Palm Desert resident Lou Alcalay, 84, talks about his weight lossand energy gain since adjusting his diet after reading the book“Wheat Belly” by cardiologist Dr. William Davis. Alcalay said hehas lost 70 pounds and 10 inches around his waist.

Lou Alcalay of Palm Desert was never in poorhealth, but the weight did slowly creep up on himover the years.

Alcalay’s doctor, Dr. Joseph Scherger, advisedlosing some weight and suggested the book

“Wheat Belly,” a book advocating for the removal ofwheat from everyday diet.

The science within the book resonated with Alcalay,and without hesitation, he gave up all grains, and stoppeddrinking beer. He still eats plenty of meats, beans anddairy. Within just a few short weeks, he started noticingdramatic changes around his waistline.

“The weight came off so fast,” Alcalay, 84, who hasmaintained a 70-pound weight loss for more than a year. “Iwent from a size 44 waist to a size 34 waist. ... It’s the mostexpensive diet I’ve ever done in my entire life. I had toget rid of all of my pants.”

He increased his strength training at the gym, and soonnoticed a boost in his metabolism and golf game. His aver-age drive went from 180 yards to 210.

“There’s a side effect that I can’t truthfully say is aside effect of the diet, but I believe that mentally, I’m alittle sharper than I was before,” Alcalay said.

His wife, Sondra, who has ulcerative colitis and diabe-tes, made a few small tweaks to her already regimentedlifestyle and noticed changes, too. She’s now off her dia-betes medication, but admits she cheats now and thenwith a gluten-free bagel.

The book also transformed the life of Scherger andmany of his patients.

“There has been a complete paradigm shift now in nu-trition,” said Scherger, the vice president for primarycare at Eisenhower Medical Center. “It’s not just caloriesin, calories out and counting calories. What calories youeat have an enormous impact on how much you eat wheth-er you’re trying to diet or not.”

Because of research that studies the negative effectsof wheat on the body, many people are removing it fromtheir diets as a way of losing weight, curing illnesses andreclaiming their health.

The pioneer and doctor behind the wheat-free move-ment with the book “Wheat Belly,” Milwaukee-based car-diologist Dr. William Davis, will speak at EisenhowerMedical Center on Wednesday, Jan. 14, partof the hospital’s speaker series.

After years of many people and organiza-tions claiming the positive health effects ofa diet rich in whole grains and limiting fats,Davis challenged the status quo. Egg yolks,butter and other healthy fats weren’t theenemy; it’s certain kinds of carbs that wreakhavoc on the body.

“Not only is wheat not good for you, it’sprobably one of the most destructive things added to thehuman diet,” Davis said.

Certain carbohydrates, wheat included, have a veryhigh rating on the glycemic index. Carbs with a higherglycemic index create a higher fluctuation in blood sugar.A food’s glycemic load indicates how much sugar it con-tains. Wheat is very high on the glycemic index.

According to research found in “Wheat Belly,” gluten, aprotein found in wheat, has inflammatory effects withinthe body.

Going against the grain‘Wheat Belly’ doctor challenges common methods of dieting, advocates a wheat-free life for weight loss and optimal healthBy Beth Roessner | The Desert Sun

IF YOU GOWhat: Wellness MattersSpeaker Series welcomes“Wheat Belly” Author Dr.William DavisWhen: Wednesday, Jan. 14Where: Helene GalenAuditorium, AnnenbergCenter for Health Sciencesat Eisenhower MedicalCenter, 39000 Bob HopeDrive, Rancho MirageTickets: $55 in advance,$65 at the doorInformation:www.emc.org/wellness

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Liquid sugar in sodas, energy drinksand sports drinks is the leadingsource of added sugar in theAmerican diet.

Is sugar making us sick?A team of scientists at the

University of California inSan Francisco believes so,and they’re doing somethingabout it. They launched aninitiative to bring informationon food and drink and addedsugar to the public by review-ing more than 8,000 scientificpapers that show a strong linkbetween the consumption ofadded sugar and chronic dis-eases.

The common belief untilnow was that sugar justmakes us fat, but it’s becomeclear through research thatit’s making us sick. For ex-ample, there’s the rise in fat-ty-liver disease, the emer-gence of Type 2 diabetes as anepidemic in children and thedramatic increase in metabo-lic disorders.

Laura Schmidt, a UCSFprofessor at the School ofMedicine and the lead in-vestigator on the project,SugarScience, said the idea isto make the findings compre-hensible and clear to every-one. The results will be avail-able to all on a website (Sug-arScience.org) and socialmedia platforms like Face-book and Twitter.

