Amylopectin A: Demon Carbohydrate

Amylopectin A is the branching carbohydrate unique to wheat and grains that sends blood sugar through the roof, increases liver production of triglycerides, contributes to risk for heart disease, and accelerates many of the phenomena of aging. Yet we are essentially advised to include sources of this demon carbohydrate in our daily diets. 

You need to be informed and recognized that so much of what your are told in diet and health is crafted for profit, not your benefit. 

**Disclaimer:**
The information presented in my books, blog posts, YouTube videos, podcasts, and other content is for informational and educational purposes only. The content I share should not be interpreted as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with your personal physician or qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your diet, medication, lifestyle, or healthcare regimen. Your individual health needs should be evaluated by a professional who is familiar with your unique medical history.

Chapters

• 0:00 Defining The “Demon” Carb
• 0:28 Indigestible Grain Proteins And Their Effects
• 0:52 Saliva To Bloodstream: Rapid Glucose Spikes
• 2:46 From High Insulin To Disease Cascade
• 2:58 The Whole Grain Paradox And Teeth
• 3:16 Liver Fat And Triglyceride Packaging
• 4:32 VLDL, Small LDL, And Heart Disease
• 6:11 Glycation, Aging, And Modern Ills
• 9:06 Rethinking Guidelines And Further Reading

