Wheat: It's Not Just the Guten

From eNewsletter 9/9/2026

"I feel better when I avoid gluten" has become one of the most common things people tell their doctors. Yet when researchers run the gold-standard test, giving people gluten or placebo without telling them which is which, fewer than a third actually react to the gluten itself.

Part of the reason is that gluten may not even be the real culprit. Wheat contains other components, including certain fermentable carbohydrates (the same "FODMAPs" that trigger irritable bowel symptoms) and proteins that can stir up the immune system. In medicine, the condition is increasingly called non-celiac wheat sensitivity rather than gluten sensitivity/intolerance.

The symptoms look a lot like irritable bowel syndrome - bloating, abdominal pain, and changes in bowel habits - but what raises suspicion of wheat sensitivity is the added presence of symptoms beyond the gut, such as fatigue, brain fog, headache, and joint or muscle aches, that show up reliably within hours to a day or two of eating wheat and ease when it's removed.

Unlike celiac disease, wheat sensitivity does not always require the same strict, trace-level avoidance. Many people can tolerate small amounts, although the right threshold varies from person to person, so it's worth revisiting after 12 to 24 months to see whether or how wheat can be gradually reintroduced.

It is always a good idea to working with professionals like ourselves to guard against an unsupervised long-term gluten-free diet.

Note: two more serious conditions - celiac disease and a true wheat allergy - can only be ruled out accurately while you're still eating wheat normally. If you cut it out first and the tests can come back falsely reassuring, this could be damaging to your health.

To read the rest of today's issue, please go to this page.

What Secrets Do Centenarians Share?

From eNewsletter 9/7/2026

DID YOU KNOW that according to a study from Annals of Neurology, simply meeting the current minimum standard for vitamin B12 may not always be enough, especially for older adults.

Healthy older people with lower vitamin B12 levels, even when those levels fell within the accepted normal range (414.8 pmol/L, far above the U.S. minimum cutoff of 148 pmol/L), showed signs of subtle neurological and cognitive problems. Thus, some people may be told their B12 status is fine while their brains are already showing early signs of strain.

"In addition to redefining B12 deficiency, clinicians should consider supplementation in older patients with neurological symptoms even if their levels are within normal limits," the author said.

Our reference range is 400-1200 pmo/L, with anything in the 400's considered low normal. Optimally, 600 and above is where B12 levels should be. To read the rest of today's issue, please go to this page.

AHA Weighs in on Coffee

DID YOU KNOW that farmed-raised salmon has a significantly different fatty acid makeup than wild-caught salmon?

The authors of a study from Frontiers in Nutrition purport that food analysis data need to be updated much more frequently than they are currently.

For example, the fatty acid profile of farmed Atlantic salmon demonstrates fatty acid differences not listed in current datasets. When tested recently, the new profile was 2.4-fold higher in linoleic acid and 3.4-fold higher in α-linolenic acid than listed, with decreases in eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) concentrations. This means that levels of omega-6 fatty acids have increased and omega-3 fatty acids have decreased exponentially.

We knew that farm-raised salmon had much less EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids than wild-caught, but the difference between the two is now even more vast.

To read the rest of today's issue, please go to this page.