Wow! Thank you, so much for that link! That farm is only a few towns from us! We'll be sure to check it out!

Interesting experiment.  I certainly know that wheat was held in very high regard by Robert McCarrison, Weston A. Price, and others that witnessed entire populations thriving off of wheat.  The Maycoba of Northern Mexico (Mexican Pima) would be another example.  

This has always left me with some cognitive dissonance about the wheat issue, and a strong feeling that wheat intolerance in the modern world was a result of weak intestinal strucure and altered gut flora caused by non-wheat factors (such as refined sugar, nutrient-poor food, etc.).

Just curious if you plan to sprout it first. Can einkorn be tolerate by people with Celiac?

I'm looking forward to the results.

Is this a religious or Christian blog? (Serious question.) I don't follow the reasoning that if something is mentioned in the Bible it wouldn't be unhealthy. Lots of things that people ate or practiced in the ancient world were very unhealthy.

Nothing like a little hands-on experimentation -- I like the spirit.

Being in the Bible isn't much of a recommendation, IMO.

It'd be interesting to see the results of your wheat test there.

What about the other ancient wheat, Emmer? I think it can be found in Italian  pasta form, called Farro.

Very interesting and important angle to speak about since those questions comes up very often... especially the "but we have been eating wheat for millenniums"... now we have a good answer! Thank you!

Recently, I have discovered bread that is made from sprouted grain. How healthy this bread is relative to whole grain bread I do not know. The only store I can find this bread at is Trader Joe's.

Short of growing and milling your own eikorn wheat, is there a viable option for the rest of us?  Is there an acceptable commercially-available (i.e. found at larger grocery stores) product like hard red spring or buckwheat that would be a better alternative with fewer of the downsides of the more traditional wheat flours?

Looking forward to the results!  Thanks for the great content.

MH

I look forward to the report, both on how the bread turns out, and how you react to eating it.

Fascinating. I will be very interested to hear what your experiences with this experiment will be.

A quote from http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1996/v3-156.html

"The gluten of the einkorn accession had a gliadin to glutenin ratio of 2:1 compared to 0.8:1 for durum and hard red wheat."

If that means anything.

Our preliminary studies have not determined that all types of einkorn can be universally tolerated by those with gluten intolerance.  Please use caution if you have celiac or some form of gluten intolerance.  On the plus side, Einkorn is one tasty, healthy grain…it just doesn’t yield as much as modern (hexaploid) bread wheat, so agribusiness is reluctant to plant it.  I'm posting studies about the health benefits of einkorn and including all findings on my website at einkorn.com.  I'm very interested to see how you like the taste

Hi, Catherine--

No, this is not a religious blog.

I raise this issue because I hear this from patients.

Stan said exactly what I was going to say: There are insufficient experiences to know whether the gluten sequences in einkorn will activate the celiac response.

Eli Rogosa tells me that she also has seen several celiac people tolerate einkorn.

However, none of this should be construed as a clinical study.

Stoning people to death and slavery are in the bible, how can they be bad?

*rolls eyes*

Lately this blog has really become hit and miss.

To neolithic humans wheat must have seemed to be a miracle food. It could be stored for long periods and transported long distances. They could grow it, store it, or trade for it. No longer did they need to worry every day about finding something to eat. They could wait out the winter with full stomachs and calm minds, and some small portion of the population could freed from food production. To do what? As it turned out art, culture, religion, scholarship, everything we think of as civilization.

They may have even noticed that their primitive neighbors, who still hunted and gathered wild plants to eat, were larger and healthier. If they did, they probably regarded the greatly reduced fear of starvation and the ability of at least some to have some leisure probably seemed like very worthwhile tradeoffs.

It is only very recently- this century, even for advanced civilizations- that worrying about what you eat has been an option.

Thrasy--

Excellent perspective.

No doubt: Agriculture permitted specialization of occupation and the trappings of culture to develop. Wheat facilitated this cultural evolution.

Did it come at a price?

Great post. Thanks for the open-minded approach. Nonzero, I think you're missing the point. Dr Davis isn't saying that something must be good because it's in the Bible, but he's saying that some people do ask that question, so it's appropriate that he should try to answer it.

For you and me, perhaps he could just as easily ask: "Wheat has been used for millennia and has been the foundation of great civilizations; perhaps we shouldn't be too hasty to conclude that it's bad?"

Weston A Price also observed that traditional cultures that consumed wheat did so after the wheat was soaked & sprouted or fermented in some way.  These processes are rarely used anymore and certainly not on a large commercial scale so the question isn't simply whether wheat has good or bad effects, but what has been done to it as well.