Transcript

William Davis, MD: 0:00

What I'm calling demon carbohydrate is something called amylopectin A. And all that is, it's a branching sugar structure unique to wheat and grains. That, while there are many things in wheat and grains that are indigestible to humans. For instance, wheat germaglutin is a protein that is completely impervious to human digestion. It's a very toxic component, very toxic compound to the human gastrointestinal tract. Likewise, the gliding protein within gluten can only be digested down to four or five amino acid long peptide fragments. And that's the stuff that has opioid effects on the brain and acts as an epatite stimulant in addition to triggering autoimmune diseases. So those are proteins that are largely only partially or completely indigestible to humans. But the amylopectin A carbohydrate in wheat and grains is highly digestible, so digestible, that if you put something made of wheat, let's say a cracker or a piece of bread in your mouth and chewed it, but didn't swallow and check the finger stick blood glucose just before you did that, and then immediately during or after, you'll see a big spike in blood glucose because the amylase enzyme in your saliva will start the breakdown of that very digestible amylopectin A. Of course, when you swallow something made of wheat and grains, it then gets digested further by the enzymes in your stomach and pancreas, and you have this big flood of sugar, of glucose into your bloodstream. And that's why the amylopectin A is among the worst carbohydrates of all, because people will eat large quantities of it, which sends your blood glucose sky high. It sends insulin high along with it, and that over time generates the process of insulin resistance, and that's the process that underlies conditions like type 2 diabetes, coronary disease, dementia, breast cancer, fatty liver. In other words, a lot of the things that you're all familiar with that afflict the people around you is in many cases started or worsened by the consumption of wheat and grains. The great irony, of course, is that we're told that a diet rich in healthy whole grains is good for you. What they didn't understand when they first started telling people that was they were telling people to consume a food rich in the emblopin A carbohydrate that raises blood glucose. And of course, because of that sugar effect in the mouth, it rotts your teeth. So we know, by the way, with good evidence, that when humans first turned to the consumption of wheat and grains, there was a huge increase in dental decay, tooth loss, abscess formation, cavities, misalignment. In other words, dental problems were nearly unknown, or at least very rare, prior to the consumption of wheat and grains because of this amylopectin A. So, amylopectin A, a carbohydrate, branching carbohydrate structure, uniquely digestible, and thereby sends blood glucose sky-high, insulin, insulin resistance. But it doesn't end there. The amylopectin A is also converted by your liver to triglycerides. And triglycerides can stay in the liver where they can cause fatty liver. Triglycerides are fats, fats are triglycerides. So the consumption of the amylopectin A of wheat and grains can cause accumulation of fat in the liver. Some of those triglycerides also are sent into the bloodstream. Now, triglycerides can't float freely in the bloodstream because if fats like triglycerides were released directly into the bloodstream, they would coalesce. That's why you have Italian salad dressing, for instance, that separates into water and vinegar and oil. Oils coalesce. So if that happened in your body, you would have immediate organ damage. So the liver packages triglycerides into water-soluble particles by combining the triglycerides with other things like the apoplein B and other proteins to make it water-soluble and transportable. And so when you have consumption of amylopectin A, carbohydrate of wheat and grains, you have accumulation of fat in the liver, fatty liver. You also have an increase in the particles that contain triglycerides. They're called very low density lipoproteins, or we say VLDL. They're low density because they're full of fat, and fat is less dense than proteins. So you have a rise in VLDL particles that is a direct cause for coronary atherosclerosis, heart disease. And those VLDL particles are very good at transferring their abundant triglycerides to LDL particles. Not this silly, outdated, useless idea of LDL cholesterol. That's a marker, a crude indirect marker. But the actual low density lipoprotein, LDL particles themselves. So this process of amylopectinate consumption, liver conversion to VLDL, VLDL interacts with LDL particles, enriching them in triglycerides. I know this gets a little complicated. Those LDL particles now enriched with triglycerides go through a series of enzymatic remodeling steps that make them now smaller than they should be. Now, when LDL particles are small, they're better able to penetrate into the walls of arteries to create atherosclerosis, heart attack, sudden cardiac death, etc. The small LDL particles are much more prone to changes like oxidation that makes them much more likely to cause heart disease. And because the particle is small, the recognition protein on its surface, apoprotein B, is not well recognized by the liver. So that small LDL particle managed to circulate in your bloodstream around and around and around all throughout your body for many days, unlike the hours of a large normal LDL particle. So in other words, that bagel or stack of pancakes or bread you had on a sandwich triggered formation of small LDL that sticks around typically for about a week. So one consumption is sufficient to raise your cardiovascular risk for a week. Meaning, even if you have a piece of pizza or bagel, whatever, once a week, you've got 52 weeks a year of increased cardiovascular risk. So put this all together. The amylopectin A of wheat and grains raises blood glucose, generates insulin resistance, causes accumulation of fat triliterides in the liver, causes increase in VLDL, that is then leads to the process of creating small LDL, leads to heart disease. In other words, we're talking about an awful mess that comes from the consumption of the amylopectin A of wheat and grain. That's a partial list of problems, by the way. Another problem that happens when your blood glucose goes high is you glycate proteins. You glucose modify proteins. Proteins are unusually susceptible to a chemical process called glycation. Proteins are modified, and in many cases, they sometimes become garbage or junk or debris. So that can happen in the brain where you glycate some of the proteins in the brain, glial and neuronal proteins, and that's part of the process, part of the process, not the entire process, but part of the process that leads to dementia. You can glycate those small all particles. You can glycate collagen. Collagen is very susceptible to glycation. Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body. It's the thing that comprises the dermal layer of skin, dermal collagen. It's the collagen in your joint cartilage, so 70% of joint cartilage is collagen. So you glycate those sources of collagen, those locations of collagen. When you glycate dermal collagen, you accelerate skin aging, skin thinning, and wrinkles. If you glycate collagen in your joint cartilage, you accelerate the deterioration of your joint cartilage, and you get closer and closer to bone-on-bone arthritis. And of course, all the other proteins of your body, such as the proteins in the lenses of your eyes, will glycate, leading you to cataracts. That's why we're now seeing people in their 40s and 50s with cataracts. It used to be a process that afflicted people in their 70s. So because the dietary guidelines and the proliferation of ambly pectin A containing wheat and grains has led to this whole collection of disease states. So this idea of cutting fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, eating more healthy whole grains is a hugely destructive process for your health. This was the premise, by the way, of my book Wheat Belly. So if this doesn't make sense to you or you need more rationale, you need a further discussion, you want to know where this came from, the scientific rationale, the evidence, see my Wheat Belly book that's filled with, by the way, with references, citing sources of this information. So the original Wheat Belly came out in 2011. I released a revised and expanded edition a few years ago, but that contains the entire collection of arguments about amylopectin', about gliadin, about wheat germagglutinin, about the chemical modifications introduced to the wheat plant by agribusiness and geneticists. So that this makes sense to you. But once you get it, you've been given the key to an extraordinary method to regain multiple aspects of health.