-3841.15040

Vojdani A, Afar D, Vojdani E. Reaction of Lectin-Specific Antibody with Human Tissue: Possible Contributions to Autoimmunity. J Immunol Res. 2020;2020:1438957. Published 2020 Feb 11. doi:10.1155/2020/1438957

PreviMedica Group L.L.C., 2018 https://cellsciencesystems.com/pdfs/Lectins.pdf

Ballantyne, S 2013, The Paleo Approach, Victory Belt Publishing Inc, USA

Diagram

https://fabflour.co.uk/fab-flour/how-flour-is-milled/attachment/grain-anatomy/

Table 1 Recreated from:

Datis Kharrazian, Martha Herbert, Aristo Vojdani, “Immunological Reactivity Using Monoclonal and Polyclonal Antibodies of Autoimmune Thyroid Target Sites with Dietary Proteins”, Journal of Thyroid Research, vol. 2017, Article ID 4354723, 13 pages, 2017.

 

What is Gluten and should it really be eaten?

What is Gluten and should it really be eaten?

When I went Gluten-free due to health issues over 25yrs ago, virtually food that replaced a gluten form had to be made from scratch with the result being usually quite a dry, crumbly mess. I remember the rice bread was like a solid block of concrete and was best toasted to reconstitute any sort of texture of toast because it really wasn’t very nice in its natural form.

These days, though, the aisles in supermarkets are lined with GF options, with restaurants and fast food outlets often catering for GF, some of course better than others.

While that is awesome that we have these alternatives readily available we still need to consider what ingredients are being used and as they are still heavily processed, I’d recommend that they are treated as a special occasion food.  

To begin to understand what Gluten is, I need to first explain what a lectin is.  If you have not heard of lectins, they are proteins that are found in grains and their job is to bind carbohydrates. 

These essentially are toxic, however, with modern agriculture, we grow and harvest crops of grains and turned their lectins into foods that are highly consumable and eaten many times in a day.  If you are not eating an animal or dairy protein, root, or leafy vegetable, you are most likely eating a lectin!

They are hard to digest and interact with your gut lining that is only one cell thick, causing damage not only directly to these cells but also influence the pulling apart of a healthy gut lining, and this is referred to as leaky gut.

Once these lectins go beyond that one cell wall lining, they cause havoc with our immune system, and can potentially flare autoimmunity.

A Lectin can be further classified into Grains, Legumes, and pseudo-grains. 

Table 1

To make it more confusing, Lectins are then further divided into prolamins or agglutinins.

Prolamins can also be called Glutenoids.  When you take a grain apart, there is the smaller portion, the germ, and the endosperm which is the larger, starchy, and protein part of the grain.  This is the food source for the germination and growing of a new seed. 

In the endosperm of the grain (the larger portion), the proteins are called prolamins, mainly because they are made up of proline amino acids.

Common prolamins include gliadin (wheat), hordein (barley), secalin (rye), avenin (oats), zein (corn), kafirin (sorghum), and orzenin (rice).

Our digestive system is not good at breaking down prolamins as they contain an inhibitor to protease, which is our enzyme that breaks down proteins, so they simply don’t want to be eaten!

They want to pass safely through your gut to make a new plant in some hearty fertiliser that you generously surrounding it when passing out the undigested grain.

While the main culprits are Gliadin in Wheat, Hordein in Barley and Secalin in Rye (especially for Coeliac), Avenin in Oats also may be an issue for the individual Coeliac, the behaviour of the other prolamins are very similar, so it is good to have an awareness about them and your consumption of them.

What about fruit seeds? Yes, they also have prolamins but because the seeds of fruit such as berries, banana, kiwi, cucumber, and zucchini (yes, they are fruit!) are small enough to ingest without chewing, they happily travel through your intestine in pursuit of finding fertilised ground in which to grow.

But if the seed is big enough to bite, you might consider removing it before consuming i.e. cucumber and zucchini seeds. 

Legumes also have prolamins and the main issue here is with the bean or seed, less so with the sprout. The legumes considered safe are rooibos tea, carob powder, and those that are normally eaten raw, being peas, green beans, snow peas, sugar snap peas, and runner beans.

As its name implies, agglutinin is a type of lectin and can cause red blood cells to clump together and become sticky. This is part of a seed’s external defense mechanism from fungi and insects.

It’s really interesting that these plants have the mechanisms so they don’t get eaten.  Genetically modified foods have added agglutinins to assist the crops to be more robust against insects, however, this makes them indigestible.

The most well-known agglutinin is wheat germ agglutinin (WGA). The germ is the part of the grain that houses all the nutrients needed to grow a new plant. It is usually removed during milling, with the WGA percentage used as a biomarker for how much a wheat product is whole grain.

