Wheat Health: Is Wheat Dangerous To Your Health? Maybe So…

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In one form or another, wheat has been a major part of my diet and that of almost all Americans for over 150 years. The great wheat “bread basket” of the Midwestern plains have been a source of American pride for decades.

But some are saying wheat is not all that healthy for a certain group of Americans. And guess what? I find myself in that group!

Here’s the good side of wheat:
It has been a highly nutritious and affordable staple of our diet for a long time. But it is also one of the top eight sources of food allergies. That was news to me. I knew about peanuts, milk (my wife is allergic to this), shellfish, and a few others. But wheat? According to experts, true wheat allergies affect less than .5% of adult Americans. But intolerance to wheat and gluten in particular affects up to 15% of the population.

Including me.

Gluten intolerance is not widely recognized in the U.S., but is much more commonly known in Europe. In fact, it was on a trip to Ireland that I learned that my frequent food reactions were actually a form of celiac disease, better known as gluten intolerance.
Wheat, of course, is present in many of the foods we eat. Everything from bread to pasta, in food thickeners, glazes and starches. Even in ice cream and ketchup! If you suddenly find that you have gluten intolerance and must switch to a gluten free diet, prepare yourself for quite a challenge. On the other hand, if you choose to ignore it (once you are properly diagnosed by your physician), then you could risk dangers that include anemia, bowel cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and more.

A gluten free diet means you have to avoid not just wheat, but other grains such as barley, rye and possibly oats. In other words, most flour based products, and (gasp!), probably even beer! I must admit to still having an occasional beer with certain foods, but I can always tell the after effects a couple of days later when I have slight headaches, stomach problems, cancer sores, or a vague feeling of being unwell.

Many people have much more severe reactions than I have experienced. True wheat allergy sufferers (which is more severe than the gluten intolerance I experience) may have a sudden reaction that causes coughing, asthma, vomiting and even shock. Ordinary wheat and gluten intolerance take longer to be noticed and are more gradual in their effect—which also can make them more difficult to diagnose.

So how does gluten affect people with gluten intolerance? The gluten damages the lining of the small intestine which makes the body much less efficient in absorbing important nutrients.

Common symptoms of both wheat and gluten intolerance include pains in the chest, stomach bloating, joint and muscle pain, skin problems, fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome and others.

If you suspect you have any of these symptoms, be sure to ask your doctor about them, and ask if you are a good candidate for a test that would pinpoint any allergy you might have.

Family Health—Good Health Is a Choice, Not An Accident

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Most of us are reasonably healthy during the first 20 or 30 years of life. We can swim, hike, cycle, even run, without giving it a second thought. But then somewhere after those first two or three decades, things begin to change. And it’s no accident.

The body begins to slow down, lose some of its youthful vigor, and slowly, problems creep in. We get heavier. We get achy bones. We can no longer run up the stairs two steps at a time. What’s happening? It’s called aging.

But it does not necessarily have to mean that our bodies all run downhill fast. Staving off the aging process is something that, when you make the right choices, is very easy.

With those choices, you can maintain good health deep into your senior years. What are some of those choices?

Well, start with one of the most basic: Exercise.
It’s so easy to get comfortable in that easy chair watching TV instead of pulling out the bike or throwing on the walking shoes and heading out into the neighborhood for a nice 45 minute workout.

These choices are especially critical in a time when so many of us spend all our days in front of a computer. We’re not plowing fields or baling hay. We’re living a city lifestyle that our grandparents mostly did not. And it’s showing in our ever-widening waistlines and clogged arteries. But again, it’s a choice we’ve made.

It’s also easy to let the dust pile up on that set of weights in your storage room. Or to let that health club membership – the one you never used anyhow—run out at the end of the subscription.

We have a choice whether or not we’ll eat and drink things that aren’t just good, but good for us. That includes lots of fluids: water, tea, juice, etc. Without enough hydration, the body encounters all kinds of potential problems. But only if we make the choice not to keep the fluids coming.

Then there’s food.
We can choose what the supermarkets are so eager to sell us, those processed foods in the fancy boxes that just need a couple minutes in the microwave. Or we can go back to the type of foods that were once American staples, like whole wheat grains, fruits and colorful vegetables, with only a small amount of meat per week. Considering the eroding health of the nation, so much of it due to the unhealthy food advertisers are pushing off on us, one may wonder who will survive in America to see the 22nd century?

Will vegans be the only survivors?

We choose whether or not to smoke. Whether or not to drink alcohol? Whether or not to do drugs. It all comes down to choice. And millions of us, according to the mortality charts, are making bad choices. How is it that smoking is even allowed in this country? Has anything good ever come from it…anything but cancers of the lungs, mouth and throat, or emphysema, or any number of other killer diseases?

But it’s our choice, yours and mine. I for one choose to die with the body of a 40-year-old at the ripe old age of 100+. From boredom, hopefully.