Grain Brain Review

I’ve just started to read another book on nutrition called Grain Brain and I’m doing something I wouldn’t normally do – and that is to recommend this book to everyone to read, before finishing it myself. The author is a neurologist with 35 years experience dedicated in this field of research. If you are a human being and you eat breakfast cereals, bread, pasta and even rice, I could not recommend this book enough. A lot of what I’m reading is solidifying all I’ve already learned and applied into my own lives and others, where I’ve seen massive change. And I’m learning more. Our modern diet, where most of our calories come from carbohydrates (not necessarily grain-based, but high glycemic carbohydrates such as potatoes and everything made from potatoes), and very few from fat and protein is causing major – MAJOR – problems. These are our micronutrients – carbohydrates, fat and protein.  Our ancestors’ diets would consist of 20% protein, 75% fat, and 5% carbs. Nowadays, we’re typically consuming 20% protein, 60% carbs and 20% fat. This is where it’s all going wrong – as well as all the toxins we’re taking in of course – such as excess sugar, GMOs (proven to sabotage hormones), exposure to herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, insecticides, added hormones in animals, antibiotics etc. They’re all endocrine disrupters – meaning, they all sabotage your hormones. We’re also completely deprived of micronutrients – they’re the vitamins and minerals we get from plant-based foods – and no one, living a conventional diet, is getting enough. 

Back to Grain Brain. Here’s a quick summary on carbs that we already know and what I’ve talked a lot about on this blog:

• High glycemic carbohydrates (high GI carbs) lead to lower levels of testosterone
• High GI carbohydrate diets cause fat storage – if you’re prone to storing fat. This is down to the hormone, insulin, which is triggered when you consume diets high in sugar and high GI carbs. unless you’ve done an intensive workout, there’s really very little need for high GI carbs
• High GI diets cause energy levels to fluctuate significantly and cause “food comas”
• Insulin encourages inflammation
• Obesity rates are out of control due largely to carb and sugar overload
• Fat does not make you fat – if you’re eating the right types
• Trans fats are the root of all evil (in so far as food is concerned anyway)
• Obesity causes testosterone levels to drop rapidly for 2 reasons;
  • Belly fat contains the enzyme aromatase, which converts testosterone to 2 forms of oestrogen. Higher levels of circulating oestrogen in your body also make it more difficult to burn fat.
  • Insulin causes testosterone levels to plummet immediately.
• Heart Disease is the number one killer in the US.
• Type-2 diabetes is rife.  Type-2 diabetes used to be called adult onset diabetes as it used to occur over a long period of time, but since children are now diagnosed with it due to excess sugar and carbohydrate load, it’s now called type 2 diabetes. This is a fact.
• Guess what. There’s a 3rd time type of diabetes. It’s also known as Alzheimer’s Disease. Or rather, Alzheimer’s is now being dubbed type-3 diabetes due to its close relation to insulin resistance that leads to type 2 diabetes. For those unaware, type-2 diabetes occurs over time due to excess exposure to insulin, which leads to insulin resistance. It can be reversed by removing sugar and high GI carbs from your diet. Type-1 diabetes can’t be cured.

What I didn’t know until I started to read this book:

• The prevalence of type 2 diabetes, which accounts for 90-95% of all diabetes cases in the US, has tripled over the last 40 years.
• In the next 40 years, more than 115 million cases of diabetes are expected globally
• Gluten, the protein in wheat, triggers dementia, epilepsy, headaches, depression, schizophrenia, ADHD and lower libido!!!
• Increasing numbers of studies are linking gluten sensitivity to neurological disfunction. You don’t have to have celiac disease to be intolerant to gluten!
• Consuming diets that cause high blood sugars have a far greater risk of brain shrinkage. Think memory loss. Your hippocampus (part of your brain responsible for memory) shrinks as you get older. This is accelerated by a diet high in sugar and high GI carbs, and gluten.
• Inflammation leads to neurological decline. Wheat – or gluten more specifically – is a prime cause of inflammation
• Diets high in dietary cholesterol reduce the risk of neurodegenerative decline!!! Just think what we’ve being told by society about eggs; “Don’t eat too many eggs, you’ll die of too much cholesterol” This is the biggest amount of BS that is circulating around at the moment. I don’t know of a single expert/nutritionist (not trained by governmental programs) that does not support regular consumption of whole, organic, grass-fed hen eggs – unless they’re vegan of course. Eggs are a superb form of omega-3 (anti-inflammatory) fatty acids and cholesterol – key in supporting healthy brains and testosterone production!!
• Statins (cholesterol reducing drugs) lead to mental decline and increase risk of heart disease.
  • This is because the brain needs cholesterol to survive. It is a critical nutrient essential for the function of neurons and plays an important building block of the cell membrane.

I’m going to conclude this post here as this as as far as I’ve got into the book! I’ll report back when I’ve read more. What I will do, is remind you of a story about someone I met in Mammoth in February. He’s a 57 year old ski instructor. When I told him what I did for a living, and mentioned that I coach people to increase testosterone and coming off grains was a key component of it, as well as optimal health, he told me about how his life had changed from freeing himself of grains for one year. Here are 6 significant changes that coming off grains made in his life:

1. He told me that his IBS had gone (which he had endured for 43 years of his life – doctor kept on changing his medication),
2. He has more energy than he’s ever had for as long as he could remember.
3. He said he could think more clearly as he no longer suffered from ‘grain brain’ – he’s the first person to have taught me this term. (I only recently found out that there’s a book called Brain Brain and bought it immediately. Duh!!)
4. He said he was more motivated than ever before.
5. His joint inflammation had gone completely that he had suffered from for decades.
6. His eyesight had got better.

He said he was a brand new man. I mean, this is pretty crazy. I rarely get eczema now I am grain-free. I have friends here in LA who have cured IBS and Crohn’s by coming off grains. I have a friend in Bali who cured her Crohn’s Disease by going grain-free and paleo. There’a s common denominator here, people!! Just saying… I’ll be interviewing these people and starting a podcast. Watch this space.