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TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 2012

Busted! "Wheat Belly" by Dr. William Davis on Dr. Oz is Exposed as a Scam Diet!

When Wheat Belly, by William Davis, M.D., came out in August 2011. It incorrectly received rave reviews. The book was erroneously believed to be gospel, but Wheatbelly was exposed as being false. Wheatbelly touted that it was written by an M.D., which was a ploy to add a patina of credibility to the book's claims. However, as soon as the book hit the shelves, everyone started to notice it didn't pass the smell test. It was filled with endnotes of citations that reference scientific peer-reviewed publications to appear scientific, but they were cited falsely and the author knows that readers hardly ever check these, they just see some journal cited and 'believe' the author is right, not knowing that this Wheat Belly book author wrote things like people lost weight on his diet then he'd cite a study that he says showed that; but if you go and actually look it up, the study didn't say that at all, in fact it says people who did the wheat belly diet ended up getting fatter. To top it all off, as proof of this, the Dr. William Davis got FAT on his own diet! It turns out, if you eat wheat, a wheat belly is thinner and flat, it's replacing wheat with meat that made people gain weight, so a wheatbelly is defined as nice and thin, and the fat one is actually a MEAT-BELLY. William Davis is now Fat on his own meat-laden grain-free diet.

Here is wheat belly Dr William Davis **before!** Pic. Before his own wheatbelly diet when he ate more wheat. And an example of the incorrect lies of Dr. William Davis pushing false claims about his wheatbelly diet. On his diet book-cover davis wants you to think he looks like this.

(HERE IS DR WILLIAM DAVIS'S PIC *BEFORE*. BEFORE HE BEGAN HIS OWN WHEAT BELLY DIET):

All these claims above by Dr. William Davis were found to be lies. This is what wheat belly diet doctor cardiologist William Davis actually looks like now after he began eating less bread, less grains, and less wheat, and he began eating more lowcarb meat. This is his girth & face now. He is now fat. Double-chins, fat face, man-boobs, gynecomastia & a fat meat-belly. (HERE IS DR WILLIAM DAVIS PHOTO NOW...*AFTER* FOLLOWING HIS OWN WHEATBELLY DIET):

Dr. William Davis got fatter on his own wheat belly diet. He is now obese after he stopped wheat & ate meat. The author uses a known ploy simply following on the back of rumours, gossip, and hearsay which people have heard somewhere. Things people believe even though it's false. For example, people have heard of the "LowCarb" diet or Atkins diet which has been shown not only to to be harmful because it is linked to Heart Attacks, Cancer, and DNA damage, but also studies showed that many atkins lowcarb dieters gained back all the weight they lost and even ended up fatter than they were before going lowcarb. Remember... Atkins himself had a heart-attack. And Dr. Robert Atkins is dead. He died. Such Lowcarb diets are false but people still believe it, and mistakenly believe that carbs make you fat. People falsely believe all carbs make you fat and believe that you need to avoid carbs even though literally billions of asian people eat tons of carbs and are not fat, people who eat meat are more likely fat. It's a short stretch to go from the atkins diet and false fear of bread due to carbs to get to Wheat Belly's "lose the wheat, lose the weight, and find your path back to health". "Dr" William Davis tries to dupe people into believing the carbs in wheat are bad, when in fact whole grains have been shown to be protective against ill health. In other words, people who do Not eat wheat are now exposed moreso to cancer and disease. Then people end up replacing that filling healthy bread with meat, which is confirmed linked to esophagus cancer, bladder cancer, and worse. But Wheat Belly William Davis also snatches onto a fear concerning gluten and celiac disease. In reality, celiac disease is a rare disease that only less than 1% of people in the world even have. In other words, 99% of all people DON'T even have celiac. But William Davis Wheat Belly is hyped up as if you can 'catch it' or that somehow all the human population is not 'evolved' or 'designed' to eat wheat, which is completely false. Scaring dieters into believing they have to worry about something, a disease they do not have, is used by "Dr" William Davis in Wheatbelly as a ploy to make everyone believe they can 'catch it', which is incorrect. You can't "get" celiac disease. You're born with it. It's a genetic defect in the genes. So it's important to know that you can't 'get' celiac disease from eating gluten. You can't 'catch' celiac disease from eating wheat. You can't 'develop' celiac disease from eating breads and rolls and breads. Some people believe if you eat bread you get celiac disease and it makes you feel sick, this is false. Celiac disease is a genetic defect in your DNA. You can't catch it, nor get rid of it. You are born with it innately, like being born with 2 thumbs, 6-fingers, born with blue eyes, red hair, born a dwarf, or any other genetic trait. You can't 'eat' something to catch blue eyes. Likewise you can't stop being a dwarf if you just stopped eating bread. You can't omit grains from your diet and then Not have red hair anymore and be a

