Gluten Sensitivity a Myth? Part 1

"So what we have here is s failure to communicate." BLUF: overly smug writer with limited understanding of the topic writes a cute story but misses the point.

"In one of the best examples of science working, a researcher who provided key evidence of (non-celiac disease) gluten sensitivity recently published follow-up papers that show the opposite."

"The first follow-up paper came out last year in the journal Gastroenterology. Here's the backstory that makes us cheer:

"The study was a follow up on a 2011 experiment in the lab of Peter Gibson at Monash University. The scientifically sound — but small — study found that gluten-containing diets can cause gastrointestinal distress in people without celiac disease, a well-known autoimmune disorder triggered by gluten.

"They called this non-celiac gluten sensitivity."

"For a follow-up paper, 37 self-identified gluten-sensitive patients were tested. According to Real Clear Science's Newton Blog, here's how the experiment went:

Subjects would be provided with every single meal for the duration of the trial. Any and all potential dietary triggers for gastrointestinal symptoms would be removed, including lactose (from milk products), certain preservatives like benzoates, propionate, sulfites, and nitrites, and fermentable, poorly absorbed short-chain carbohydrates, also known asFODMAPs. And last, but not least, nine days worth of urine and fecal matter would be collected. With this new study, Gibson wasn't messing around.

The subjects cycled through high-gluten, low-gluten, and no-gluten (placebo) diets, without knowing which diet plan they were on at any given time. In the end, all of the treatment diets — even the placebo diet — caused pain, bloating, nausea, and gas to a similar degree. It didn't matter if the diet contained gluten. (Read more about the study.)

The somewhat snarky conclusion:

"You can go ahead and smell your bread and eat it too. Science. It works."

But did it, in this case?  A better analysis follows in 2 days, or you can cruise over to marksdailyapple.com and read his response. 

In my view, the weakness of the study is much like a study that tested what diets worked best for aviator performance - high fat, high carb or high protein.  The answer - high fat.  However, the findings would have been even stronger in that case had the high fat group been allowed to adapt to high fat for three weeks.  Instead they were cycled weekly or so through the different diets.

This group (in the gluten study) were handled likewise - but many folks with gluten issues will tell you it's not just the meal that leaves them feeling bad, it's a long hangover in the gut that lasts after gluten exposure.  This could be due to permeable gut issues or other issues with wheat/gluten ingestion.  The point to me is that it takes most folks 30 days of elimination to notice the difference after removing offensive foods, and this study seems not to have allowed for that.  (Minor grammar edits 5/26/2014).

Oatmeal: Heart healthy. . . or Not?

Is this true? Is oatmeal heart healthy because it reduces LDL cholesterol?

I don't think so. Sure, oatmeal can reduce LDL cholesterol modestly. But try this: Have a serving of slow-cooked (e.g., steel-cut, Irish, etc.) oatmeal. Most people will consume oatmeal with skim or 1% milk and some dried or fresh fruit. Wait an hour, then check your blood sugar.

If you are not diabetic and have a fasting blood sugar in the "normal" range (<100 1-hour="" 150-180="" a="" and="" be="" blood="" but="" can="" dl-that="" dl="" effect="" even="" everybody="" frightening="" glucose="" have="" high.="" instant="" it="" majority="" mg="" not="" o:p="" oatmeal="" of="" or="" quick="" response="" s="" show="" sugar="" the="" this="" try="" typically="" very="" will.="" will="" with="" worse.="" you="">

If you have mildly increased fasting blood sugars between 100 and 126 mg/dl, after-oatmeal blood sugars will easily exceed 180 mg/dl. If you have diabetes, hold onto your hat because, even if you take medications, blood sugar one hour after oatmeal will usually be between 200 and 300 mg/dl.

www.healthcentral.com/cholesterol/c/7986/106385/oatmeal-heart?utm_content=buffer63c7a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Some folks with high LDL are sick and don't live well.  No one with out of control blood sugar is healthy and living well.  Skip the oatmeal and have some meat, vegetables, nuts and seeds, little fruit or starch, and no sugar/wheat.

Healthy Snack Food Is .... Snickers?