WGA is difficult to break down in the gut and, as it travels through, it irritates the gut lining, setting off the leaky gut and aggravating the immune system.

Because agglutinins are stable at high temperatures, they need to be cooked for long periods of time and at high temperatures. Kidney beans, cannellini beans, common beans, and broad beans (fava beans) all need to be soaked and cooked really well. Peanuts and soybeans are also on the list of agglutinins.

Some sources say that agglutinin may not be deactivated by cooking which is why it is best avoided where there are autoimmunity and gut issues

Interestingly tomatoes are lectin-rich and therefore also stimulate the immune system via increasing leaky gut due to agglutinin.

If you cannot live without beans, soak these and other legumes in filtered water overnight for a minimum of 8 hours. Drain and rinse. Cook in fresh, filtered water at high heat: 100o C for at least 10 minutes or 95o C for 60 minutes. Slow cooking is not a good option due to the reduced temperatures of slow cooking. 

If you sprout your beans, it can reduce lectins by 59%. If fermenting, as in the case of tempeh, lectins can be reduced by up to 95%.

Lectins can be reduced in wheat products, such as pasta, by cooking and processing however it is best not to consume these at all.

I know all of this information can be overwhelming and confusing.  The good thing is, that there are simple solutions available and you don’t have to stress about how to remove gluten from your current eating habits, because I have that all covered with my gut restoration and whole food nutrition methods, that are adapted for weight loss, hormone balancing or thyroid support.

If you’d like to know more about this or other topics, you are welcome to join my free membership on face book. Thyroid, Metabolic, Hormone Harmony Hub. 

I’d love to see you there

Inspiring Wellness

 

Beth 

References:

Lambert J, Vojdani A (2017) Correlation of Tissue Antibodies and Food Immune Reactivity in Randomly Selected Patient Specimens. J Clin. Cell Immunol 8: 521. doi: 10.4172/2155-9899.1000521

Vojdani A, O’Brayn T, Kellermann GH. The Immunology of Gluten Senstivity Beyond the Intestinal Tract: Immunosciences Lab. Received October 16, 2007 – Accepted January 18, 2008 European Journal of Inflammation. Vol. 6, no. 2, 49-57 (2008) 

Killilea DW, McQueen R, Abegania JR. Wheat germ agglutinin is a biomarker of whole grain content in wheat flour and pasta. J Food Sci. 2020;85(3):808-815. doi:10.1111/1750-3841.15040

Vojdani A, Afar D, Vojdani E. Reaction of Lectin-Specific Antibody with Human Tissue: Possible Contributions to Autoimmunity. J Immunol Res. 2020;2020:1438957. Published 2020 Feb 11. doi:10.1155/2020/1438957

PreviMedica Group L.L.C., 2018 https://cellsciencesystems.com/pdfs/Lectins.pdf

Ballantyne, S 2013, The Paleo Approach, Victory Belt Publishing Inc, USA

Grain Diagram

https://fabflour.co.uk/fab-flour/how-flour-is-milled/attachment/grain-anatomy/

Table 1

https://www.longdom.org/open-access/correlation-of-tissue-antibodies-and-food-immune-reactivity-in-randomlyselected-patient-specimens-2155-9899-1000521.pdf

Its never too late to work on Muscle Mass

Its never too late to work on Muscle Mass

Muscle maintenance is so important as we age. The alarming thing is, we actually start to lose muscle mass from our mid-twenties, and in total, we lose about 25 – 40%  of what we were at our peak, and then it just gets faster after 60yrs.  So, it is imperative that we know what to do about it right now!

To begin I want you to think about how active you are in terms of moving your muscles and how much resistance type of workout you get daily.  When we exercise and how we exercise – and when I say this –  I am talking about exercise as the movement of the body – like vacuuming, cleaning, going up and down the stairs etc.   What you may not know is that there are 3 types of muscle fibres that use various different pathways for their energy source, so you need to have a variety of exercise to utilise all of these different types. Some are good for long walking or marathon running, others for short and fast movement, like sprinting and then the mixed type which is kinda in between.

The thing about muscle is, and you may have even said this yourself, if you don’t use it, you lose it? That is so true.  Because building and breaking down muscle happens at the same time.  Can you remember a time that you weren’t moving as much as you normally do? – you may have been sick and in bed, a lot,  or on holidays and you weren’t doing as much exercise as you normally do – more sitting, eating and drinking and flexing this muscle. You may actually feel more ‘flabby’ or not strong after and this what is called muscle catabolism.

So to build muscle you actually have to have more of the building up going on, than the breaking down of muscle.  This means we want ‘net’ balance is more for building.  So as this balancing act is happening all the time, how do we push it more to the building side?

