Grains
It may seem strange to have grains under the ‘Sugars’ section but grains are 75% carbohydrate and can behave like sugar to the body. They are also however a prebiotic and therefore have positive effects on your gut microbes, with some important buts…
Grains do contain vitamins and minerals and studies show that eating grains is associated with a lowered risk of heart disease and cancers. The data, however, isn’t clear cut. For example, although it seems that eating grains will lower your risk of getting type 2 diabetes, this is only true if you eat less than 90 g per day of grains.
Eat above 90 grams and your risk of getting type 2 diabetes will go up. What’s more, when studies look at death from any cause, they find that there is no benefit to health in eating more than 100 grams per day of grains. To put this in perspective, a slice of bread my weigh in at 40 grams, so eat 2 slices of bread and you are almost at your limit. If you eat a pot of oats on your way to do your daily commute, you may also be eating into your daily quota, as a pot of oats can contain as much as 70 grams of oats.
Grains and leaky gut
What is difficult to ascertain from these studies is whether or not the base population had gut dysbiosis issues. What I find in patients is that if they have gut dysbiosis issues they are less likely to be able to cope with grains. Patients I see with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia or difficult-to-treat joint problems often need to forgo grains for a period of time to allow the gut to heal.
Grains are sugars
Let’s look at why I put ‘grains’ in the ‘sugars’ lectures. Glycaemic index (GI) is a way of classifying carbohydrates. Foods with a high GI are rapidly absorbed and have a marked effect on blood glucose and insulin levels. The standard against which foods are classified is white bread which is said to have a GI of 100. Many people would think that eating a ‘Mediterranean’ diet with whole grains including bread, pasta and pizza would be good for health.
However, take a look at the GI for pasta and pizza? Granted, the levels are not as high as eating white bread but if your diet consists of breakfast cereals, then rice/pasta, your overall levels are likely to be over 90 grams per day and your glucose/insulin levels may never get a break.
Grains, gluten and toxins
Many people have reported that they have become gluten intolerant. Gluten is a group of proteins that give dough its elasticity. It is present in grains such as wheat, barley and rye. Oats are not said to contain gluten and so many people feel that by substituting in oats instead of other gluten containing grains, they are doing their health a favour.
In my clinical career, I have noticed a huge rise in the number of people that are can’t eat gluten containing grains. I found that in my clinical practice grains can be associated with gut dysbiosis and chronic inflammation. At first, I thought that this was just gluten containing grains and I would ask patients to do a short trial without gluten-containing grains.
Many people noticed an improvement in their symptoms. However, a good proportion did not. When I looked further at what these people were eating, oats would be a common food that people were eating for breakfast. Oats doesn’t contain gluten so why the issues? I was shocked when I started to look at the research papers.
Although the answer was not immediately obvious, it seemed that the reason that oats were causing problems was likely to be due to the toxins such as pesticides and moulds that the oats become subject to either when growing, or during storage. I then began to realise that perhaps one of the reasons that many people don’t feel so well when they eat grains is because of hypersensitivity to these toxins.
Blood tests are available that can measure toxin hypersensitivity and I see this often in patients with chronic conditions. Toxins and toxin hypersensitivity represents the ‘untold story’ about grains.
Summary
- Grains are a prebiotic
- Grains will increase your blood sugar
- 90g per day isn’t a lot of grains
- Remember the ‘untold story’