Would you please clarify what exactly you mean by "we will eat it and see what happens"? Are you going to do a blood test after consuming the bread?

The things one finds in the bible...Check this:

In  Genesis  , Chapter Four, Eve bears Cain and Abel. 'And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.' That 'but' in the middle of the sentence is the first clue to disapproval. This disapproval is confirmed by verses three to five. Abel and Cain bring offerings to God: Abel of his sheep and Cain, the fruits of the ground. God, we are told, had respect for Abel's carnivorous offering, but He had no respect for Cain's vegetarian one.

Thrasy - I believe you're incorrect about the leisure comment.  Hunter/gatherers have been shown to have had far more leisure time than agriculturalists - it's just that they didn't need the trappings of society, since they did not produce anything that required customers.  And the oldest art in the world definitely existed before farming did...

My biggest concern with wheat is we are eating the seed and not the product of the seed. If you take a look and think about what a seed it makes sense.
The seed is a body shield/ armor to protect the information inside to ensure the plant continues to survice. Now we are taking that very complex material made up of many proteins such as Lectin that they body simply can not digest, so it aggravates the lining of your digestive system.
Not only does it not get absorb, but it also creates a auto-immune response as well as prevents nutrients the body is trying to absorb.

regardless if you can tolerate ancient strains of wheat over current strains, what is the value add that you can't get from a normal diet of meats, veges, and some fruits eaten seasonally?? what is so special that u think u need to have wheat in ur diet in the first place?

The good and bad aspects of grain as a product of agriculture are thematic in the early Old Testament. Remember that Cain and Abel are one generation out of the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were gatherers until the fall; the first sin is plucking the forbidden fruit. At the time of the fall, God is the first to kill an animal, and at the same time, institutes agriculture through a curse upon the ground.

When Cain kills Abel, it's the first murder. Why can't the farmer and the cowboy be friends? Because the farmer always wins.

It's grain that saves Jacob's family of herdsmen when Joseph convinces the Egyptian pharaoh to stockpile reserves for times of famine. After the Egyptian enslavement, the Israelites are gatherers during the Exodus, but gathering manna doesn't satisfy them, so God later sends quail. But their goal is the land of milk and honey, an agricultural land -- a land that is only wrested from the Canaanites through violent, genocidal warfare.

The food cleanliness restrictions of the Mosaic law center on avoiding foods contaminated by the cursed ground (i.e., cloven hoofs exposed an animal to the ground, but chewing cud is cleansing, so cows are okay but not pigs; similar distinctions apply to seafood).

The association of the adoption of agriculture with war and oppression is an aspect of the story of the fall as well as the Exodus story (even later, King David is a shepherd) -- the writers of the Old Testament side with agricultural development, urbanization, and the advance of civilization, but they also show a deep cultural awareness of the cost.

The theme never goes away; in the Christian New Testament, Jesus is both the Lamb of God, and the Bread of Life: the sacrifice of Cain as well as the sacrifice of Abel. In short, there many reasons to think that the Biblical story isn't simply that wheat is the best thing since sliced bread, even if Biblical wheat had a better effect on blood sugar.

Judging by the number and severity of Western diseases ancient Egyptians had, I would not be in any hurry to mimic any of their dietary patterns. That said, I encourage patients to give up the grains altogether. Without any nutritional pros and quite a number of cons, the continued use of grains is only a matter of custom and addiction; neither of which contribute to health or longevity.

Dr. C

myths are often centered around varying methods of food production and often change as methods change.  A hunter gatherers religious myths will be much different than an agricultural society's myths. I think that bread is mentioned in the bible because it is primarily a collection of myths of an agricultural society.

After decades of worsening hip pain, I stopped eating any wheat about five days ago, and am now pain-free.  Before, I could barely rise from my chair and could barely walk!  Now I rise up quickly and stride off with no thought of restriction.  I had abandoned weekly hard sprints last year due to the hip pain, but I may try again.  I had been eating two slices of sprouted, fermented whole wheat, and about two or three additional servings of other whole wheat products such as muffins, etc, each day.  I dropped the wheat after reading the recent post about a 25-year old man who gave up wheat with similar results.

"I don't follow the reasoning that if something is mentioned in the Bible it wouldn't be unhealthy. Lots of things that people ate or practiced in the ancient world were very unhealthy."

Can you cite any examples staple foods of that time that were unhealthy? Wheat, maybe, but the awful foods of our modern times were not invented yet. I doubt we'd have the Diabetes and heart-disease epidemic if people stuck to a Biblical diet from a young age onward. Lentils too are a food that is mentioned in the Bible and (unlike Wheat) it has a negligible effect on my blood glucose.