blonde now. In addition, the number of people in the world who have celiac disease is 1 out of 132 people. That's about the same likelihood that you are a Psychopath. 1 out of 130 people in the public are psychopaths. So out of a room full of 132 people, it is likely that 131 of them are fine, and just 1 in the room is a little sketchy. That's about the same prevalence as celiacs. But to hear some lowcarb anti-grain diet phobes, everybody in the room will be affected by gluten and catch celiac disease, which is false.

Even many of the people in the world who 'claim' they are gluten intolerant and claim they are so much healthier after dropping grains and wheat, are falsely claiming they are affected by celiac disease. These dieters have bought into the belief in their current diet, most notably wheat belly, lowcarb and the paleo diet, which have been exposed as wrong, and these dieters begin to make false claims that they 'discovered' they have celiac disease...which they don't. Celiac disease needs to be checked by doing a Biopsy. Done by a Doctor. A biopsy is where you go into a clinic and have a chunk of your flesh cut out of your leg or body, and then it is sent to a hospital or medical laboratory and then a medical DNA analysis is done to see if you have an abnormal gene. Tons of these people claiming they all of a sudden now 'know' they have celiac, and miraculously got rid of everything from 'tummy' aches to headaches, are blaming it on celiac disease and gluten from wheat and bread when tons of them have never, not once, gotten a biopsy to confirm they are a person with defective DNA and are positive for celiac. Any person who goes around claiming they ditched grains and gluten and now feel so much better and now 'discovered' they had celiac disease all along, and this diet claimer never not once has had a biopsy, is most-likely making it up-false claims. Psychosomatic belief. They read something on some blog on the internet, or heard something on some tv show, or from a friend, that gluten was bad, and it did such and such...and now out of the vapor they have all of these things, and miraculously doing what the hear-say said magically 'cured' them of all of it...which is merely a self-fulfilling prophecy. Probably much of the believers in anti-wheat, anti-grain, low carb, gluten-free, paleo, blood-type, anti-carb avoiding bread diets are hypochondriacs, making it up. Celiac disease is a true, correct, valid disease, but it is genetic, inborn, and is about the same chance you have celiac as being epileptic. Authentic celiacs out there: You would be highly advised to actually not delight in everyone under the sun going 'round touting they may have celiac, went gluten-free and all this. Why? Because when it comes to light that so many of them are fakers, that you that truly have celiac will now be laughed off and not believed, when you are the one who actually has it. It'd be in your interest to stop Wheat Belly, Paleo, and other quack diets because they are soon going to come to light that they were all making false claims, and then when you now say you have celiac disease and mustn't have gluten people are going to begin saying "Pfft. Haha. Yeah, as if" and with a roll of the eyes You are going to be lumped in with these Paleo believers and Wheat Belly frauds and not believed. You will recall the phenomenon of being "Lactose Intolerant". There are some individuals who truly have this. However, after everyone heard of it and began claiming that they have it too, it has now become a laughing stock. For example, nowadays a person will audibly pass gas drawing jeers from the surrounding company of people, and then claim "Oh, I had some milk earlier. I'm just lactose intolerant!". This is the same for tons of people going around whimsically claiming they have celiac now, with no genetic biopsy confirmation, but simply because they read some rubbish on some discussion chat board. Celiacs, if you don't want to end up being the laughing stock of the world, associated with quack Wheat Belly believers and silly Paleo Diet kooks, it'd be in your interest to stop and dampen these gluten-free, carb and bread fearing, wheatbelly and paleo fake celiac claimers. Nobody who has not had a genetic biopsy test confirming that they are made out of cells that contain the defective gene for celiac disease can go around claiming they've got it. And to those who are out there claiming that you Do have it, merely because your headache went away when you stopped eating wheat by coincidence, and now you're claiming some kind of victory diet...know this: Celiac is genetic, and if you have celiac disease you are 3x as likely to also be Schizophrenic. In other words, triple the amount of people who have celiac disease also have a mental disturbance. In other words, if you go around claiming you had such a victory and got rid of wheat and all kinds of supposed symptoms went away and are now claiming you had celiac disease all along...You are also claiming that you may be mentally abnormal as well. You may also need to get tested for potentially being a Schizophrenic. Many celiacs are schizophrenics. And those of you who have some co-worker now claiming they went on this new Paleo or Wheat Belly glutenfree diet and all of a sudden their symptoms went away after they "Went Primal!" ... that person who is now raving about the Paleo diet and celiac may likely also be Schizo. Simply put "Celiac disease and Schizophrenia" into any research engine and you will confirm that having celiac disease is associated with being a schizophrenic. So watch before you go around claiming things you have not been clinically tested for. Claiming that you went on the Wheat Belly diet and all kinds of symptoms you had disappeared and claiming the wheat belly diet 'worked' for you may imply that you or your co-worker or friend claiming it, may also be mentally disturbed. William Davis built a facade of trust and credibility. He caused us to let down our guard; to cease being