Okay, so we need to eat protein to build muscle right. Proteins are made up of Amino Acids, of which some are essential so we have to eat these to get them into our body. One of these is called Leucine it can activate the building of our muscle all on its own.  Amazing right. Other Amino Acids can help stimulate making muscle as well as something called Insulin Growth factor, but Leucine has its own little trigger system. So what’s important here is 1. We have to eat this to get it and 2. It has its own special pathway, so I’m thinking this is kinda important.

What we want is about 3gms of Leucine per meal to turn on muscle building.  And no, you don’t have to go out and buy a specific supplement, but you may see it in muscle-building protein powders. 

You want a target amount of 3 g of leucine combined with 25-30 grams of protein, each meal, 3 times a day is recommended.

So where to get it?  Well, you can find Leucine is most animal protein at reasonably high levels. So, all you have to do is eat it.  These foods are particularly high in Leucine, beef, chicken, pork, tuna, salmon, sardines, eggs and feta, and cashew nuts give good high amounts from their 15 – 20gm of protein per gram. 

And the perfect timing to eat for maximum muscle building is close as possible after a workout.  So say if you have an early morning walk, or go to the gym before breakfast ensure it has a good source of protein, likewise after work, going for a workout and then having dinner.

For healthy aging, if you eat 3 high-quality protein meals per day, it provides all the amino acids you need to increase muscle mass by about 25% over 24 hours, which is pretty cool.

So, it’s all about maintenance as we age, and addressing our susceptibility to muscle breakdown.  If you eat three balanced meals a day, in particular, a selection of high-quality proteins to ensure adequate leucine contents you will benefit in the long run. 

Building muscle is greatest when combined with exercise, particularly ingestion of leucine-based protein as close as possible to completing the exercise.

Now if you are confused about what to eat, and the best options for you, I can certainly help you out there with a whole food nutrition plan, designed by your blood values.  How incredible is that?  The guessing stops there, as you have your own meal plan and types of protein to eat, it makes muscle building easy. 

If you’d like to know more, you are welcome to join my free membership on facebook. Thyroid, Metabolic, Hormone Harmony Hub. 

I’d love to see you there

Inspiring Wellness

Beth 

Because life is better with Protein

Because life is better with Protein

The question I have for you right now is, what did you have for breakfast?

In particular, I am asking what your protein part was?

Was it milk, cheese, eggs, fish, meat, chicken or legumes?

Or none of these at all?

It may have been a coffee, toast, breakfast bar…

Then your body will be working hard to do all the housekeeping it needs without your protein meal.

Did you know that all protein is not the same? That is, they can all be broken down into different types and amounts of smaller particles called Amino Acids.  You may be familiar with the name of amino acids as found in protein drinks or energy bars.

So out of 20 amino acids nine are essential to eat.  The proteins that have all of these are called complete proteins.

Others, are lacking some or all of the nine essential amino acids are low-quality proteins.  They don’t have all the essential amino acids or have smaller amounts of them that aren’t enough to contribute to making a full protein. 

When this happens is it said they are limiting amino acids.  And what does that mean?  Once a limiting Amino Acid is used up then even if there is plenty of other amino acids available to make hormones, build muscle, carry red blood cells, make digestive enzymes and a number of other really important jobs in the body, it can’t because that one limiting amino acid has run out.

So you say, okay, well, I haven’t had all my amino acids this morning, I’ll make up for it at lunchtime. But guess what, you can’t!  The body does not store excess Amino Acids.

Every meal is unique and you can’t do catch up later.  That’s really insane and makes you really think about what your next meal is composed of.

A part of getting the benefits of the proteins is how well they are digested.

We need to be able to break down our proteins via our digestive system, which begins in the mouth, with tearing and chewing, then into the stomach where strong Hydrochloric acid begins the breakdown of the protein and pepsin begins work here as well. Then into the small intestine, there are more enzymes that continue the breakdown, until the protein that you ate is now singular, double or triple amino acid groups that get transported in the intestinal cells.

So if you have issues with digestion, burping belching, indigestion it is quite possible you are not breaking down your proteins well.

In general Animal, proteins are well digested – 90 – 99%, plant proteins not as well 70-90% with the exception of soy and legumes at 90%.

When proteins are being recreated in the body for important jobs to be done in the body, all the necessary Amino acids are needed at the same time. A bit like baking a cake and not having the flour or eggs to make it. It can’t be done. 

Remember how I spoke about Complete proteins at the beginning, these have all the nine essential amino acids.  If we are baking our cake and are putting milk into the mix to make it the right texture and we run out of milk and leave the mix very sticky and hard to handle, then we have a Limiting ingredient – Milk.  Amino acids also have Limiting Amino Acids.  So if a protein is being made and it may have to stop because there are no more of the amino acids that it requires.

