Why Wheat Is A Concealed Cause of Many Diseases, III: Adjuvant Activity

Posted by on November 1, 2010 34 comments

We’ve been looking into how wheat can cause autoimmune diseases other than the “classic” wheat-associated diseases, celiac disease and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

The first post in the series discussed how wheat can cause a leaky, permeable gut that lets toxins and bacteria into the body. The second post discussed how wheat can itself generate a variety of auto-antibodies that attack nerves, brain, connective tissue and joints.

Now, we want to look at how wheat can create diseases by binding to other molecules and causing the body to form antibodies to them. Wheat can thereby cause allergies against foods as well as autoimmune attacks on self molecules.

Adjuvant Activity of Wheat Germ Agglutinin

Immunologically speaking, an “adjuvant” is a molecule that when bound to another molecule makes it much more immunogenic. Adjuvants such as aluminum salts are used in vaccines to make the immune system produce antibodies more readily against the target protein. This lowers the vaccine dose needed for immunity.

Wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) is a wheat lectin. (It is not part of gluten.) WGA can act as an adjuvant, causing the body to generate antibodies against proteins that, in isolation, the body would not form antibodies against. 

For instance, antibodies against the egg protein ovalbumin are not generated if it enters the body alone, but are generated if it is accompanied by WGA. [1]

So don’t eat toast with your eggs! If you have a leaky gut, the wheat might give you an egg allergy.

Haptenization Activity of Wheat Gliadin

A similar process that helps create auto-antibodies is “haptenization.” The immune system forms antibodies more readily against large molecules than small ones. (This helps avoid autoimmunity, since small molecules are more likely to have similar human peers.)

When two small molecules bind together, so they look like one big one, the immune system is more likely to form antibodies against the large complex. These antibodies may then react against one of the molecules individually, even if it is not paired up. If the targeted molecule is human, then the antibody is an auto-antibody.

One reason wheat gliadin is so disruptive to the body is that it binds strongly to sugars. The average molecule of wheat gliadin is bound to 1 to 2 molecules of glucose and 2 molecules of sialic acid, another sugar. [2] Since a lot of human molecules have sialic acid residues, gliadin can bind to them.

One of the sialic acid-containing molecules gliadin binds to is called GM1 ganglioside. This molecule is found on the intestinal brush border, but it is also found in nerves. When wheat binds to GM1 ganglioside on the intestinal surface, it induces the formation of auto-antibodies that attack the ganglioside in nerves. In 65% of patients with gluten sensitivity and peripheral nerve damage, anti-ganglioside antibodies are found. [2]

Conclusion

Wheat could be a concealed cause of many food allergies, through WGA’s adjuvant activity. If so, then many food allergies may gradually disappear after wheat is given up.

Wheat proteins can also bind to an extraordinarily large number of human proteins, in part by binding to sialic acid or other carbohydrate residues of glycoproteins or glycolipids, and has a chance to induce antibody formation against many of those proteins.

The bewildering array of ways in which wheat can trigger attacks on human tissue makes it impossible to identify all the wheat-caused diseases.  The only thing we can say for sure is that if you have a disease, it’s a good idea to give up wheat. You may give up your illness at the same time.

Related Posts

Other posts in this series:

  1. Wheat Is A Cause of Many Diseases, I: Leaky Gut Oct 26, 2010.
  2. Why Wheat Is A Concealed Cause of Many Diseases, II: Auto-Antibody Generation Oct 28, 2010.

References

[1] Lavelle EC et al. The identification of plant lectins with mucosal adjuvant activity. Immunology. 2001 Jan;102(1):77-86. http://pmid.us/11168640

[2] Alaedini A, Latov N. Transglutaminase-independent binding of gliadin to intestinal brush border membrane and GM1 ganglioside. J Neuroimmunol. 2006 Aug;177(1-2):167-72.  http://pmid.us/16766047.

Healthy Monster Diets

Posted by on October 30, 2010 18 comments

It’s no surprise to students of diet that none of the long-lived monsters eat wheat.

Vampires, of course, live for centuries, and their diet resembles the traditional diet of the Masai. Both groups, indeed, are known for their teeth; like vampires, the Masai rarely get cavities.

There are, to be sure, some monsters with a predilection for sweets. They tend to be short, often barely three feet tall; and their lifespan seems to be short. Often, a sweet-toothed monster is never seen again after a single night spent gorging on sweets.

In searching the web for information on monster diets, I came across this song, which I take to be a celebration of monsters’ favorite way of preparing “safe starches.” Enjoy!

Book is Available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble

Posted by on October 29, 2010 37 comments

Amazon and Barnes and Noble have put up pages for the book. For some reason they didn’t post the cover image, I’m looking into that.

Here are the pages:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Health-Diet-Youthful-Vitality/dp/0982720904/

Barnes and Noble:  http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Perfect-Health-Diet/Paul-Jaminet/e/9780982720905/

Also we shipped out a hundred or so books this morning, and expect to do the rest Saturday and Monday. So those who pre-ordered can expect their books soon!

Why Wheat Is A Concealed Cause of Many Diseases, II: Auto-Antibody Generation

Posted by on October 28, 2010 22 comments

This week we’re examining why wheat is the most dangerous food, and focusing on its role in causing autoimmune diseases. In Tuesday’s post, we talked about how wheat induces a leaky gut; today, we’ll look at how wheat generates auto-antibodies that attack self tissue.

Known Wheat-Derived Auto-Antibodies

In the book we talk about the role of gluten in creating auto-antibodies that attack tissue transglutaminase (tTg), a human enzyme that is abundant in the thyroid and gut. This leads to Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and celiac disease.