the critically-thinking consumers that we ought to be. And sometimes, that means we fail to question information that is suspect; we unknowingly accept and perpetuate a myth; we fall victim to false information. This is what Dr. William Davis, MD has done to us in Wheatbelly. It's based on falsehoods, lies and pseudo-science doctored up to appear scientific and meant to dupe you into falling for his diet book so he can build a money-making empire via a diet book based on false representations of medical studies and actual lies contained in his book WheatBelly.

After heavily researching and reading a number of prominent medical studies involving wheat, gluten, weight loss, and celiac disease, one comes across the book Wheat Belly, in which Davis cites some of these exact same studies. There was one major problem: Davis' claims and his conclusions, based on the research studies he cites, were exactly the OPPOSITE of what I'd been reading in those very studies. In other words, Wheatbelly was caught lying to you. Here are several important examples of the grave flaws in Dr. William Davis's work: Consider Chapter 3, Wheat Deconstructed, page 36 of the hardcover edition. Davis writes "if we look only at overweight people who are not severely malnourished at the time of diagnosis who remove wheat from their diet, it becomes clear that this enables them to lose a substantial amount of weight." Wheat Belly doctor William Davis supposedly backs up this weightloss claim in the very next sentence by saying, "A Mayo Clinic/University of Iowa study of 215 obese celiac patients showed 27.5 pounds of weight loss in the first 6 months of a wheat-free diet." Sounds pretty impressive and compelling ... until you realize he's wrong. 1. First of all, the study didn't examine 215 obese patients. Body Mass Index for study participants ranged from underweight to normal to overweight to obese. So he claimed all 215 were obese and they were not. Dr. William Davis just got caught in a misrepresentation. 2. Secondly, only 25 of those 215 patients lost weight and the weight loss was not restricted to the obese subset of participants. - So what Dr. William Davis did here, is to make you believe that everyone lost weight after going wheat-free...that didn't happen. He didn't tell you that only 25 people out of the 215 lost weight! That's a failure of the study, not a successful diet when only .1 of the dieters lost any weight and 90% of the dieters didn't lose any weight by going wheat free. Dr. William WheatBelly Davis has just deceived you. 3. (Further, 91 of the 215 patients gained weight, but I'll return to the issue of weight gain among obese celiacs in a moment.) You can read the full text of the study as reported in the original American Journal of Clinical Nutrition article here. - That's right. It's not just that barely 25 people out of 215 even lost any weight. 91 people went on his Wheat Belly diet and it made them GAIN weight! The wheatbelly diet actually made people fatter. More than 90 people hoping to lose weight on the wheat belly gluten free diet actually became more obese. Remember, Dr. William Davis of Wheat Belly Blog and Track Your Plaque is touting this as a study that 'proved' going wheat-free worked! However when you actually look at the study he himself quoted, it is evidence of its failure. Dr Willaim Davis, the Wheatbelly diet book peddler is concealing this fact from you. The study showed the WheatBelly diet, not eating wheat, bread, gluten and grains, actually made people FATTER. Wheatbelly diet made the majority of people fat. 4. Next consider Chapter 5, The Wheat/Obesity Connection, page 66 of the hardcover edition. Here Davis invokes a study reported in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. He claims that of newly diagnosed celiac disease patients, 39 percent start overweight and 13 percent start obese. Next Davis writes that "by this estimate, more than half the people now diagnosed with celiac disease are therefore overweight or obese." - Dr. Willaim Davis is wrong. He doctored the facts. 5. Actually, the study noted that overweight and obese patients together accounted for 39 percent of diagnoses. The 13 percent obese patients were a subset of the overweight group. By Davis' questionable math, underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese celiac disease patients would account for 114% of diagnoses, which is impossible. - In other words, what Dr. William Davis, the author of the WheatBelly Diet book did here is he mis-added the numbers up in order to over-inflate the evidence to make his diet look like it worked. To give you an analogy, it's like this: Let's say you have 100 people in a classroom, and 39 of them are men. The rest are women. 61 women. In addition, 13 of those 39 men are wearing a tie. The rest decided to wear something else. Well if someone asks you how many of the people were men, you say 39. Well...what "Dr" William Davis did, was he ADDED the number of men wearing a tie to the number of men and was trying to say that if you count the number of men + the number of men