This is where, if we are not eating complete protein in a meal, it is vital that we eat a combination of proteins called Complementary proteins. An example is eating legumes with grains.  The Legumes have a reduction of two amino acids that the grains are in abundance of and vice versa. So eaten together will give plenty of amino acids to build proteins the body can use to make what we need.

This is exactly why the nutrition plan I use in my methods works so well. 

If you’d like to know more, you are welcome to join my free membership on facebook. Thyroid, Metabolic, Hormone Harmony Hub. 

I’d love to see you there

Inspiring Wellness

Beth 

Food is Medicine – Heal Naturally

Food is Medicine – Heal Naturally

Most of you would have heard how important the gut is to our health and wellbeing.

Did you know that the gut is heavily influenced by what you eat and can if you radically change your diet you can see change in the microbiome within 24 hours!

The cells in your intestinal lining as they emerge from the lower layers, may only ever experience up to 9 meals in their lifetime, so every meal is a big event for these guys.

Incredible right?

Now think about it, how often do you start on a ‘health kick’ and within only a few days you start to feel better, or after you have had an indulgent weekend, it can take you a few days to get ‘back to normal’?

So, Hippocrates said that “Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”, and while it’s easy to say, seriously I think we don’t take the meaning to heart enough.

Food is essential to our being and the way that food is falsified to look and taste like food is almost criminal and is causing an obesity health crisis.  

So clearly eating good sources of proteins, vegetables, health fats and some grains is the best way to go.  Here’s the clincher though, and I see this one often, a great diet and you may be a ‘health nut’ and still the foods you are eating are causing havoc. 

Getting into the nitty gritty of the digestive system is key, because a food that is considered good for you may be playing havoc on the inside.  But the key is here, it is not so much the food, but the environment.  Have you ever heard of, or it may be happening to you, you eat great food, then find you become increasingly not able to tolerate many foods.

This can start a cycle of trying to work out what you can’t or can have.

There are many ways to improve the digestive system.  Luckily because we are all different one method will suit one person and another will suit someone else in terms of testing, non-testing and then the method of ‘treatment’ or healing.  The most important thing is that you find your way.  

I have often mused how wonderful it would be if we all had a door that we opened that viewed our gut so we could do a routine check to make sure we are functioning the way we should and make corrections easily.

However, we have been designed with intricate biochemistry that should be continued effortlessly during our lives, all covered up with fleshy tissue and skin, just like the inside workings of a thermomix or electric toothbrush.  It should just do its job efficiently without us ever knowing how exactly.

With modern intervention we have learned so much and how vitamins and minerals from proteins, fats and vegetables and their structures serve us.

Like-wise we can test for individual nutrients and anti-nutrients, like heavy metals and oestrogen disrupters.

This is all truly amazing and can be very helpful and when it comes to food, and the gut relationship, there can be many inflammatory reactions, some happen almost immediately and others can be days or even weeks.

I want to talk to you today about using real food, whole food, as nature intended to take the pressure off the gut, allow gut restoration and in many cases I have seen, the results have been in a reduction of inflammatory symptoms and signs through-out the entire body.

In one case, directly to the gut, a client with ulcerative colitis who had been on immune suppressants and after a short 8 weeks on a nutrition plan had a colonoscopy and was told that they would never have known they had colitis.

Another client said “I’ve had no indigestion, stomach cramps, or immediate urge for the bathroom whenever I eat. I have also had my menses, which I’ve not had properly in over 10years.”

So, if this is happening in the gut, then the effect in the body is systemic

I had a client with Lupus antibodies went from 8 Paracetamol per day to zero for pain relief!

And another with Hashimotos who said “I was very sick, fatigued, putting on weight and to be honest ready to give up” and after eating from her nutritional plan said that she felt so energised, healthy, awake and the biggest bonus is I have lost so much weight.

What is that telling us. Gut inflammation = systemic bodily inflammation.

Reduce inflammation, and reduce signs and symptoms, which I refer to as shaking rotten fruit from the tree to see what you have left.  Any major issues then are usually partially resolved, with niggly other symptoms removed altogether. Then a targeted treatment is more effective with less supplements and shorter duration of time and expense.

I like to keep my methodology fairly simple.  Use food that is aligned to your body to be the major healer, then support with digestive nutrients to create a dynamic gut environment, then work on what is remaining, if needed.

If you’d like to know more, you are welcome to join my free membership on facebook. Thyroid, Metabolic, Hormone Harmony Hub. 

 

I’d love to see you there

 

Inspiring Wellness

 

Beth