However, wheat can generate auto-antibodies to other human molecules besides tTg. These include:

  • Collagens I, III, V, and VI. tTG catalyzes the cross linking of gliadin peptides with interstitial collagen types I, III, and VI, leading to formation of antibodies against collagen. Celiac disease patients have been found to have circulating auto-antibodies to collagens I, III, V, and VI. [1]
  • Synapsin I. Synapsins are a family of proteins regulating neurotransmitter release at synapses. By forming antibodies against wheat gliadin in animals, and then immunoprecipitating human proteins with these antibodies, investigators found that antibodies to wheat gliadin bind strongly to synapsin I. Anti-wheat antibodies from celiac disease patients bind to human synapsin I. [2]

Other known targets of wheat-generated auto-antibodies include gangliosides, actin, calreticulin and desmin. [3,4]

More Wheat-Derived Auto-Antibodies Still to be Found

Scientists may have only begun to identify the human proteins that wheat can generate antibodies against.

For instance, auto-antibodies taken from the blood of celiac disease patients bind to an unidentified 55 kiloDalton protein expressed on the nuclear membrane of intestinal cells, endothelial cells and fibroblasts. [5] That nuclear protein remains unidentified today.

Effects of Wheat-Derived Auto-Antibodies

These various wheat-derived auto-antibodies can trigger attacks against a wide range of tissues. Blood vessels are a frequent target. In our book we note that heart transplants are generally precipitated by wheat-derived autoimmune attacks on the heart. [6]

Nerves are another. Wheat-derived antibodies against neuronal tissue, probably targeting synapsin, can produce “neurologic complications such as neuropathy, ataxia, seizures, and neurobehavioral changes.” [2]

Neurologic deficits, including axonal neuropathy and cerebellar ataxia, are among the most common extraintestinal symptoms associated with celiac disease. In addition, elevated levels of anti-gliadin Ab have been associated with idiopathic neuropathy and ataxia, even in the apparent absence of the characteristic mucosal pathology. [2]

I’ve bolded that last part because it shows that you can have neurological damage from wheat even if your intestine is doing fine.

Neuronal synapsin has been reported to be reduced in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. [7] Both diseases have been tied to wheat consumption. It’s possible that wheat-derived autoimmune attacks on synapsin may be a causal factor in both diseases.

The ability of wheat to induce peculiar autoimmune reactions is perhaps best illustrated in schizophrenia. Schizophrenics frequently have antibodies to wheat, but not the ones that occur in celiac disease:

In contrast to celiac disease patients, an association between the anti-gliadin immune response and anti-TG2 antibody or HLA-DQ2 and -DQ8 markers was not found in individuals with schizophrenia. In addition, the majority of individuals with schizophrenia and anti-gliadin antibody did not exhibit antibody reactivity to deamidated gliadin peptides. Further characterization of the antibody specificity revealed preferential reactivity towards different gluten proteins in the schizophrenia and celiac disease groups. These findings indicate that the anti-gliadin immune response in schizophrenia has a different antigenic specificity from that in celiac disease and is independent of the action of transglutaminase enzyme and HLA-DQ2/DQ8. [8]

There are multiple mechanisms by which wheat consumption contributes to schizophrenia and other mental illnesses – we mentioned opioid peptides last week – and elimination of wheat should be a first step in treating schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other mental illnesses.

Conclusion

Wheat is a toxic food which can trigger auto-antibodies against a variety of tissues, precipitating a diverse array of autoimmune conditions. Many of these autoimmune conditions have not yet been characterized.

Other grains and legumes can induce autoimmune damage in similar fashion. In a comment today, John Wilson noted that he had recurring mouth sores until he gave up peanuts, which cured the problem. Peanuts are a legume and, much like wheat, contain a variety of immunogenic toxins.

If you have an odd, unexplained medical condition, try Step Two of our book – removing toxic foods from the diet. Removing immunogenic toxins will cure many pathologies, and make it easier to diagnose whatever is left over.

Related Posts

Other posts in this series:

  1. Wheat Is A Cause of Many Diseases, I: Leaky Gut Oct 26, 2010.
  2. Why Wheat Is A Concealed Cause of Many Diseases, III: Adjuvant Activity Nov 01, 2010.

References

[1] Dieterich W et al. Cross linking to tissue transglutaminase and collagen favours gliadin toxicity in coeliac disease. Gut. 2006 Apr;55(4):478-84. http://pmid.us/16188922.

[2] Alaedini A et al. Immune cross-reactivity in celiac disease: anti-gliadin antibodies bind to neuronal synapsin I. J Immunol. 2007 May 15;178(10):6590-5. http://pmid.us/17475890.

[3] Alaedini A, Green PH. Autoantibodies in celiac disease. Autoimmunity. 2008 Feb;41(1):19-26. http://pmid.us/18176861.

[4] Shaoul R, Lerner A.  Associated autoantibodies in celiac disease. Autoimmun Rev. 2007 Sep;6(8):559-65. http://pmid.us/17854749.

[5] Natter S et al. IgA cross-reactivity between a nuclear autoantigen and wheat proteins suggests molecular mimicry as a possible pathomechanism in celiac disease. Eur J Immunol. 2001 Mar;31(3):918-28. http://pmid.us/11241297.

[6] Sategna-Guidetti C et al. Binding by serum IgA antibodies from patients with coeliac disease to monkey heart tissue. Scand J Gastroenterol. 2004 Jun;39(6):540-3. http://pmid.us/15223677.

[7] Vawter MP et al. Reduction of synapsin in the hippocampus of patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Mol Psychiatry. 2002;7(6):571-8. http://pmid.us/12140780.

[8] Samaroo D et al. Novel immune response to gluten in individuals with schizophrenia. Schizophr Res. 2010 May;118(1-3):248-55. http://pmid.us/19748229.