Here, my primary focus will be on the mental health impacts of wheat, but for even more information about why wheat isn’t the health food you’ve been lead to believe, please review these two articles, and the long list of related studies.

The Side Effects of Wheat Consumption—It’s Not Just about Celiac Disease

Many of you may be familiar with celiac disease (CD), a gastrointestinal disorder characterized by intolerance to wheat gluten. According to statistics from the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center, an average of one out of every 133 otherwise healthy people in the United States suffers from CD. However, an estimated 20-30 percent of the world’s population may carry the genetic susceptibility to celiac disease—and the way to avoid turning these genes ‘on’ is by avoiding gluten.

When you consider that undiagnosed CD is associated with a nearly four-fold increased risk of premature death, the seriousness of this food sensitivity becomes quite evident. The primary disease mechanism at play is chronic inflammation, and chronic inflammatory and degenerative conditions are endemic to grain-consuming populations.

However, other rampant health afflictions include depression, ADD/ADHD, and Alzheimer’s disease, just to name a few. As it turns out, excessive wheat consumption may play a significant role here as well. In fact, there’s evidence suggesting that gluten sensitivity may be at the root of many neurological and psychiatric conditions.