wearing a tie, you now suddenly have 52 men in the room, so now the 52 men out-number the 61 women because 52 men out of 100 people is 52% and they are now exceeding 50% of the 100 people. ...Ridiculous. If this does not make sense to you that's because you're right, it doesn't make any sense what this wheatbelly diet kook tried to do here. But this is typical of the fact peddling work by "Dr" William Wheatbelly Quack Diet Davis. The diet books about WheatBelly by Dr. William Davis are definitely "cooked". Davis and his diet are completely confirmed as a scam weight loss diet that has no basis in science or facts. In fact, wheat belly can hurt you and your family and children because wheat and whole grain actually have actually been shown to protect you against cancer, heart disease, and stroke, and by him telling you Not to eat them now your own child is left without protection, and with the added meat filling the void, you've now thrown down their shield and may end up victimizing yourself and your own family with poor nutrition and horrible tumours because of this charlatan quack. Wheat and grain is actually healthy for you and 99% of people on the face of the earth. This quack can hurt you and your child with his incorrect crank anti-wheat fat and meat deceit. 6. FALSE WHEATBELLY DIET CLAIM: At the start of the very next paragraph, he invokes a familiar line nearly identical to that from Chapter 3: "If we focus only on overweight people who are not severely malnourished at the time of diagnosis, celiac sufferers actually lose a substantial quantity of weight when they eliminate wheat gluten." 7. I call B.S. on William Davis. You know that study William Davis just cited in the previous paragraph of his book to build his case? The same study from which he errantly claimed more than half of newly diagnosed celiacs are overweight? Here is what researchers actually found, and I quote directly: "Of patients compliant with a gluten-free diet, 81 percent had gained weight after 2 years, including 82% of initially overweight patients" (emphasis mine). - IN OTHER WORDS, THE SCIENTIFIC DIET STUDY SHOWED THAT AVOIDING WHEAT AND EATING MORE MEAT ON THE WHEAT BELLY DIET MADE PEOPLE FATTER. This finding is not buried deep in the report somewhere. It's important enough that researchers also call it out directly in the top-level abstract. When Davis claims that initially overweight celiac disease patients lose a significant amount of weight on a gluten-free diet, how does he explain the fact that 82% of those patients gained weight ... in one of the very studies he uses to back up his questionable claim? While on Wheatbelly diet, 82% of the people who ditched the wheat and avoided grains and went gluten-free GAINED MORE FAT THAN THEY HAD BEFORE. That's right: People who did the Wheat Belly diet got fatter. To me this appears not to be innocent. Not just some bit of the doctor's careless oversight; it is more than a case of scientific ignorance. Those results are front and center in the study, and they directly contradict his claim. It would take an act of willful omission to leave it out; it's audacious that he cites the study to bolster his claim. The Wheat Belly diet blows the fact-check. And it now seems evident that this is quite possibly an intentional outright lie conducted by this hoax diet doctor William Davis. 