Health

Modern wheat is a poison

We’re both doing well with a largely wheat-free diet. peace, mjh

Better than any NSAID | Wheat Belly Blog

Modern wheat is the perfect inflammation-provoking food. It inflames joints, skin, airways, sinuses, ileum, pancreas, arteries, even brain. And it does so via several means:

1) Gliadin–Due to gliadin’s unique capacity to “unlock” the normal intestinal barriers to foreign substances, numerous foreign polypeptides and other molecules gain access to your bloodstream, some of which are intrinsically inflammatory, while others trigger autoimmunity (causing the body’s immune system to attack its own organs).

2) Wheat germ agglutinin–The abnormal bowel permeability caused by wheat gliadin is amplified by the direct intestinal toxicity of wheat germ agglutinin. This allows wheat germ agglutinin itself to enter the bloodstream, where it is highly toxic (fatal in microgram quantities if injected directly).

3) Amylopectin A–The high glycemic (blood glucose) potential and, even worse, its insulinotrophic (insulin-provoking) effect result in growth of visceral abdominal fat, the sort of fat that is inflammatory, emitting inflammation-mediating proteins into the bloodstream and thereby amplifying inflammation in other parts of the body.

4) Disruptions of bowel flora–All three above wheat components disrupt bowel flora which, in turn, cultivates inflammatory responses in the intestine that are “exported” to the rest of the body. These data are still preliminary, but promise to be among the most exciting insights into how bowel flora impacts health. Disturbed bowel flora may be intrinsically unhealthy, but their metabolites that gain access to the bloodstream introduce another layer of unhealthy effects.

Believe it or not, there are even more ways wheat provokes inflammation. The means by which, for example, wheat gliadin (“gluten”) causes destruction of cerebral tissue resulting in the dementia of “gluten encephalopathy” likely involves several other brain-inflaming pathways.

Better than any NSAID | Wheat Belly Blog

This is the short version of some of the information in Wheat Belly by Dr Davis.

FURG

The NRA are cowards afraid of data and facts

 What We Don’t Know Is Killing Us – NYTimes.com

But that is precisely what the National Rifle Association and other opponents of firearms regulation do not want. In the absence of reliable data and data-driven policy recommendations, talk about guns inevitably lurches into the unknown, allowing abstractions, propaganda and ideology to fill the void and thwart change.

The research freeze began at a time when the C.D.C. was making strides in studying gun violence as a public health problem. Before that, the issue had been regarded mainly as a law enforcement challenge or as a problem of disparate acts by deranged offenders, an approach that remains in sync with the N.R.A. worldview.

Public health research emphasizes prevention of death, disability and injury. It focuses not only on the gun user, but on the gun, in much the same way that public health efforts to reduce motor vehicle deaths have long focused on both drivers and cars.

The goal is to understand a health threat and identify lifesaving interventions. At their most basic, gun policy recommendations would extend beyond buying and owning a gun (say, background checks and safe storage devices) to manufacturing (childproofing and other federal safety standards) and distribution (stronger antitrafficking laws), as well as educating and enlisting parents, physicians, teachers and other community leaders to talk about the risks and responsibilities of gun ownership. …

To understand and prevent motor vehicle deaths, for instance, the government tracks more than 100 variables per fatal crash, including the make, model and year of the vehicles, the speed and speed limit, the location of passengers, seat belt use and air bag deployment.

Guns deaths do not get such scrutiny. That does not mean we do not know enough to act. The evidence linking gun prevalence and violent death is strong and compelling; international comparisons are also instructive.

But we need more data to formulate, analyze and evaluate policy to focus on what works and to refine or reject what does not. How many guns are stolen? How do guns first get diverted into illegal hands? How many murderers would have passed today’s background checks? What percentage of criminal gun traces are accounted for by, say, the top 5 percent of gun dealers? How many households possess firearms: is it one-third as some surveys suggest, or one-half?

What We Don’t Know Is Killing Us – NYTimes.com

Ah, Wilderness!, photos

Spike the roadrunner is calling

Spike shows off his tailWe’ve been interacting with Spike the roadrunner for about 6 months. We see him almost daily. He’s not a pet – he’s leery of us, as he should be – but we know each other.

Spike has recently started calling, a sound we’ve never heard before. We’re familiar with the roadrunner call that sounds much like a mourning dove only more mournful. This call is a loud whoop. You can hear it in the first short video. I took the second video immediately after the call.

 

 

Spike in the rainIt’s warm and rainy in Albuquerque today – to call that unusual is tragic understatement. Spike has hunkered down on his rock in the front yard in a pose that reminds me of green herons or black-crowned night herons – no neck.

Spike the roadrunner is calling is a post from: Ah, Wilderness!. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams