wheat belly book

I used to follow the author's website. IIRC, he has celiac disease and has decided that wheat is the dietary version of the antichrist for one and all. I think his book has been roundly debunked.

The original researcher at Monash university whose paper is the most widely cited in support of wheat/gluten-free dietary whoo, has recently admitted that the paper (and supporting evidence and analysis) has serious shortcomings, and actually retracted it, I think.

The latest theory as to why wheat-free diets seem to help non-celiac suffering patients is set out in this paper.

http://www.gastrojournal.org/a...3%2900702-6/abstract

This guy lost me with his "Frankengrains" hysteria. He's simply pandering to the populist agribusiness GM conspiracy theorists to make $$$.

So please direct me to the data that proves beyond a doubt that GMO foods are safe.

And the wheat issue comes from the hybridization to dwarf wheat.  The plants do not have the same number of chromosomes as say, emmer wheat.  And the information I saw indicated that the Wheat Belly author did not see anything nefarious behind it; it was a  attempt by scientists to increase yields.  This is a very different type of alteration than the "Roundup ready" stuff.

Notwithstanding whether the genetically altered food itself is safe or not, I don't think it is hysterical not to want your produce soaked in glysophate.

Simply not possible to prove this sort of thing with absolute certainty, but the utter lack of people dying from consumption of GM food is one clue. The ever-increasing lifespans of people consuming food that is produced in bulk is another. OK, some places (the USA) are at a tipping point where the obesity epidemic may result in the first generation ever to not live as long as their parents did, but that's hardly a direct consequence of missing chromosomes in some wheat, is it?

This article refers to a study of a massive data-set on the effects of GM food on farm animals.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jo...trillion-meal-study/

Another easy-to-digest  article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...18ae74c67_story.html

Overall, scientific research into agriculture, including GM products, has increased the quality and longevity of human life throughout the world. The application of this science is not without regulation and checks and balances. Scaremongering by making an important-sounding but otherwise irrelevant proclamation about "fewer chromosomes" hardly convinces me otherwise.

Not following this thread, but this comment caught my eye, which I can't leave unchallenged!  It is a meaningless demand: where is the data proving beyond a doubt than non-GM food is safe? The answer is that it doesn't exist, rather there is no evidence of harmful effect, or at least not within normal consumption patterns. 

I'm not saying that GM foods are safe, merely that you cannot prove them safe any more than you can other foods - the question is, is there any evidence of them being harmful, and if not, have adequate tests been done to assess that, possibly including allowing sufficient time in trialled use for slowly-emerging effects to come to light (e.g.  any new chemical such as a food additive typically needs assessing for teratogenic, mutagenic or carcinogenic effects).

Nor am I saying they are unsafe, just asking whether all reasonable tests and evaluations have been done, over a long enough period for any evidence of ill effect to emerge - if the answer is yes, then it is reasonable to assume they are as safe as any comparable non-GM food, otherwise testing should continue until that stage is reached and it may not be reasonable to give a clean bill of health before then.

If you like a good conspiracy theory, the Monsanto/GM/Glyphosate cover-up is something to get your teeth into:

https://www.foeeurope.org/glyp...cern-briefing-130613

And all I am asking for is links to legitimate peer reviewed articles so I can look at the data myself and evaluate the studies...interestingly the link in one article above went to a dead page.

If animal studies were enough, we wouldn't require human trials for drugs.

The data can't be in yet - because it often takes decades for the ill effects of food ingredients to make their presence known, and they often come in the form of conditions that could be caused by other problems.  Remember, this is the food lobby that has insisted that HFCS is "natural" and "safe", and only recently have studies been done that determine the liver really has trouble metabolizing it.  Ditto for aspartame, which is a substance I consider completely unfit for human consumption.

I used to joke in pharmacy school that the main thing I learned there is that God isn't too bright, because he made a species that lives for about 80 years, but only functions properly for about 35.

And while poor food choices and quantities are clearly a part of the problem, why are we seeing CHILDREN with NIDDM in the USA?  And this trend is continuing to worsen, both in terms of numbers and the age of onset.  And it is largely a western phenomenon.  Our food supply is killing us. 

Read the side panel on your food - you need a chemistry degree to understand it.  And no, not every chemical item in there is harmful, but the FDA rating of "GRAS" simply means half the people don't drop dead within an hour of eating it.  (I am deliberately being hyperbolic, but it demonstrates the point.)  The food industry is not interested in your health, they are interested in making money.

As for the "experts" protecting us; keep in mind these are the same people who preached for decades that margarine was safe, only for science to discover it is at least as unsafe or worse than eating butter.  And there are food "truths" held now that will prove to be incorrect in the years to come.

And there is nothing conspiratorial about paying attention to the influence corporations exert over the government in the US; back in July an aid package to El Salvador was tied to the country accepting Monsanto GMO seeds.  No seeds, no aid.  Didn't hear the end game on that one. 

To pretend that there isn't a healthy flow of corporate money to US government officials and politicians is just PollyAnna stuff...it's where the corporate/government revolving door comes from.  US agribusiness is well known for coming into arable countries and creating incentive for local farmers to grow crops that benefit the corporation, and actually diminish the food supply for that country.  (For example, getting the farmers to grow cotton instead of say corn...just by way of an explanatory example.)

And "GMO" is a big term - any kind of hybridization is technically GMO; so while it is unfair to throw out the baby with the bath water, I would rather not eat food that has a lot of pesticide on it. Just label it and let people make the choice - even if they are wrong.

And lastly - despite all my corporate bashing, I am an unabashed free-market capitalist.  Unfortunately what we have in the US is not free market, it is positioning your company to make the government pick you as a winner.  Believe me, the company I work for now (a Fortune 15 operation) is one of the most egregious offenders, and promotes their PAC to the employees at a level I find very annoying.

It is always harder to prove a negative, and of course as scientists in this Forum will realise proof is not absolute but based on balance of probabilities. Where you set your level for proof of safety will of course depend on your acceptance of risk vs benefit.

I think a good point about GM foods was made during an otherwise unpleasant interaction I heard on the radio yesterday.

Saying GMO is 'safe' is like saying that medicines are safe or knives are dangerous; it depends. We should not be encompassing a whole technology in one statement but considering each engineered trait/plant/crop as a seperate case and reviewing that for safety, efficacy and associated effects.

Risk is relative. If we vaccinate a million kids against measles then we will save many lives, and reduce the burden of short and long term disease in many more. We will also trigger serious reactions that are potentially fatal or seriously debilitating in a very small number. Is measles vaccine safe? No not totally, or at least not for the unfortunate few. Does it benefit on a population basis? Yes. Those are the measures we must apply to assess the value of GMO crops, plant by plant.

The role of big agro companies (much like BigPharma) always makes me uncomfortable, but I'm no luddite either. Man has been manipulating genetics in plants for millenia of course-albeit with more natural cross breeding methods. Some have been good, some less so. Interfering crudely with subtly intertwined biological systems makes me nervous; but maybe mankind is beyond that. As a species we no longer live in synergy with our natural environment but bully and bulldoze our way through it. I don't see that changing.

Yikes I'm depressive this morning; these are the end of days!

Bruce