Believe it or not

The same can be said of any of the modern iterations of the brassica genus of vegetables. Brussels sprouts in no way resemble even their very close cousin, broccoli. Cauliflower and cabbage and kale and turnips and mustard all come from the same three progenitor plants.

Modern beef cattle are absolutely nothing like their progenitors from the mountains and valleys of Asia Minor, nor are wool sheep or modern hair sheep anything like the wild sheep they were bred from. Wool itself is in no way a natural feature on these sheep, it was a trait bred for by humans performing experiments with genetic engineering thousands of years before anyone had heard of DNA.

Ever seen the progenitor of corn? Neither has any other living person, though there are plants that biologists have proposed, none of which resemble corn in even the most rudimentary sense except perhaps for the fact that they are grasses.

I've seen it suggested that the move from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agrarian one was the worst mistake humanity ever made. I dunno. I like bread.

...I had a teacher that drummed this into us: "All generalizations are untrue, including this one." 

There's undoubtedly truth in what the Doctor says.  What is much less clear is whether his conclusions are sound based on the information presented.  It seems very circumstantial at best, and I am wary of broad statements based on such evidence.  And anyway, is a cardiologist (even a preventive one) always a suitable expert on digestive disorders like celiacs disease?  Maybe, but gotta wonder.

I had another teacher that said "all things in moderation."

-Brad

True story, within a year after my wife was told she could no longer eat wheat products, she lost close to 50 lbs. So part of this rings true. But the reason she lost so much weight had little to do with the issues this guy blames on  today's version of wheat. My wife lost so much weight because she was starving, she literally could not find enough to eat, she only ate the basics a the main meals, meat, and vegetables, and fruit inbetween. It seemed every thing she tried to pick up for herself in the store contained some form of wheat based ingredient, and what she could find was very expensive and mostly unpalatable. But, after a few years of living with this restriction, she has returned to a healthy weight, not regaining the whole 50 lbs but a healthy portion of it. This is because she found how to use other grains and non-wheat based substitutes for pasta and baking that she can now eat. So yes, take away the staple of anyones diet and they will lose weight, but only until they find a subtitute, people need to eat. Bread made from the most primitive grain imaginable would never be "natural" anyway, where in nature does anything exist that even remotely resembles bread? I like to fool myself into thinking using natural yeast leaven will turn my bread, Frankenstein wheat included, into something natural, but it is only an illusion.

I find myself agreeing with all of Mini's points and am somewhat worried that anyone would be so quick as to reject the research quoted above.

I am afraid that it is a fact that more and more people are struggling in the UK to cope with coeliac-type symptoms, and that the root cause is generally accepted as being difficulty in coping with the gliadin fraction found in modern day bread wheat varieties.   As someone who has made a living from involvement with the baking industry in some shape or form for 25 years, you can imagine I find this alarming.   There is continued call for more research into this, particularly coming from Real Bread Campaign.

Out of interest, the local flour I buy in Northumberland, UK is milled from wheat which is untampered with, and is a single strain variety from many years ago.   As the man says, it grows well over a metre tall in the field.   Actually, what he is pointing out isn't that contraversial to me; modern wheat does have little in common with the old varieties, and, like it or not [and I really don't like it either], I'm afraid that eating food made using this type of wheat unfortunately does make some people very ill indeed.   I wouldn't wish coeliac diesease on anyone; it's horrible, and the diet restriction would seem unbearable to most people.

Best wishes

Andy

I think I may have not been clear in my earlier comments.  Celiac's is a very real disease, and I do feel sorry for patients that suffer from it.  The point I am trying to make, as is G-man, is that it is difficult if not impossible to say with any certitude that changes in wheat is the cause Celiac's disease and other digestive ailments.  There have been so many changes in our diets over the past 50 years, one of which is the changes in wheat cultivation.  Perhaps just as prevalent, for example, it the increase in use of plastics for food packaging.  Additives to these plastics have properties that mimic hormones like estrogen, and are known to have significant effect on humans.  Just last year, after an uproar, BPA was removed from plastics because of these effects.  The rise in the use of plastics parallels the changes in wheat described in the article, but if anyone asserted that plastic is the cause of the increase in Celiac's, they would (correctly) be roundly criticized. 

I am glad that his patients experienced relief by eliminating wheat from their diets, and other sufferers should see if it works for them.  However, this does not prove that wheat cultivation is the cause of the disease, which is the premise of the article.  The theory is worthy of study.  There may be populations where wheat cultivation techniques have not changed to new varieties, and they can be compared for the prevalance of Celiac's.  Let's try to understand the connection.

-Brad