The FastDay Forum

I'm reading Grain Brain by Dr David Perlmutter at the moment which talks about much of what was said above. In fact, it is scary how much of a detrimental effect wheat/gluten has on the brain. Well worth a read.

Thanks for the links Rawkaren, I will devour them later

Ballerina x

Hi @rawkaren
Thanks for the links Karen will read and try to take all info into my fogged up brain asap
As you'll remember I gave up my cereal based breakfasts and breads very soon after finding 5:2 firstly to save the calories on my 4 feed days but very quickly found thanks to this fab forum that carbs were the culprit of my water retention and started to reduce my carb intake further with exceptional results.
Obviously my weightloss has helped with this and also my mood changes have been so very different too and I know most people would say its more to do with my reduced weight but I know I feel so much more happier on my days when I've reduced my carb intake even more therefore the bread and breakfast cereals have almost gone from my life completely and I see no reason for either to return because I feel healthier happier with far less mood swings and just as importantly almost pain free which is absolutely amazing and totally opposite to the way I felt
14months ago.
off to read each link very slowly.

It is currently quite faddish for doctors who don't have a great deal of background in either nutrition or endocrinology to get $$$$ book contracts for books that demonize wheat.

In fact, what is going on is more complex. There are several new factors in our diets that are promoting gluten intolerance that have little to do with the plusses or minusses of wheat itself. The real problem is substances provoking what is called leaky gut syndrome, which is when the gut lining breaks down and allows partially digested proteins through into the blood, where they provoke antibodies.

Since wheat is a very commonly eaten food, gluten is one of the proteins that is leaking into the blood when the gut is damaged.

So what is damaging the gut? Several known culprits are the phytates in soy protein and, more ominously, ibuprofen, the nonstreroidal anti-inflammatory pain killer swigged by millions. It is also possible that aspirin does this, as it is notorious for eroding the stomach lining.

If you are gluten sensitive and have a leaky gut, chances are that switching to other proteins will also lead to immune attacks on those proteins too. So you want to cut all soy protein out of your diet, if possible, and stop taking pain pills that damage your digestive tract.

I had a friend with a severe autoimmune arthritis who found that she had to eliminate ALL beans from her diet to reduce inflammation, not just gluten. She had been a vegetarian and had eaten a lot of beans and had developed the same kind of intolerance to beans as to wheat.

Very interesting subject. I have experienced increased migraines with sugar consumption. I have eaten low carb for 2 years to help with daily migraines and I now have only 2 or 3 per month...and those migraines are not severe. If I fall off the wagon and sugar up for a couple of days the headaches are sever and last a couple of days. The Dr. at the Headache Clinic in Springfield, Mo suggested the low carb diet for migraines.

I am very interested in how sugar/high carbs affect moods and inflammation. I know I feel much better the morning after a fast than I do the morning after a feed! Crazy.

Interesting that the sugar/grain thing has come up again. Here is the conversation following the release of the Dr. Perlmutter book last year for those who are interested the-5-2-lab-f10/dr-perlmutter-and-his-book-grain-brain-t9346.html

Quote: "So what is damaging the gut? Several known culprits are the phytates in soy protein and, more ominously, ibuprofen, the nonstreroidal anti-inflammatory pain killer swigged by millions. It is also possible that aspirin does this, as it is notorious for eroding the stomach lining.

If you are gluten sensitive and have a leaky gut, chances are that switching to other proteins will also lead to immune attacks on those proteins too. So you want to cut all soy protein out of your diet, if possible, and stop taking pain pills that damage your digestive system."

Thank you for this information. I am allergic to paracetamol and aspirin is also dodgy, so I take ibuprofen in desperate times of need only. Is there a safe alternative please?

Azureblue,

Some NSAIDs are marketed as being less likely to inflame the stomach, Celebrex (celecoxib), in particular, but I don't know if this works out in practice.

I have the opposite problem as you do. I can't take aspirin or any of the NSAIDs as they cause terrible ringing in my ears, so the only pain drug I can take is Tylenol. Because it can be toxic to the liver, and its toxicity varies with lifetime dose, I am very, very careful to only take it when I really have to. (Like today, alas, when my sciatica is quite painful.) I take the lowest dose that is effective, which is lower than what they suggest on the bottle.

So my guess is that if you only take the ibuprofen when you really need to, you should do fine. My husband ended up hospitalized with bleeding from both ends thanks to taking ibuprofen every day for a while to counter exercise-related muscle aches. They scoped him and found inflammation everywhere, so since then he only takes it if he has a serious inflammation (like recently when he got a splinter under a nail.) He has not had any repetition of the bleeding problem, so it was probably just overdoing it, as so many people do with those over the counter pain pills.

[Tracieknits]

Oh my peebles - I had never heard that about lifetime dose! I will have to go look into it. I've had a lot of tylenol the last few days because I"m dealing with an abcessed tooth. Thanks for sharing that.

@Tracieknits

Here is the journal article laying out the risks of all the pain killers. It's from the New England Journal of Medicine which is one of the most highly trusted journals. So I take it seriously.

Risk of Kidney Failure Associated with the Use of Acetaminophen, Aspirin, and Nonsteroidal Antiinflammatory Drugs. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199412223312502?ck=nck

[Tracieknits]

Thank you for this!!!

There's no way I've taken more than 104 tablets in any given year, so I'm feeling a lot better about this now. I think my average is more like 20-30 a year for most years

Nothing scientific, only my experiences through the years....

In the past, I had 2 very bad depressions. One in 1993, after I was raped, and one in 2007 after I had a surgery, a kind of post traumatic thing that kind happen, apparently. I also had some obsessive compulsive disorder where I had to check a zillion times if every doors and windows were really closed (that took me 30 minutes before I can actually go and even then, I had to ask someone to go and check my apartment because I wasn't really really sure) or I couldn't check my mail as I was scared to death about what I would find and so went to check it only once a month which was really really bad. When there was something happening, I buried my head in the sand and neglected to take care of those things, because I was scared which made things worse. Everything is good now, despite all the stress in the daily life, and some really stressful even from these past months. I worked really really hard to be at the point where I am in control.

Fasting really really helped me with that. It's not really what I eat (I didn't go too low carbs as I love some bread, pastas and rice but I eat them once a week) but the control I have now. Fasting gives me a sense of peace which is much needed when you have big stuff to deal with and that helps with the stress level and the mood, as well. I am one of the lucky ones, I never ever get grumpy or irritated on fast days but the sense of peace I feel since I am fasting is a real big help. Even more than a year after I did my very first fast and even if I am "only" maintaining for 7 months now, I am looking forward to those fasts every week.

About the painkillers, I have a very bad allergy to ibuprofen and I don't tolerate aspirin well, so I won't take some and, as I am a big homeopathy nut I don't take paracetamol more than 5 times a year, the rest of the time I deal with the pain on my own with breathing exercises or arnica so no effect whatsoever on my diet. I know, I am nuts