"
And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils. And he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way.  Genesis 25:34"

I wonder if the large amount of fiber in the lentils might have reduced the hyperglycemic effect of the bread.

Genesis is one of our oldest history accounts written down from oral history that is much older. In summing up the large trends of the sweep of history as they knew it then, you can see them refer to the primal world and the original tribe in the garden of Eden and supported by nature but man, who decided to live in cities and who embraced knowledge and rules of society and agriculture, was considered to be "cast out" and God condemns them saying that Childbirth would now be painful etc.

Now match that with what we know about the skeletal degradation of the Egyptians compared to the people a few hundred mile up the Nile still living Paleo and it fits.
The story of Cain and Abel with God accepting meat and rejecting grains is consistent.

These are our oldest stories, and as an likely Atheist, I think they correlate in an interesting way.
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Genesis-Illustrated-R-Crumb/dp/0393061027

Dr Davis,
It's sad that you have patients that ask such inane questions. I can't believe there are people living in this century with such outdated belief systems. It must be difficult to deal with.

Hi Dr. Davis,  I can't wait to hear about your results from the einkorn grain you plan to make into bread!  I sure do hope it turns out well!  If it does then I will buy some and make bread at home and also turn it into  pastry floor to make deserts since I am a baker as well.

Looking forward in great anticipation to the results of you experiments!  Thanks so much for your efforts in locating it!!!

Sincerely,  Meredith

As Thrasy pointed out, clearly there were bad effects of the early grains.  The stature changed for one thing.  And longevity for another.  I guess I don't understand the primes of your research here.

Ya know what? I like you; you're a scientist/scholar in the classical sense. You dig into an issue and keep digging and searching until you find the answers, no matter how complex or simple.

In the 1950's-60's the highest compliment we could pay someone was to say "You're cool". Well, you are. hehe. (Don't blush, we know you're old as the hills, just like me.) Keep up the good work Doc.

The question I'd to find answers for are:

Is all wheat bad, ancient einkorn and emmer included? Or, is modern wheat that emerged in the last 40 years bad, while its predecessors were no worse than other carbohydrates like rice and potatoes?

Because wheat is a readily-digested carbohydrate source, it is at least on a par with other carbohydrates. The question is where, how, and why it accumulated these other potential adverse characteristics.

well it might not be an issue according to this news about wheat fungus;

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=virulent-wheat-fungus-africa

Trev

homemade bread? Sounds good!

Fascinating comments. Bill's research is exciting for all.  Thank you Bill!

Years ago I found wild wheat growing in the Galilee when I was hiking. As an artisan baker and seed-saver, I began collecting, growing and baking with the vast biodiversity of heritage wheats, most of which are on the verge of extinction!

Modern wheat is bred to be dependent on agrochemicals,  an empty harvest. In contrast, ancient and heritage wheats have evolved over millennia to have high nutritional value, are well-adapted to organic systems, have deep roots that absorb organic nutrients and are tall for good photysynthetic activity.  

As for baking methods, sprouted, sourdough einkorn bread is delicious and full of life. I offer baking workshops and sell small amts of heritage grains so folks can grow your own.   Folks are welcome to visit our 12 acre seed conservation farm and bakery.   Email: growseed@yahoo.com

Green Blessings,
Eli Rogosa

I used to buy TJ sprouted "flourless" bread, too, thinking it was a good choice for my grade school aged son, who was the only person in our family still eating bread.  I only bought 1 or 2 loaves a month for him, which he would consume within a few days (bread *is* an easy to prepare item for kids), so some weeks he had no bread or wheat at all.   I began to notice there was a marked difference in his behavior and moods when he ate bread vs the weeks when he didn't.  He had difficulty concentrating and quickly became frustrated with difficult tasks (whether schoolwork or something fun, but difficult,  like building a complex Lego structure).  I paid attention to his behavior and moods and other factors and determined the "sprouted" bread was a significant trigger.  

Nearly all TJs whole grain breads have added gluten to boost dough performance and (rising and softer texture).   Truly fermented sourdough breads (with a long fermentation) are probably a better choice that simply "sprouted" wheat (who knows what "sprouted"  means with commercial bread anyway?), because long fermentation partially breaks down the gluten protein, which is difficult for humans to digest.  Sprouting merely neutralizes the phytate/phytic acid anti-nutrient content, but does nothing to the high gluten content of the wheat and added gluten ingredients (which are added to nearly any "soft" whole wheat bread as a dough enhancer).      