This is a great picture.  Snickers is "not as bad" as whole grain bread or oatmeal - and which one would you really rather eat if you have to pick a food that's bad for you?

http://s258.photobucket.com/user/Gyrobob_theOriginal/media/Healthy%20Stuff/SnickersBloodSugarTest01.jpg.html?src=pb

Wheat Threatens All Humans, New Research Shows - The Daily Beast

All grains produce lectins, which selectively bind to unique proteins on the surfaces of bacteria, fungi, and insects. These proteins are found throughout the animal kingdom. One protein in particular for which WGA has an extremely high affinity is N-Acetylglucosamine. N-Acetylglucosamine richly adorns the casing of insects and plays an important role in the structure of the cellular walls of bacteria. More importantly, it is a key structural component in humans in a variety of tissues, including tendons, joint surfaces, cartilage, the lining of the entire digestive tract, and even the lining of the hundreds of miles of blood vessels found within each of us.

It is precisely the ability of WGA to bind to proteins lining the gut that raises concern amongst medical researchers. When WGA binds to these proteins, it may leave these cells less well protected against the harmful effects of the gut contents.

WGA may also have direct toxic effects on the heart, endocrine, and immune systems, and even the brain. In fact, so readily does WGA make its way into the brain that scientists are actually testing it as a possible means of delivering medicines in an attempt to treat Alzheimer’s disease.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/10/wheat-threatens-all-humans-new-research-shows.html

It's hard to know how real these "may" statements are, but once I committed to near elimination of wheat from my diet, I'm glad I have.  The changes from wheat elimination were subtle, and the changes in my health over the last 6 years have been profound, and I'm not sure which health changes to attribute to which food changes.  All I can say is it is certainly a thing to be concerned with and to experiment with if your health is not what you wish it were.

Processed Food

I saw this loaf of no kidding "whole grain" bread in the local superstore last night.  Most of the 

"experts" will at the same time encourage you to avoid processed foods (they are the latest iteration of "the devil"), but eat all the "whole grains" you can stuff into your pie hole.  

Well, I'm still waiting for their explanation for why this isn't a processed food.  

Because you know, I know, and anyone with an IQ above the average lineman's jersey number knows you will never eat this crap as a bud from a wheat plant.  And the reason every culture since the start of agriculture removed the part of the wheat that is removed to make "refined wheat" is that it goes bad, quickly.  IOW - the whole part of the whole grains has a shelf life that is short, so if you want it to be edible at all on a supermarket shelf you have to preserve through processing.  

And after a lot of searching I can still find no credible explanation for why whole grains are such a great thing to eat - the claimed benefit in glycemic load?  Mythical, as any glycemic index chart will show.  There's some crazy stuff in the nutrition world, and the whole grain issues is right up there at the top of the list of what is bass ackwards.

Disclaimer - if you like this stuff and enjoy how it makes you feel, good for you.  My intended audience is those folks who want to make a change because they are no longer happy with how they feel or look or perform.  No offense intended to those of you who are happy processed whole grain gluttons.

Epidemiology - 100% track Record

I read the article at this link:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/health-gains-from-whole-grains/

I was curious - was there any evidence to support all the blah blah about "heart healthy whole grains"?

As I suspect, the answer in this article from Harvard was "no".  All they had was a series of epidemiological studies to back up their assertions about the benefits of whole grains.

