Despite popular misconceptions gluten is only the tip of a very large iceberg. There are actually 23,788 distinct proteins that have been identified in wheat, any one of which could incite a negative immune reaction in the body. 

Most folks don't realize that when we are talking about health problems associated with wheat, or gluten, we are not talking about a monolithic entity, a singular "bad guy," solely responsible for the havoc commonly experienced as a consequence of consuming this grain. After all, how could just one villain cause the 200+ different clinically observed adverse health effects now linked in the biomedical literature to wheat consumption?  

No, the problem is that "gluten" is an abstraction, and in its perceived singularity profoundly misrepresents the true extent of the problem, much in the way that the tip of an iceberg does not convey the massive threat submerged below ...

Gluten is the Latin name for "glue," and signifies the doughy complex of proteins within the wheat plant, further classified as either gliadins (alcohol soluble), glutelins (dilute acid or alkalis soluble), or other. Because wheat is a hexaploid species  (doesn't that sound creepy?), the byproduct of three ancestor plants becoming one, with no less than 6 sets of chromosomes and 6.5 times more genes than found in the human genome, it is capable of producing no less than 23,788 different proteins - a fact as amazing as it is disturbing.[i]

Disturbing, how?

Well, any one of these proteins could elicit what is known as an antigenic response, i.e. the immune system identifies a wheat protein as other, launches either an innate or adaptive immune response, and attacks self-structures accidentally, as a result.

Clinical research confirms why office work and coffee go so closely hand in hand. The study published in the journal BMC Research Notes found that drinking coffee reduces the development of pain during computer work. [i]

Study participants who had consumed coffee (1/2-1 cup) on average 1 hour and 18 minutes before performing a simulated computer office-work task found to provoke pain in the neck, shoulders, forearms and wrists, were found to have "attenuated pain development compared with the subjects who had abstained from coffee intake."

While the researchers attributed the observed effect to the caffeine content in coffee, we believe there is more going on here...

For most of the twentieth century, mastectomy was the first line treatment for Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS), and younger patients were more likely to undergo the procedure. Even after lumpectomy and radiotherapy were shown to be at least as effective for invasive cancer as mastectomy, still in 2002, 26% of DCIS patients were still receiving mastectomy.¹

Groundbreaking research published in the Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand found that curcumin, the primary polyphenol in turmeric, is capable of repairing and even regenerating the liver tissues of diabetic rats

The research was performed at Srinakharinwirot University in Bangkok, Thailand. The administration of curcumin to diabetic rats, whose livers showed the characteristic pathology and destruction of liver tissues and microvasculature, resulted in significant reversal of the condition.

They noted:

Sadly, Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a time of increasing awareness not of the preventable causes of breast cancer, but of the breast cancer industry's insatiable need to both raise money for research into a pharmaceutical cure, and to promote its primary means of "prevention": early detection via x-ray mammography

[Part II: Benign Lesion or Tumor?]

The history of Breast Cancer Awareness Month's surprising origins is a matter of the public record: 

New research published in the Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology found that "ginger may be a promising candidate for the treatment of breast carcinomas."^[i] This is a timely finding, insofar as breast cancer awareness month is only days away, and one of the primary fund-raising justifications is the false concept that a low-cost, safe and effective breast cancer treatment is not yet available. Could ginger provide the type of cure that conventional, FDA-approved treatments have yet to accomplish?

The "diseases of affluence," as they are known, include diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, osteoporosis and cancer, and are sometimes referred to as the "Western disease" paradigm.  They emerge largely in response to the type of overnourishment that occurs in relatively wealthy societies, and particularly the excessive consumption of certain evolutionarily incompatible foods that nonetheless have become the nutritional centerpiece of agrarian, grain-based cultures. (Consider that we have only been consuming the seeds of cereal grasses, i.e. grains, en masse for 10-20,000 years, which while ancient in cultural time, is but a nanosecond in biological time!)

In a 2008 study published in the journal Food Chemistry & Toxicology titled, "Comparative evaluation of the hypolipidemic effects of coconut water and lovastatin in rats fed fat-cholesterol enriched diet,"¹ the beverage coconut water was found as effective as a popular cholesterol-lowering drug in positively modulating blood lipid levels in rats.

The conclusion of the study was as follows:

Coconut water has lipid lowering effect similar to the drug lovastatin in rats fed fat-cholesterol enriched diet.

A new study published in the journal Atherosclerosis found that statin use is associated with a 52% increased prevalence and extent of coronary artery plaques possessing calcium.[i] This study, published on August 24^th, was preceded only three weeks earlier by one in the journal Diabetes Care, which found that coronary artery calcification "was significantly higher in more frequent statin users than in less frequent users," among patients with type 2 diabetes and advanced atherosclerosis.

In a bold and encouraging move on Tuesday, Russian authorities suspended the import of Monsanto's genetically-modified corn over cancer fears spurred by an alarming long-term animal feeding study performed by French researchers at the University of Caen and published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology this month.