Attribution: Wheat Field (CC) by Lauren Tucker
These days, gluten-free diets are mainstream, most people have heard of celiac disease and grocery store shelves are lined with gluten-free products. Are these the results of a fad that will shrink into the background when another dietary issue takes its place? Maybe. But while there is no doubt that being gluten-free is trendier than ever, there is evidence that gluten intolerance and celiac disease are increasing.
A recent estimate suggests that one in 133 individuals has celiac disease. If you include those with gluten intolerance, this number rises sharply. And some make the claim that gluten is harmful to everyone, even if symptoms are far more subtle.
If gluten intolerance and celiac disease are on the rise, we must ask why. There are a number of theories and possibly multiple contributory factors. Today, we will look at one potential culprit: modern wheat.
A bit of history
The Green Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s transformed the world’s wheat crop. Agronomist Norman Borlaug pioneered the development of dwarf wheat, a high-yield variety with larger seed heads and thick, short stalks that could bear the extra weight. This wheat produced more grain on less acreage. At the same time, new farming technologies were introduced including the expansion of irrigation infrastructure and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work and was credited with saving over a billion people from starvation by increasing food supply.
Despite the good that came from this movement, there were unintended consequences. The genetic manipulation of wheat may have contributed to the sharp increase in gluten intolerance and celiac disease.
The gluten is different
The gluten in ancient wheat and modern wheat simply aren’t the same. A gluten peptide known as glia-α9 is nearly absent in older varieties but prevalent in modern wheat. Most people with celiac disease react negatively to glia-α9. In other words, the most common trigger for a celiac reaction is abundant in modern wheat and hardly there at all in ancient wheat.
We prepare grains differently
During most of our grain-cultivating history, people have been using fresh whole grains and soaking, sprouting and fermenting them prior to cooking or baking. This process breaks down or reduces some of the gluten, as well as lectins and phytates in the grain. The result is a more digestible food with fewer deleterious health effects. Today, we mostly consume refined and often rancid flours prepared with quick-rise yeasts. Thus, we get more of the gluten and other troublesome components of grains.
Other concerns
High-yield wheat varieties have less zinc, magnesium, iron, copper and selenium than ancient wheat. Phytic acid, which reduces the bioavailability of nutrients, has remained more or less the same. Thus, with a higher ratio of phytic acid to mineral content, modern wheat provides less nutrition.
Additionally, wheat starch, composed of approximately 75% amylopectin-a and 25% amylose, has been correlated with blood sugar dis-regulation and the development of insulin resistance. While neither of these concerns relate specifically to an intolerance of gluten, they highlight some of the potential problematic effects of wheat.