That leaves me wondering, as I have for years, why this health fad is so ubiquitous amongst the health authorities.  Here's the theory, as described in the article linked above:
The bran and fiber in whole grains make it more difficult for digestive enzymes to break down the starches into glucose. Soluble fiber helps lower cholesterol. Insoluble fiber helps move waste through the digestive tract. Fiber may also kindle the body’s natural anticoagulants and so help prevent the formation of small blood clots that can trigger heart attacks or strokes. The collection of antioxidants prevents LDL cholesterol from reacting with oxygen. Some experts think this reaction is a key early step in the development of cholesterol-clogged arteries. Phytoestrogens (plant estrogens) found in whole grains may protect against some cancers. So might essential minerals, such as magnesium, selenium, copper, and manganese. These minerals may also help reduce the risk for heart disease and diabetes. And then there are the hundreds of substances that haven’t yet been identified, some or many of which may play as-yet-undiscovered roles in health.
Each of these conjectures is arguably flat wrong:
- Bran and fiber in theory work as they describe, but when tested, whole grain raise blood sugar higher and faster than regular grain based foods.  
- Lowering cholesterol has never, despite 40 years and billions of dollars, been proved to improve mortality.  
- Moving waste along:  all I can say is that you eat what they recommend you will probably need lots of fiber to help you "move things along."  If you don't, you won't.
- Interesting conjecture about anti coagulants and antioxidants - perhaps they work but there's no doubt that no one really knows.
- It's all great that grain has essential minerals, but if you want to talk conjecture, how the fact that grains are known to be laden with anti-nutrients that bind with minerals in a way that prevents you from absorbing them.  
In short, the folks in charge of the conventional wisdom have their own reasons for loving whole grains, but in many years of eating the least amount of grain I can possible get away with, I fell better than I've ever felt, my blood markers are the envy of my doctors, and I don't know anyone who's whole grained themselves to a healthier, leaner life.  I looks like another instance of epidemiology's 100% track record - that is, 100% wrong and counting.

Wheat Belly - It Can Be Literal

Pretty incredible "Granny Smith" story about wheat elimination after reading "Wheat Belly":

I asked her to read the book and several of the ladies in her apartment building were reading it so we decided to try the 4-week challenge together to support each other. We listened to Dr. Davis on CBC's Maritime Noon a few weeks ago and we were further convinced.

The changes in my Mom's health are unbelievable. After 25 years of her body being wracked with uncontrollable diarrhea, she has not had an episode in 13 days. This has not happened in 25 years. Her stool is firm and she is able to control her bowel urges. Her stomach is completely flat. All her pants are loose and comfortable at the waist. It is nothing short of a miracle.

She was tested for celiac years ago and tested negative. She tried eliminating sugar and dairy with no success. She has suffered so much and the cure is seemingly so easy. She couldn't continue working as a bank teller because she had to run to the bathroom constantly and without warning. She has been on a disability pension due to her medical issues. I am feeling angry at the medical community and society in general that no one ever suggested to my Mom to eliminate wheat.I am having a hard time believing that these miraculous changes will be sustainable. I don't crave wheat. I am not tempted to eat it for some odd reason, even though two weeks ago I fantasized constantly about multigrain bread, crackers and nachos. I can't imagine it being this easy to lose weight. If I continue at the rate I am going I will have lost 10% of my body weight and reached my goal weight in 4 short weeks.

http://www.lowcarbdietnews.com/success-story-eliminating-wheat-and-the-dramatic-impact-on-one-mothers-crohns-disease/

Gluten, FODMAPs, Kresser, Human Science, and IBS

This is a longer cut than I usually like to take, but for those who deal with this issue, it is very informative.  Point one - FODMAPs and gluten overlap to create IBS symptoms.  Two - human science is hard to do well.  Three - can you believe folks are actually testing this kind of thing, finally?  

So the first one was a study about the gluten-free diet and how it improves irritable bowel syndrome, diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome.  There are two different types of irritable bowel syndrome.  There’s constipation predominant and diarrhea predominant.  In this study, they took a bunch of people with diarrhea-predominant IBS, and they didn’t select them on the basis of prior self-reported gluten intolerance, which is good because some studies have done that and it kind of biases the results.  So it was just a random sample of patients with diarrhea-predominant IBS, and they put them on a gluten-free diet.  And they found that the people who followed a gluten-free diet had decreased stool frequency, so their diarrhea improved.  And they also had less gut permeability, so their guts weren’t as leaky.  And they had increased expression of tight-junction proteins that regulate the intestinal barrier, so again that’s another way of saying that the gut barrier integrity improved.  And these effects were greater in people with the HLA-DQ2 and DQ8, which is the genotype that is associated with gluten intolerance and celiac disease.  That’s not the first study that showed that, but it was another study that showed that a gluten-free diet can improve IBS.

