gluten and the relationship to chronic pain

Chronic Pain.  The OTHER DAY I told you that according to a 2011 report by the Institute of Medicine,100 million Americans are dealing with some sort of pain-based health problem.  Although the majority of these people’s pain is not so bad that they cannot can deal with it or work through it, for many, it is debilitating or nearly so.  Could GLUTEN (wheat protein) be one of the major players in CHRONIC PAIN —- particularly in those dealing with “Mystery Pain”?   Although the majority of doctors don’t believe so (HERE), they are more wrong than most could ever imagine.  And unfortunately, the gap between medical research and medical practice continues to grow (HERE).  The cool thing is, there are some mainstream doctors who are starting to see the light.

The truth is, if you start looking at the peer-reviewed literature on Gluten and its ill effects on multiple body systems, you could keep yourself busy for decades.  There are literally thousands of studies from around the world tying Gluten to a wide range of problems including…….

• INFLAMMATION:  Inflammation is the root of nearly all non-genetic health conditions — and even a few that people like to blame on “BAD GENES“.  Gluten is a known driver of INFLAMMATION, and if Inflammation is not controlled, it will lead to a wide variety of health problems including….

 

• AUTOIMMUNITY:  Here’s the scoop people.  Out of control Inflammation is heavily linked to Autoimmunity in the peer-reviewed literature (HERE is a list of Autoimmune Diseases).  The critical thing to remember about AUTOIMMUNITY is that once your system is Autoimmune, all bets are off as far as what tissue the body will decide to make antibodies against and attack next.  Autoimmune Diseases frequently travel in packs, like wolves.  In other words, where you find one, you are likely to find many.  By the way, SYSTEMIC TENDINOSIS and SYSTEMIC ADHESIONS OF THE FASCIA can both fall into this category of “Systemic Autoimmunity”.

 

• FIBROMYALGIA (ADRENAL FATIGUE) / CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME:  Google “Fibromyalgia Gluten” and you get over 1.5 million hits.  To learn the truth about FIBROMYALGIA, just click the link.

 

• ENDOCRINE PROBLEMS:  This covers a lot of ground in the Autoimmune / Inflammatory Disease area.  Some of the specific problems include nearly all THYROID DISEASE, including Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, ADRENAL FATIGUE, which we just covered, and a wide range of others, including various forms of BLOOD SUGAR DYSREGULATION.  If you are interested in learning more about the Endocrine System, visit ENDOGUT — the site about the relationship between the Endocrine System, the Gut, and the Immune System.

 

• LEAKY GUT SYNDROME:  Speaking of “Gut”, why not take a moment to understand LEAKY GUT SYNDROME.  Although you might find the occasional exception to the rule, you cannot have Gluten Sensitivity without having a ‘Leaky Gut’. However, many people can and do have Gluten Sensitivity, without having Celiac Disease — a very specific Autoimmune Disease of the small intestine.

 

• NEURODEGENERATIVE DISORDERS:  Some of the neurologically degenerative diseases that have been associated with Gluten include things like ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE, PARKINSON’S DISEASE, MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS, various forms of NEUROPATHY such as Restless Leg Syndrome, and even SYMPATHETIC DOMINANCE. In fact, the largest class of symptoms of Gluten Intolerance fall into the NEUROLOGICAL CATEGORY.

 

• ARTHRITIS PAIN:  Gluten is frequently a factor whether your problem is due to DEGENERATIVE ARTHRITIS or an Autoimmune form of arthritis such as RHEUMATOID.
   

• OBESITY:  I could have included this in the first bullet point since OBESITY is considered to be an “Inflammatory” condition. Even people who are not technically Gluten Sensitive, will often have problems with grains.  Think about why this is.  What do you feed a beef if you want to put weight on it.  No, not grass.  You feed them grain.  Grain is what INCREASES BLOOD SUGAR and causes the metabolic pathways of “Fat Storage” to kick in.  HERE are some tips as far as losing weight is concerned.

 

• MYSTERY PAIN OR MUPS:  As crazy as it sounds, these two problems account for as much as 40% of all doctor visits here in America.  It’s certainly not that everyone with MYSTERY PAIN or M.U.P.S. is going to be Gluten Sensitive.  But if neither you nor the doctor(s) treating you has any real idea of what is going on, for Pete’s sake, go GLUTEN FREE.  If you are interested in seeing how this all fits into a ‘big picture’, HERE is a short post on the topic.

Believe you me; if there were any real money in “Gluten Intolerance”, the medical community would be all over it.  Chris Kresser, when explaining why so many people with Gluten Intolerances are not caught by standard medical testing, states that, “This is a huge problem because conventional lab testing for CD and of gluten intolerance only screens for antibodies to alpha-gliadin and transglutaminase-2. If you’re reacting to any other fractions of the wheat protein (e.g., beta-gliadin, gamma-gliadin or omega-gliadin), or any other types of transglutaminase (e.g., type 3 or type 6), you’ll test negative for CD and gluten intolerance no matter how severely you’re reacting to wheat.”  The point being that standard testing is not going to catch great numbers of cases of Gluten Sensitivity. 

Just the other day, I was treating a woman with PIRIFORMIS SYNDROME and her husband was having trouble wrapping his mind around the reason that a biblical food such as wheat could be so problematic as far as health was concerned.  I not only talked to him about THIS, I told him of the study I saw at one of DATIS KHARRAZIAN’S seminars a couple of years ago that talked about the fact that in Australia, there were six proteins recently found in wheat that were not in existence twenty years ago.  This is the result of genetic tinkering (GMO) and intense hybridization that has left us with grains that are radically different from the grains we were eating 50 or 60 years ago.

All of this information is great, but what would I do if I thought I were Gluten Sensitive?  Because my entire family is at least moderately Gluten Sensitive (and because PARKINSON’S DISEASE runs in my family), I have had to educate myself about this topic.

For many of you, just the thought of even attempting to go Gluten Free is the equivalent of trying to climb Mount Everest in your socks, shorts, and a T-shirt — with a 300 pound barbed-wire backpack strapped to your back.  Because so many of you are heavily ADDICTED TO CARBS AND SUGAR, the first week or so can be a bear.  Trust me; get through the first week and it gets easier.  But it must be done the right way if you hope to succeed in your endeavor.  To do it correctly, you must have at least a cursory understanding of Gluten Cross Reactors.

GLUTEN CROSS REACTORS are foods that have a close enough molecular shape to Gluten that your body will recognize them as such.  If you do not cut the Gluten Cross-Reactors out of your diet, you can go GLUTEN FREE, and wind up thinking Gluten is not your problem because you still have all of your problems / symptoms.  The healthier you are, the less likely you are to have a problem with the cross-reactors —- especially things like eggs or potatoes.  But if you are going to do it, why not go and DO IT RIGHT.