8. For a third and final example, consider Chapter 4, The Addictive Properties of Wheat, page 50 of the hardcover edition. Here, Davis writes about gluten exorphins, opiate-like compounds created when stomach enzymes take a crack at partially digesting gluten. Researchers are continuing to study how they impact the human body in myriad ways. One branch of such studies uses the drug naloxone, an opiate blocker, to cancel the potential effect of gluten exorphins and other related compounds. Davis makes the (false) claim that gluten exorphins are addictive like morphine (another opiate), and that those addictive properties cause you to eat more calories and gain weight. As the theory goes, block the gluten exorphins with naloxone, and you block the addictive properties of wheat-based foods. To attempt to back up his boast, he then cites a study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, in which binge eaters were left in a room filled with a variety of foods for one hour. Davis writes "participants consumed 28 percent less wheat crackers, bread sticks, and pretzels with the administration of naloxone." And there you have it! See? Naloxone blocked the evil action of gluten exorphins, and those binge eaters ate fewer calories as a result! Except that's not what happened! 9. Here's the truth: While naloxone appeared to have an impact on the consumption of high fat and high sugar foods, it had no effect that correlated with gluten. In fact, while Davis claims that participants consumed 28 percent fewer wheat crackers, bread sticks, and pretzels, they actually consumed 40 percent more glutencontaining bread sticks.

REPEAT: This Wheatbelly doctor is going around claiming that patients given a chemical to reduce these supposed 'addictive heroin drug-like' properties of wheat began to eat less...but those given his chemical supposedly to block it so they'd eat less, actually ate MORE gluten and bread! He's just caught in a lie. In other words, Dr. William Davis just debunked himself and his own wheatbelly diet. WHEATBELLY DIET DOCTOR IS NOW OBESE ON HIS OWN DIET:

Doctor William Davis is NOW fat and unfit on his own wheatbelly diet. Eating wheat kept him thinner. He gained weight after eating less wheat & more meat. This is him today with manboobs, a double chin, and a large ring of blubber around his waist and less-manly hips. The picture of Davis himself tells it all.

The three examples I've noted are hardly the sum total of the problems I found with the book. There are many others, though I've already made my point. The Wheatbelly diet is false. It's a quack diet and potentially based on health fraud. I'm not just disappointed with Davis and Wheat Belly; I'm downright angry at him. It does an injustice to the very legitimate case for less than 1% of people against wheat and gluten, and it is insulting to us, the 1% of readers who have a genetic gluten allergy. Sadly, Wheat Belly looks polished from a distance, but upon closer inspection it goes belly up. The Wheatbelly diet book by Dr. William Davis, MD amounts to propaganda, fallacies, and unsubstantiated claims. Wheat Belly is a lie. [Updated version of Legmara. Original credited to Peter Bronsky] Modified version. Original Posted by peterbronski at 8:00 AM
LABEL S: BOOKS , HEA LTH , REVIE WS , WELL NES S