This other study, though, showed that a gluten-free diet, while it does help with IBS, it doesn’t help IBS patients that are already on a low-FODMAP diet.  They took a bunch of patients, put them on a low-FODMAP diet, which we’ve talked about before.  FODMAP stands for “Fermentable Oligosaccharide, Disaccharide, Monosaccharide, And Polyols,” and they’re basically specific types of carbohydrates or sugars that are not well absorbed in the digestive tract, and then they can linger around and become food for pathogenic gut bacteria, and if SIBO is present, small intestine bacterial overgrowth, which is one of the causes of FODMAP intolerance, eating a lot of FODMAPs can make it worse, and then studies have shown that removing or greatly restricting FODMAP intake can have a profound effect on IBS.  In fact, I think some studies have shown up to 75% to 80% of patients improve, which is way, way better than any drug treatment for IBS.

So they were randomly assigned to groups, and they were all on a low-FODMAP diet.  But then there was one group that was placed on a high-gluten diet with 16 grams of gluten per day.  And there was another group that was on a low-gluten diet, and that was 2 grams of gluten per day and 14 grams of whey protein a day.  And then there was another group on a control diet with 16 grams of whey protein a day.  And then they assessed different markers of intestinal inflammation and immune activation and then different ways of measuring fatigue.  And this was a crossover study, so 22 of the patients then crossed over and ended up in a different group, so the patients that were on the low-gluten group went into the high-gluten group and vice versa.  And that’s a good way of doing a study like this.  It just strengthens the results.  If you find, for example, that patients in each case that were on the low-gluten diet did better rather than just one group of patients, it strengthens the results.

As suspected, the low-FODMAP diet universally reduced symptoms in everybody, regardless of whether they were eating gluten or not eating gluten.  But reintroducing gluten once FODMAPs were already really restricted didn’t cause any problems in this particular study group.  So there was no difference in symptoms in people on a low-FODMAP diet who were taking supplemental gluten and people that were on a low-FODMAP diet and weren’t taking gluten.

This is certainly interesting.  I mean, does this mean that we should eat gluten?  I don’t think so – you may not be surprised to hear me say that – for a few reasons:  Number one, these results actually directly contradict a previous study that the same researchers did.  It was a placebo-controlled study where they gave patients capsules, some with gluten and some with a placebo powder that didn’t have any gluten in it.  And these patients were also already on a fairly low-FODMAP diet, and they did that to kind of reduce any background noise because these researchers knew that FODMAPs can trigger or exacerbate IBS symptoms.  And in that study, the patients who did receive gluten had more symptoms and were worse off than the patients who didn’t.  So there are two completely different results there.

Steve Wright:  I haven’t seen this study, but do you think that in this new study they just measured the wrong variables or they measured the wrong things?

Chris Kresser:  I don’t know.  I mean, one thing that’s interesting is that they used whey as a control.  And certainly some patients with IBS would be sensitive to whey, in my experience.

http://chriskresser.com/new-ibs-fodmap-research-overtraining-and-acne-and-treating-alopecia-areata?inf_contact_key=8f699549cbbb29d03eb3868901628c6df7758a86c49421a0fd80cd5c469c2ba2

Kresser on Wheat

The BLUF:  if you have real celiac disease, you know how destructive wheat consumption is for your health.  For the rest of us, the impact still be significant and negative.
"Celiac disease (CD) was initially described in the first century A.D. by a Greek physician named Aretaeus of Cappadocia. (1) But neither Aretaeus nor anyone else knew that CD is caused by an autoimmune reaction to gluten, a protein in wheat. That didn't become clear until 1950 - several centuries later - when Dr. Willem Dicke, a Dutch pediatrician, conclusively proved that gluten was the culprit. (2) Dicke's discovery saved millions of children and adults from the perils of untreated celiac disease, including malnutrition, stunted growth, cancer, severe neurological and psychiatric illness and even death.

"Since then, the mainstream view of gluten intolerance has been relatively black or white: Either you have celiac disease, in which case even a small amount of gluten will send you running to the bathroom in three seconds flat, or you don't, and you can chug down beer and bagels without fear. This "all-or-nothing" view has led to some doctors telling patients that suspect they're sensitive to gluten but test negative for CD that they're simply imagining an affliction that doesn't exist."

