Dr. Thomas O Bryan, Certified Clinical Nutritionist, Expert in the Fields of Gluten Sensitivity

Dr. Thomas O’Bryan, Certified Clinical Nutritionist, expert in the fields of gluten sensitivity and celiac disease.

Month 4, Week 1

ROBYN: …our theme song. We actually had the person who did Brendon Bouchard’s theme song. I know him quite well and so, the two of them did this song for us.

[Theme song playing]

ROBYN: Hello everyone and thank you for being here for month four of the Self-Care Revolution. And thank you for hearing our whole theme song. We have no idea what happened there. We usually play like 45 seconds of it but we could not turn it off. But anyway, for all of you who are joining the Self-Care Revolution for the first time, we are celebrating the month of Unleashing Your Brain Power. We just had a wonderful discussion with Michael Gelb and now, we are very excited to share with you Dr. Tom O'Bryan.

And the title of our topic today is “Unlocking the Mysteries of Gluten Sensitivity, Cognitive Complications, and Mood Disorders: How Wheat Harms the Brain”. My name is Robyn Benson. I'm a Doctor of Oriental Medicine and the founder of Santa Fe Soul Health and Healing Center. And I'm here with...

KEVIN: Kevin Snow, the Desert Shaman, Intuitive Counselor. And I work out of Santa Fe Soul Health and Healing Center and I'm happy to be here today.

ROBYN: Just again for all of you who are here for the very first time, this is our fourth month. We've started out with thoughts and food as medicine. Our second month was all about the important connection of breath and heart. And then, we just completed month three which is all about releasing and transmuting trauma. So, once again, we are here today with Dr. Thomas O'Bryan. Hi Tom, how are you today?

TOM: Hi Robyn. Very well, thank you.

ROBYN: Thank you so much for enduring our whole theme song.

TOM: Well, that fellow had a message he wanted to deliver.

ROBYN: I think so. We are very excited about Harold Pane, is the songwriter and also Chris Miller. The two of them have come together to co-create that beautiful song. Usually, again, most of our listeners only get 30 seconds of it or more.

TOM: Today is the day.

ROBYN: Today is the day. So, Dr. Thomas O'Bryan is an internationally recognized speaker and workshop leader specializing in gluten sensitivity and celiac disease. He is a “Sherlock Holmes” for chronic disease and metabolic disorders. He is a clinician par excellence in treating chronic disease and metabolic disorders from a functional medicine perspective. He holds teaching faculty positions with the Institute for Functional Medicine and The National University of Life Sciences.

Dr. O’Bryan is always one of the most respected, highly-appreciated speakers. Dr. O'Bryan's passion is in teaching the many manifestations of gluten sensitivity and celiac disease as they occur inside and outside of the intestines.

In sensitive individuals, gluten sensitivity can trigger autoimmune disorders, epilepsies, thyroid disease, diabetes, migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, and more. Perhaps one of the more surprising messages is the impact of gluten sensitivity on the brain. The dimmer switch that occurs in the brain especially in children is one that parents and caregivers would never suspect. Hold on to your seats because you’re in for an investigative adventure with Dr. O'Bryan today. Thanks again for being here.

TOM: Thank you. It's a pleasure. Thank you.

ROBYN: Yeah. I have been a practitioner, a Doctor of Oriental Medicine for the past 21 years. And as you know, any of us who practice integrative medicine, functional medicine, diet is huge and some say 80%. In fact, we introduced quite a few experts in our first month, I should say. And we really are glad that we saved you for this month because you're going to really illuminate how much it affects the brain, our memory, certainly how we sleep. It affects the whole body. So, why don't we start with...

KEVIN: What is gluten?

ROBYN: Start with what is gluten.

TOM: Well, good. Let me start with the quote and then we'll go to what is gluten. This is from the National Institute on Aging. And it was published in The Annals of Internal Medicine ten years ago. And what they said was, this is an exact quote. “While there are many examples of people who live for 100 years or more with little evidence of the decline in brain function, many others are not so fortunate in experience a neurodegenerative disorder such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. Emerging findings suggest that dietary factors play major roles in determining whether the brain ages successfully or experiences a neurodegenerative disease.”

Ten years ago, the National Institute of Aging, in The Annals of Internal Medicine told us diet plays a major role. Now, no one gets Alzheimer’s in their 60’s or 70’s. You get Alzheimer’s in your 20’s or 30’s. It just takes decades before there's enough tissue damage to where the symptoms become obvious. But all scientists know it's a decades-long process for your brain to degenerate. Unless there's some type of trauma or acute toxin exposure, it's over time. And the problem is that none of us pay attention to it until we've got symptoms. And the symptoms start when we’re in our 30’s. And we say, "Oh, I can't remember the way I used to. I guess I'm getting old.” Haha! No, your brain is not working right. So, that's how I wanted to start today.