Added sugars, Schmidtsaid, are sugars that don’toccur naturally in foods. Theyare found in 74 percent of allpackaged foods, have 61names and often are difficultto decipher on food labels.Although the U.S. Food andDrug Administration requiresfood companies to list ingre-dients on packaging, the sug-gested daily values of naturaland added sugars can’t befound.

The FDA is considering aproposal to require food man-ufacturers to list informationon sugars in the same waythey do for fats, cholesterol,sodium, carbohydrates andprotein. But because so muchadded sugar is dumped into somany products, one averageAmerican breakfast of cerealwould likely exceed a reason-able daily limit.

“SugarScience shows that acalorie is not a calorie butrather that the source of acalorie determines how it’smetabolized,” said pediatricendocrinologist Robert Lus-tig, a member of the Sug-arScience team and the au-thor of “Fat Chance: Beatingthe Odds Against Sugar, Proc-essed Food, Obesity, and Dis-ease.” Lustig said that morethan half of the U.S. popula-tion is sick with metabolicsyndrome, a group of riskfactors for chronic diseasessuch as heart disease, diabe-tes and liver disease that aredirectly related to the exces-sive consumption of added

Doctorssoundalarm on sugarBy Barbara SadickChicago Tribune

Please see SUGAR, D4

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SECTION D JAMES MEIER, NEWS DIRECTOR, (760) 778-4623, JAMES.MEIER@DESERTSUN.COM, @TDSJAMESMEIER

INSIDE THIS SECTION Health Calendar D2 i Comics D6 i Television D7 i Dear Abby D7

CDC reports fluseason continues to worsenHEALTH, D2

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“It’s the most expensive diet I’ve ever done in my entire life. I had to get rid of all of my pants,” said Palm Desert resident Lou Alcalay, 84, who lost 10 inches around his waist. Alcalay changed toa wheat-free diet after reading the book "Wheat Belly" by cardiologist Dr. William Davis, and says he has maintained his 70-pound weight loss for more than a year.

Today’s wheat, Davis said,is not the same as it was 60years ago. After being manip-ulated in the labs to create amore heartier crop, our bod-ies are no longer able to safe-ly digest it, and it manifestsin ways like rashes, digestiveissues, weight gain and othersymptoms.

The proteins in grainsbreak down differently thanthe protein in egg whites,Davis said, and because ofthat, the body digests and

reacts differently.“In kids with attention

deficit disorder or autism, itcauses behavioral outburstsand abbreviates their atten-tion span,” he said. “In peoplewith schizophrenia, it causesparanoia and hearing voices.In people with bipolar illness,it can cause the mania. ... Inpeople with binge-eatingdisorder or bulimia, it cancause 24-hour-a-day foodobsessions. In people whodon’t have those conditions,we just get appetite stim-ulation, this desire for morefood.”

The manipulation of wheatin the labs also begged the

question: Are grains in gener-al appropriate for humanconsumption?

“There are multiple indi-gestible incompetents inthere and they have all thesepeculiar effects,” Davis said.“Yet we have this situationwhere no questions areasked. It’s revered to be the most dominant food indiet.”

The first week of grainremoval is awful, admittedDavis, because of feelings ofwithdrawal. But once thebody adapts, it creates a free-dom from food many aren’tfamiliar with.

What makes it different

from other fad diets is thatit’s not a diet; it’s a lifestyle.Both Scherger and Davisagree: once wheat is re-moved, the weight will comeoff.

Cravings and the constantfeelings of hunger will alsodisappear. The removal ofwheat could decrease bloat-ing or other digestive issues.Scherger himself saw a skinproblem correct itself.

Scherger used to preachthe advantages of eating adiet rich in whole grains tohis patients for 30 years. Butafter reading “Wheat Belly”and seeing physical resultsfirsthand, he became a be-

liever in the wheat-free life-style. He then put more em-phasis in preventative medi-cine and using diet as a tool tohelp his patients.

“I want people to have ahigh level of wellness. I’m notinto giving a bunch of drugsto stop disease. I end up stop-ping more drugs than I startbecause people get healthierand younger,” Scherger said.

“All doctors should bedoing this. We shouldn’t justbe adding up people’s chronicillnesses and putting them ona handful of drugs. I’m con-vinced the power of nutritionis greater than the power ofour drugs.”

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