"It turns out those doctors are wrong."

Chris continues:
"Here's the crucial thing to understand: Celiac disease is characterized by an immune response to a specific epitope of gliadin (alpha-gliadin) and a specific type of transglutaminase (tTG-2). But we now know that people can (and do) react to several other components of wheat and gluten - including other epitopes of gliadin (beta, gamma, omega), glutenin, WGA and deamidated gliadin - as well as other types of transglutaminase, including type 3 (primarily found in the skin) and type 6 (primarily found in the brain). (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)"

This article is a must read if you have any mysterious health issues. Read on to learn why you might benefit from a gluten free challenge, and how to complete one.

PN Strikes Out

There are few who are willing to write about kids and food, and this one makes me realize why. Even thought PN puts their finger on several true and important elements of childhood obesity, they fail to make the most significant point and they fail to make workable recommendations.

Whole grains for kids?  REALLY?  If you want to feed that crap to your kids, by all means ignore my fears of a food that isn't even good for adults.  If you have any concern for the novelty of modern grains in the human diet, the fact that at least 10% of humans are gluten sensitive and 3% find gluten downright toxic, or the issues with opiods, phytates or the high glycemic load, then like me you'll grit your teeth every time your kids eat birthday cake or pizza with friends.  But I would never willingly give my kids wheat/pasta on the notion that it's a good idea for their health.  I just give in to the reality that, like porn and violence and a government controlled education system, I cannot protect them from these things; perhaps I can limit the impact.

Yes, I just said that wheat is to food what porn is to healthy sexuality and what TV/movie/game violence is to a robust defense of one's own physical safety.

PN states that kids get fat from eating the most calorie dense foods - and whole grain foods are just that.  Modern wheat products pack a huge quantity of highly digestible carbohydrate into a package that typically has to be dressed in some flavor enhancing nastiness to be desired by kids - there's no long line of kids hoping to pack in pasta without a flavorful topping, or bread on a sandwich that has nothing to make it sweet.

For example, take a PB and J sandwich with 2 slices of bread and 2 ounces PB w 2 tablespoons of jelly.  This "food" has 24g protein, 84g carbs, 38.5g fat (for a sweet total of 778.5 kcal).  This would be excessive if were only 1 slice, 1 ounce, and 1 tablespoon (as I think of it, I'll bet most sandwiches are more like a half ounce of PB, but I used to slather on the jelly; it was like a contest to see how much jelly the bread would hold without collapsing or without the jelly sliming out of the side of the sandwich. Either way 40g of carbs from 2 slices of bread is not what I want my kids to start a meal with).  I might rather feed my kid a Snickers bar, which "only" has 4g protein, 27g of carbs, and 12g of fat for a fairly moderate 220 kcal but it has no gluten, phytates or opioids.  

As for eating the most "calorie dense foods", there's fat which has more kcal per gram than other macronutrients, but which is hard to overeat by itself.  No one gets fat eating lard from the tub.  What people can down by the box or bucket is crackers, cookies, bread, and other super carbs (rice, pasta, potatoes). Still, some can eat all that and do fine until they reach a critical threshold of sugar.

Finally, PN offers as advice to eat only whole, unprocessed foods.  Right - like meat, vegetables, nuts and seeds, little fruit or starch, no sugar/wheat.  BECAUSE WHEAT IS ONLY A FOOD IF YOU PROCESS THE HECK OUT OF IT!  Holy cow, how can there be so much confusion about this topic - just look at the friggin' label.  If you want to eat unpulverized wheat buds, then you will at least be eating whole, unprocessed whole grains.  More power to you.

PN would probably counter that there are many people and kids who can do just fine on wheat.  They are likely right.  Most kids also survive automobiles, plane travel and infectious disease.  To me it's a simple matter to put them in a car seat to better their odds if there's a crash, and I'll have them minimize their wheat intake as well.  They'll get far too much wheat even if we never offer it to them.