My son didn't exhibit the negative behaviors when he ate a true sourdough bread that was long fermented  (many sourdoughs are imposters with sourdough flavoring or only weakly fermented for a short time).  I purchased that locally made bread at another "natural food store", not TJs.

Nonetheless, for the past year+ we are a wheat and gluten-free family now, after my son and I tested positive with Enterolab for anti-gluten antibodies and other indications that gluten was provoking an undesirable immune response (as well as two copies of HLA genes that predispose to gluten intolerance and/or celiac and in my son's case, also fat malabsorption).

I used to buy a lot of our food from Trader Joe's.  I still shop there regularly, but mostly for simple foods and ingredients for meals I prepare at home with local CSA subscription produce, meat puchased in bulk (or wild game from my sister the hunter), and "back yard"  eggs I buy direct from the producers.  Too much of TJ fare is still highly processed food that is little better than the stuff at the conventional supermarkets.  

Also, someone mentioned Weston A. Price valuing wheat as a food.  True enough, but again, the point is that wheat has changed dramatically in just the past few decades.  The wheat of Price's time is not what is commonly available now.  Also, Price advocated freshly ground whole wheat.  Is commercial bread likely to be made with freshly ground wheat, or warehoused, fumigated, long-distance trucked stale flour that was ground who-knows when?

think of the healing humans, but not of blogging

I go thorugh phases of taking creatine every now and again and it does make me feel stronger and look better....but it also makes me get cramps and urinate a lot and I am not sure if that is healthy?

There is also good evidence that for people who have kidney disease and are on a low-protein diet, supplementing with carnitine, amino acids and keto acids significantly improves health and slows kidney function decline. Some nephrologists had been recommending against a low-protein diet for kidney patients as on its own it decreases health basically due to wasting, but with the supplements this risk is removed and overall health improves.

There is an American doctor working in Malaysia with people who can barely afford dialysis who is a big advocate of this approach, since the supplements are cheap and can delay the start of dialysis by years.

http://jasn.asnjournals.org/cgi/reprint/2/7/1178.pdf

http://www.pkdiet.com/pdf/SavingFailingKidneys.pdf

Too bad there wasn't a control group of strength training but no creatine to separate out the effects of strength training vs. creatine.

My husband gained massively in strength and size by taking creatine and weightlifting so I'm convinced that it works. However, he says that it takes a lot glucose to activate it and since I was low carbing with the hopes that it might improve my Crohn's,  I wanted to avoid drinking all the juice, a pint or more, that he disolves the creatine in when he takes it.

Karen

Nice looking blog. Great article on Creatine. www.Fitness-Diet-Info.blogspot.com

I wonder if any positive/negative effects for hypo/hyper thyroid?

Dr. D,

I think you made a typo in paragraph 6. I believe you meant to say grams (not milligrams).

Also, I think you left out the word, "can" in the last sentence of your first paragraph.

Keep up the good work!

JohnM

P.S. I hope someday you will share a story if any of your patients have ever reversed their scan all the way down to zero. I know you have mentioned big reductions, but I am assuming those are people with pretty big scores to begin with. I was always curious if any of them ever made it all the way back down to zero..

I maybe am wrong....
read this loading as
0.3-g Cr.kg(-1) body weight per day for the first week
for a 70 kg male, 70x0.3=21 g per day
could someone correct me pls?

Dr Davis:
Thought that Creatine needed to be taken with carbs/sugar.  what is the corect way to take it

Dr Davis,
I can't agree more. Not taking creatine while strength training (especially for folks over the age of 40 who may be taking a statin ) is like going out in the the rain without an umbrella.

Personally - I would put strength training while using creatine right up there with the normalization of Vitamin D as far as improving my quality of life.

Peace

Joe E O

Typos: In the monohydrate paragraph, you say mg where you mean grams.

Yes - I think your units are off -- should be g - not mg.

Thanks for catching the typos.

Yes: Creatine doses should be in grams, not milligrams.

To those asking if creatine must be taken with carbs, in one word, no.

Yes, creatine taken w/simple carbs has proven to cause faster and more complete absorption. But, when we're talking 15-20 grams/d during the loading phase, we're going to maximize our body's stores within an extra day or two anyway, without having to spike our insulin.

My only concern with creatine is that it causes initial weight gain to be almost entirely due to increased water volume within the muscles and blood vessels.  That may be concerning for people trying to lower their blood pressure. The studies I've read have proven it does not increase bp.  But I have also read anecdotal reports that it may have caused acute elevated bp in some people after starting creatine.