Now to, what is gluten? Gluten is a protein found in almost all grains. So, the first premise that I hope people walk away with today, is that gluten is not bad for you. Bad gluten is bad for you. And there's a family of glutens in wheat, rye, and barley that are toxic to most people. So, it’s not all glutens. And people need to know that because somewhere they're going to read on the internet that there's gluten in rice. And they're going to panic and say, "Oh, my God! I've been killing my brain because I've been eating rice." No. It's fine unless you have an allergy to rice, and then you just stay away from rice. But in terms of the discussion about gluten sensitivity with or without celiac disease, it's the bad family of glutens in wheat, rye, and barley.

KEVIN: Alright. Yes, that's good to know because I do think that you're now always seeing the labels everywhere that it's “gluten-free”, “gluten-free’. I think that it scares people too. Like, “Oh, maybe I shouldn't be eating any of this.”

TOM: Yes. Unfortunately, it's like the word “Xerox”. I mean, that was the name of a company that made copy machines. But now, the word has become synonymous with an action. You say, "Would you please Xerox this?" And it's the same with gluten. It never should have been associated with celiac disease. What should have been associated is toxic glutens. But we shorted it to one word instead of two. And so we say gluten is bad. No, it’s not. Bad gluten is bad.

KEVIN: Bad gluten bad. And maybe just touch on what the celiac disease is for our listeners.

TOM: Sure. Your intestines are a tube. The tube is 20/25 feet long in an adult. The inside of a tube is lined with shag carpeting. This shag is where calcium’s absorbed. The shag over there, potassium; the next shag, magnesium; the next shags, fish oils, good fats; other shags, proteins and amino acids. All the shags absorb different nutrients. That's how we get our nutrition from the food that we eat. Celiac disease is when your shags wear down and you've got berber.

KEVIN: Okay.

TOM: If you've got berber, you don't absorb calcium. That's why The Annals of Internal Medicine said in 2006 that every osteoporotic patient needs to be checked for celiac disease as celiac disease could be the cause of their osteoporosis, every one of them.

So, I show that slide on my seminars to doctors and I'll say, "So doc, given that The Archives of Internal Medicine say that every patient with osteoporosis needs to be checked, which one are you not going to check?" And there's silence in the room because no one’s ever thought of that before unless they've read the study.

So, it’s not that every osteoporotic patient has asensitivity to gluten. That would be silly to say. But it's so common that is recommended that every osteoporotic patient be checked because if they have this -- and of course it's one of the, if not the most common food in our diet in this country. And if they're taking this food in, it very likely is the strong contributor to their osteoporosis.

ROBYN: About what percentage of the population is expected to have gluten sensitivities?

TOM: In the literature, we know that it's published as six times more prevalent than celiac disease. Celiac disease is 1% to 2% of the population. So, we know in the literature that’s coming out between, it’s 6% and 10%. It means one out of ten. Now, that's because -- and this is more nerdy stuff but until two years ago, scientists did not recognize that there was such a thing as gluten sensitivity without celiac disease. They were holding fast to the notion that if your shags weren't worn down, it's okay to eat gluten even when the immune system says there's a problem. So, we say, “No, your shags are not worn down. It’s okay to eat gluten. Don't worry about what that blood test said.”

Well, the problem with that is like thinking that most of us have had a parent or a family member or a neighbor that had a heart attack and they survived. And they came home and said, “You know, the doctor said I had previous heart attacks. I never knew.” And it's because there was damage to the heart that they could see when they were in the hospital and doing exams to see how badly damaged the person was from the current heart attack. Most of us have heard that kind of thing before. A person never knows that they've had a previous heart attack, sometimes.

So, that's like saying, “You've got high cholesterol; you have cholesterol of 350.” Doctor says, “Don't worry buddy, you don't have heart disease. You've never had a heart attack. Your heart muscle is not damaged.” They used to do the same thing with celiac disease. And some doctors still do that if your shags are not worn down, they say, "Oh, it's not a problem. It’s okay to eat gluten.” Even when the immune system says there's a problem.

So, that was the state of the art -- not state of the art-- that was the common thought process for most of our physicians. Until two years ago, researchers finally agreed. And it's been a big argument for about ten years but they finally made a position statement, “Yes, there is this thing called non-gluten, or non-celiac gluten sensitivity.”