As for workable recommendations, good luck stuffing your kids with fruits and veggies as PN recommends.  They'll eat the fruit all day.  Why that seems like a good idea is beyond me.  It does beat wheat as a food, but fruit is no panacea if your concern is an overweight kid, and if your kids eat fruit like mine do, you'll need a second mortgage to feed them.

According to the "Perfect Health Diet" author Paul Jaminet, kids DO need more carbohydrate than adults do.  Some fruit, veggies as able, good quality milk, sweet potatoes, white rice and very limited sweets (like small pieces of very high quality dark chocolate) can get them what they need without having to declare gluten Armageddon on their GI tracts.

Wheat Free?

This is a very nicely done bit about why you want to ditch the wheat.  Short version - it's all bad, no good, pokes holes in your guy, spikes blood sugar, feeds harmful gut bacteria, breaks down into addictive opioid like compounds, and might be the cause of the end of the earth if the Mayans were right.  Or not.  But either way, try going wheat free for 3 weeks and see if you feel all the better for it in joint pain, overall inflammation, and perhaps even fat loss.

http://news.discovery.com/human/why-you-should-probably-stop-eating-whea
t-121214.html

Navy's Official Guidance

Grains: "Come Back to Earth" . Carbohydrate = FUEL for the brain & muscles
. Main sources are: Breads, cereals, grains, beans, fruits, and vegetables.
. What to look for in a grain: The least processed forms of grain you can find.
. Think brown and found close to the ground!
. The best choices will have more than 3g of FIBER per serving.

This is part of the Navy's NOFFs fueling series.
http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/support/physical/Documents/PRP/NOF
FS_Operational%20Fueling.pdf

Overall, this is not as bad, and is very much like what is recommended by Precision Nutrition, and that is an organization I respect for the results they generate in clients. But this approach is not going to help many busy Sailors lean out. The Navy has lost something like 5000 Sailors in recent years to physical readiness failures, primarily due to excess body fat. It's painful for the individuals and not great for the USN to bleed trained folks due to preventable causes.  Frankly, if they held an audited PFA right now, the numbers would be astronomical.  The number of folks walking around both out of body fat standards, and who could not comply with the situp, pushup and run standards - if they were actually enforced - would be a stunner to the organization.   Whereas much of the Navy is characterized by integrity, the PFA program is unfortunately anything but that.

Why won't NOFFs help?
-multiple small meals throughout the day is proven to help under some conditions, but does NOT improve metabolic rates. Multiple small meals does not "rev up your metabolism."  It is also a logistical challenge for those overwhelmed with a remarkably demanding schedule while underway sailing ships to eat quality small meals on 2-3 hour intervals. I think the "many small meals plan" is good for those who are motivated to change, who have a coach, and who have the time to deal with the logistical requirements. That's not going to apply for too many Sailors.
-For the life of me, I can't see the logic of recommending dense carb sources like grains for folks that need to lose weight. Yes, some can lose weight while eating high carb foods but the real question is - why
include them? Delete grains and you lose NO essential nutrients. On a per calorie basis, grains are a poor choice for micronutrients, even for folks that can tolerate the gluten, phytates, the opioids and the obnoxious, gut attacking fiber.
-What function do grains and oatmeal and rice and such serve in the human diet? Only one - to allow adequate caloric intake for humans who are not hunter/gatherers. Grains are storable, tradable, can be used to feed livestock, and large scale farming allowed some folks to farm so others could work as blacksmiths, politicians, religious leaders, and or develop full time trade.  Grains enable "civilization" and allowed "civilized" peoples to murder and displace their physical superior hunter/gather neighbors, by enabling a higher sustainable birth rate. 

Nutritionally, grains are a second rate source of micronutrients and a potentially injurious source of calories (injurious due to the fact that it is so easy to eat more than is needed). In other words, grains are a "staple" when you cannot get actual human food.  The advent of modern grain species (this isn't your biblical wheat you are eating folks) made it all worse, as did cessation of traditional preparation practices (soaking, fermenting).

In short - those with excess body fat need to reduce carb intake. It's simple, it's executable aboard ship (I've done it), and it works for most if not all people.

