Article states thatGF diet can promote risk of heart attacks

nancyl · Post by **nancyl** » Wed May 10, 2017 11:03 am

Hello everyone,
I have not written in quite a while, but do pop in to get good information once in a while. I ran across this article or I should say it popped up on my FaceBook page today. I was wondering if anyone else has seen this. Of course I do know that most of us cannot eat gluten even if we do not have celiac disease. Just curious on your thoughts.

http://www.healio.com/gastroenterology/ ... 8850516595

Nancy

Post by **tex** » Wed May 10, 2017 12:15 pm

Hi Nancy,

Thanks for that link. This is clearly another case of a doctor campaigning against the gluten-free diet for people who don't have celiac disease. And he's trying to do it by making a claim that directly conflicts with the conclusions of that research. Here's what the research actually showed:

Conclusion Long term dietary intake of gluten was not associated with risk of coronary heart disease.

And even the article you linked to said:

Adjusted analysis showed there was no significant association between gluten intake and coronary heart disease.

“Even those with the lowest amount of gluten consumption experienced the same rate of heart disease as those who were consuming the most gluten,

So anyone who doesn't bother to read the details of the article will reach the wrong conclusion, because the title is very misleading. The research actually showed that avoiding gluten makes no significant difference in whether or not you're going to get heart disease — the risk is the same. Shame on Dr. Benjamin Lebwohl for lying about it.

Here's a link to the actual BMJ article. You can read the conclusion yourself. The good doctor seems have nothing against distorting the truth when talking to reporters, when the results don't turn out the way he wanted.

http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j189 ... /bmj.j1892

Tex

nancyl · Post by **nancyl** » Wed May 10, 2017 8:47 pm

Thanks Tex. I thought you might be interested in the article and respond. I have been totally GF for about five years now and will remain that way too. I have been doing well and want to keep it that way. But, I wondered about some who are struggling and read something like that. Things are confusing enough. It was on Heather's Tummy Fiber or IBS website. I do take her fiber, which has helped me a lot (in small doses), more for my IBS, but was shocked when I saw that article.

Again, thanks for your input.

Nancy

JFR · Post by **JFR** » Thu May 11, 2017 4:26 am

This kind of stuff might be called science but really it is propaganda used to support a belief that is already held rather than learn anything new. I am reading a new book by William Davis who wrote Wheat Belly called "Undoctored" The first few chapters lay bare what's wrong with modern medicine, particularly the influence of greed, the profit motive, on the conduct of research. It is really a book about people using forums like this one to figure out what they need to do to get healthy. I recommend the book strongly, especially if you are still stuck expecting your doctor to know how to help you for most of the kind of things that plague you. There are conditions where modern medicine excels but for most of what ails us we can take care of ourselves, especially since we have access to so much information.

Jean

nancyl · Post by **nancyl** » Thu May 11, 2017 5:46 am

Sounds like a good read, Jean. especially like you mentioned, for those who are still struggling about what to do. I do feel we can eat GF or whatever else free and still have a good healthy diet. I don't feel that I am lacking in anything. I am eating healthier, before going GF, I only ate white bread, so I wasn't getting all those grains anyways. LOL

Nancy

Marcia K · Post by **Marcia K** » Sat May 13, 2017 6:53 am

As my GI said, "Gluten free is a fad." That went in one ear and out the other....I know what gluten does to my body. It's sad that people who aren't educated enough on their own will follow their doctor's advice.

humbird753 · Post by **humbird753** » Tue May 16, 2017 9:17 pm

Jean - Thank you for your recommendation on this book. It sounds like an excellent read. I'm definitely going to get this.

Blueberry · Post by **Blueberry** » Thu May 18, 2017 6:10 am

I remember Dr. Davis's web sight when it was mainly about preventing heart disease. He took a throw the kitchen sink attitude toward heart disease prevention. He tried many different ideas. From his writings, he felt his program had good success at preventing heat attacks in his patients.

One of the heart disease prevention items he promoted was avoiding wheat and other grains. Avoiding gluten has mainly become famous today for weight loss in some.

Some of the other items he recommended for heart disease prevention was sunbathing, when the sun isn't available taking vitamin D supplements, taking magnesium, and drinking moderate amounts of alcohol.

If it wasn't the avoiding gluten that helped the heart, it was likely one of the other ideas suggested that helped ~ sunbathing, drinking moderate amounts of alcohol, etc.

A little on alcohol drinking and heart attack prevention can be read on some BMJ papers. As an example:

http://www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.j1340

excerpt:

Over four decades ago, Klatsky and his colleagues published perhaps the first carefully conducted epidemiological investigation of alcohol consumption and risk of myocardial infarction,1 a case-control study nested within the health records of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan in California. Taking advantage of some 120 000 health plan members who completed a standardized set of over 500 individual questions, the authors identified 464 members who sustained an incident myocardial infarction at local Kaiser hospitals. They compared the alcohol consumption reported on a previous questionnaire among these members with that of two sets of controls drawn from the same source population. Among non-smokers, the odds of myocardial infarction were about twice as high among non-drinkers as among drinkers, raising the possibility that alcohol consumption could lower risk of coronary heart disease.1...