So, now that we've recognized non-celiac gluten sensitivity, the blood tests have come out finally that are much more sensitive to identify non-celiac gluten sensitivity. And the result is what we're finding is that it's somewhere around five to seven out of ten people are coming back positive that the immune system is saying, “We've got a problem here. We need to fix this.” So, it’s a huge, huge, silent epidemic. It’s huge. And people just don't know. And when you learn the potential complications of this, then it's startling. And we realize that most people, if they have any suspicion whatsoever, should just have a test done to see but just make sure you do the right test.

ROBYN: And what is the right test? What do you recommend?

TOM: The right test -- let's go back to gluten. If you think of protein like a brick wall with lots of bricks, digestion is the process of taking the mortar off the bricks. So, each brick is an amino acid. And our bodies absorb the amino acids through the shags in the intestines. And until the mortar is taken off the bricks, the bricks are too big. The wall is too big to get through the shags into the blood stream. So, digestion is the process of taking the mortar off the bricks and then we absorb each brick or maybe two bricks together called the dipeptide.

But what happens with gluten is that no human can digest this gluten in wheat. It is impossible for the human digestive system to break it down. Some people get sick, some don't, but no one can break it down anymore because of the type of wheat that is available today. It's like someone took a sledgehammer to a brick wall and smashed the wall with the sledgehammer and now, you got big clumps of brick. You’ve got a 33-brick clump. You've got a 17-brick clump, 11-brick clump, a 21-brick clump.

The problem in the blood test is that they've only had a blood test available that looked at the 33-brick clump. And the technical name for it is alpha gliadin. And for years and years and years, that is the only one that was checked. Well, we know that in celiacs, only 50% of them will be positive to alpha gliadin. The rest of them aren't. That's why it was never considered a really good test because it was wrong half the time. But that’s because they were only looking at one clump of brick. Now, the blood test available from Cyrex Labs, and I have no affiliation with them. But CyrexLabs.com, and they look at ten different clumps of brick instead of just one. They look at the one but they look at nine others, so you don't get the false negatives anymore where the blood test says there's no problem and there really is a problem.

Now, you can identify it. That's the only test on the market that is comprehensive enough to where people can be comfortable. They’ve really taken a good look to see if they have a sensitivity to gluten. It's a fabulous test. And since it came on the market almost three years ago now, actually, almost three years ago, it has made a tremendous difference in healthcare practitioners’ ability to show a patient whether or not they are having a problem with gluten.

KEVIN: Is it a blood test?

TOM: It is. It's a blood test.

ROBYN: Okay. What's the price of that?

TOM: That price, I believe, is $325 or $345, something like that. It's one of the two. I'm sorry, I'm just not sure. I don't deal with that very often. But it’s either $325 or the $345. And it looks at ten different peptides of gluten and it looks at six other enzymes. One in the gut that’s a major indicator for celiac disease; one in the brain that when you have antibodies to it, you actually get a leaky brain if you ever heard of the leaky gut and this is one of the mechanisms we'll talk about today of why there's so many brain symptoms with gluten sensitivity; and then, one for enzymes in the skin.

So, you’re looking at ten peptides of gluten and then six different enzymes. Two different antibodies for each one IGA and IGG, looking to see if the immune system is saying, "We've got a problem here.” So, it’s just a fabulous tool for doctors to look at. Does this person have a sensitivity for gluten? Is it affecting their gut? Is it affecting their brain?

KEVIN: You mentioned earlier that something about the type of wheat.

TOM: Yes.

KEVIN: We only have like a certain type of wheat available now? Or is that…

TOM: Yeah. Unfortunately, what's happened is called the 50/50 rule. In the last 50 years, the gluten content of wheat has gone up by over 50%. And gluten meat is glue. The word “gluten” comes from the word for glue. And it's sticky. The wheat that farmers use has been hybridized, not genetically modified, hybridized to form this plant that is much more sticky, much more glue-like in the flour. And the result is that bakers love it and manufacturing companies love it for their pastries and their breads because you can stretch it and you can make it lighter and fluffier. But it’s got much more gluten. And the result of that is the human digestive system cannot break it down.

So, some people say, "But, it's in the Bible. That is the stuff of life and it’s good for you." And my response is, "With all due respect, no one in the planet is eating the bread that Jesus Christ ate. Stop using that as an excuse because it's killing you and it's killing your family.” And that just puts an end to that discussion because that bread is not available.

There is few places where you can get Einkorn wheat and that is the original wheat that grew in the Mesopotamian Valley. But once people make antibodies to gluten, you cannot even have that one because the protein structure are too similar, it’s still going to activate the immune-response and cause a tissue damage in the brain, in the heart, in the liver, the kidneys, wherever your genetic weak link is.