The other part of NOFFs that is questionable is post exercise guidance.  Supposedly, after you work out, your body is depleted of glycogen, so you have to pack in a bunch of carbohydrate so you can "recover" and train again quickly.

Ok - so you exercise to burn calories, then eat more food so you can exercise again?

You would almost think this would be a self defeating cycle for a individual who's biggest concern is weight loss and restoration of health, except for all those studies showing fat loss for populations that exercise. And that's the rub, since for every study that shows an exercise benefit for fat loss, there are others that do not. And even beyond that - I see folks working out every day, and their waistlines prove exercise is not the key to the fat loss kingdom.  As the saying goes, "You cannot out train a bad diet."  So skip that "recovery" eating, eat when you are hungry, train for the desired physical attributes you desire, vice training to burn calories.  Eat meat, vegetables, nuts and seeds, little fruit or starch, no sugar no wheat.

Obviously, I'm a proponent of exercise is awesome to enhance life. Exercise is essential to ageing well. The right exercise improves mood and sustains your capacity to do what you like. Dieticians and the rest of the professional fitness industry have been saying "eat small meals many times per day to keep your metabolism in high gear" and "eat a lot of fiber to feel full and reduce glycemic impact" and "eat less fat because fat has 9 kcal/gram" for so long that it's just what has to be said, regardless of the lack of proof. To admit that grains are poor food choices is to admit that fat is a good food choice for those seeking to lose weight.
It's the math - if you eat 100-150g/day of carbs, that's about 400-600 kcal. Most folks would be hard pressed to eat 100g/day of protein, and even that would only add another 300-400 kcal (depending on the latest guesses about the actual caloric impact of protein in the human body).  1000 kcal/day is only half of what most folks need. That means the extra 50% of kcal has to come from good quality fat, which is still, to most of the exercise and fitness world, the rough equivalent of rat poison.  Except it isn't, it is the primary human fuel, which is why we adapted to store it for present and future needs.
What is likely to happen with NOFFs is that busy Sailors will keep right on working hard and will eat too many easy to find carbs, ignore the satisfying high fat snacks that would help, and won't make the one fundamental shift that will improve their physical and mental performance, their health, their appearance and their appetite: They won't practice carb restriction.

The significance of carb restriction is foremost that it helps to reduce hunger, and secondarily, that all of the symptoms of ill health that accompany obesity are reduced more rapidly via carb restriction than by any other approach.
It is, of course, simple to say "carb restriction" but hard to practice it. In the long run, cultural change is extremely difficult for an institution like the US Navy, but without the right information, it's impossible.

Your Leaky Gut May Be Caused By Excessive Grain Consumption

There's no human requirement for grains. That's the problem with the USDA recommendations. They think we're hardwired as a species to eat grains. You can get by just fine and meet every single nutrient requirement that humans have without eating grains. And grains are absolutely poor sources of vitamins and minerals compared to fruits and vegetables and meat and fish.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/01/21/grains-causing-gut-leaks.aspx?e_cid=20120121_DNL_art_1

Gliadin is the primary immunotoxic protein found in wheat gluten and is among the most damaging to your health.  Gliadin gives wheat bread its doughy texture and is capable of increasing the production of the intestinal protein zonulin, which in turn opens up gaps in the normally tight junctures between intestinal cells (enterocytes).

There is a growing body of scientific evidence showing that grains, as well as legumes, contain anti-nutrients and other problem substances that may increase intestinal permeability. This includes:

In celiac disease the body will make antibodies to gliadin after it is digested by the intestinal enzyme tissue transglutaminase, resulting in severe autoimmune damage to the delicate, absorptive surfaces of the intestines. It does not, however, require full blown celiac disease to suffer from the adverse effects of this protein. In fact, it is likely that our intolerance to gliadin and related wheat proteins is a species-specific intolerance, applicable to all humans, with the difference being a matter of the degree to which it causes harm.

This helps to explain why new research clearly shows gliadin increases intestinal permeability in both those with, and thosewithout, celiac disease.

Leaky gut - a bad way to start the new year.