By the way, I've also written a full-length article for Life Extension Magazine called Superhuman that will detail creatine use, along with HMB, BCAA, and other performance-enhancing supplements for non-bodybuilders.

Dr. William Davis,

Does the increased production of creatinine cause concern?

There was a product created to subvert the production of Creatinine called Kre-Alkalyn which fused ash with creatine-monohydrate in order to produce a pH balanced Creatine product which would not breakdown into Creatinine in the body. The pH of Kre-Alkalyn is at around 14. According to the company that holds the patent, as little as only 1-3g is needed in place of the 15-20g of creatine-monohydrate. According to studies posted on their own site, the Kre-Alkalyn users out perform the creatine-monohydrate users.

I would like you to comment critically or share any information that you have on these subjects please.

Thank You!

Dr. Mike,
I had kidney stones last year.  I am on the paleo diet/EF diet.  Once a week or so, in addition to supplements of a multivitamin, antioxidants, and vitamin D I take some ginger extract, which really makes my whole kidney area feel cleaned out.  I'm going to have to try out the creatine.
Best Regards,
Zach

Two comments as an avid creatine user:

It's not necessary to load creatine.  All the loading phase does is saturate your body more quickly.  However, many people, myself included find the loading phase not only annoying, but also causes a significant amount of bloat.  IMO, you can just take it in 5g doses to start and kind of ease into it.  There's no real reason not to do it this way, as loading is just faster, not better.

There are a few forms of creatine.  I prefer supplements made with Creapure, as it seems to go down more smoothly.  I also use powder for quicker absorption, instead of pills.  I generally just put the creatine dose in my mouth and then chug some water.  Creatine doesn't have any taste, so it's really just a matter of texture if you can stand it.  The primary thing I aim for is about 1 gal of water per day.  This isn't as daunting as it sounds, as you should be drinking close to that amount, anyway.

Dr. Davis - If possible, could you do a post about Beta Alanine?

Supplementation with creatine greatly increases ones chances for developing rhabdomyolysis. Beware, especially if you are taking it in combination with a statin.

quitting the statin for a few months is a good idea anyhow.  I am lucky to have the support of an enlightened PCPhys.  She provides guidance and support when I ask to make changes to my Statin or add a supplement.  I don't need her permission to stop taking it but in consultation, she will ask what my goal for the change is and tell me what to look out for.  Get y'rself one of these consultative Docs, they are true gems.

After reading your post I added creatine along with D-Ribose twice a day.  I do an Ultrafit work out twice weekly and was astonished at the increase in my strength.  I had no side effects at all.  I eat lowcarb-gluten free.

Hey are you a professional journalist? This article is very well written, as compared to most other blogs i saw today….
anyhow thanks for the good read!

Any idea when your Superhuman article will be published?

The doc should compare kre-alkalyn to all studies compaired to creatine are very promising.

Im 16 yrs old and i have osteoperosis. i go to a world class doctor who specializes in kidneys. i took a bone density test and 24hr urine test. i took creatine for weightlifting trying to get bigger. when he told me the results he said everything was normal except one thing. i was excreting too much calcium and not retaining too much citrate. (or something). this leads to kidney stones and other problems. creatine is horrible for you. it lowers bone density long term and puts stress on your kidneys. same with shakes. if you have a good diet thats enough protein already. when you take more protein it sits in your stomach waiting to be processed and is terrible for your kidneys. all this info is from my doctor.....just a heads up. i thought it was safe. but i was wrong.

Good post.

http://www.threeblendcreatine.co.uk

Benefits are not confined to men. Similar results were observed in another study that included women (age 65 and older), with outcomes in females comparable to males. This is especially important for females, given the common development of osteopenia and osteoporosis in postmenopausal females.

ATP is a long name for a phosphate that increases muscle contraction. Creatine in NO way is harmful, as you can find Creatine in red meats like the steak you eat after your workout. If taken properly (5mg a day), you will notice increases in size, power, as well as weight.

I took a supplement containing creatine one evening and the next morning I woke up with chest pounding arrythmia. I went to the ER, was diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation with rapid ventricular response and Rhabdomyolysis (creatine kinase 17000 u/L with a normal range 40-170 u/L) and got admitted to the hospital. The A-Fib lasted 24 hours and the rhabdomyolysis lasted 7 days. I had not associated the creatine with this episode, until a few months later I came across an article titled "Lone atrial fibrillation associated with creatine monohydrate supplementation"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15899738
So, before you supplement with creatinine, keep in mind the danger of atrial fibrillation.