Dope heads?

Wheat is alleged to have an opoid response on the brain which drives the consumption of wheat, or in other words, you stuff the pizza into your mouth because it is addictive.

What is the compound that is supposed to drive this addiction response? - something called Gliadin.

Gliadin is a glycoprotein, and together with Glutelin, combine to form Gluten, which forms some 80% of the protein to be found within the wheat seed.

The earliest study I can find comes from 1979 (some 33 years ago) where the final sentence on the abstract states " It is suggested that peptides derived from some food proteins may be of physiological importance."

So some 33 years ago researchers already had a clue that the digestive products from wheat consumption had "physiological importance" - namely addiction.

The abstract is here.

In 1984 researchers were looking for possible links between schizophrenia and celiac disease and thus interested in which wheat gluten proteins exibited an opioid-like activity.

The results were clear, and I quote "The most active peptides were derived from the gliadin fraction of the gluten complex." Thus was gliadin fingered as the culprit in the addictive nature of wheat.

The abstract is here.

The final nail in the coffin as far as I was concerned was when the FDA approved the process whereby a new drug called "Contrave" manufactured by a company called "Orexigen" could be approved for use within the United States of America. Orexigen need to conduct;

"a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled cardiovascular outcomes trial prior to approval. The objective of the trial is to demonstrate that Contrave does not unacceptably increase the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). The Company plans to initiate the Contrave outcomes trial late in the second quarter of 2012."

The press release is here.

Contrave is a combination of two approved drugs, bupropion and naltrexone. Bupropion is an anti-depressant, whereas Naltrexone is an opioid receptor antagonist. The two together means that Naltrexone will block the ability of gliadin to generate the addiction and thus the desire for wheat, and Buproprion will handle the psychological impact (depression) of not getting the "high" caused by wheat consumption.

Wonderful stuff - but let's just walk ourselves through this from a governance point of view.

What is the role of the FDA??

Its website has the tagline here that states "Protecting and promoting your health".

So, a US Government agency, supposedly focussed on protecting and enhancing the health of the citizens of the United States of America is prepared to licence a drug that deals with the reality that a major component of the SAD (Standard American Diet) is actually addictive.

This is where the conflict called 'double think' a term coined by George Orwell comes to mind. A state agency - knowing two things that are mutually incompatible, is still prepared to believe in both 'realities' knowing full well that they 'are' mutually contradictory.

i.e. Wheat is addictive and injurious to human health, yet nothing is mentioned, yet a drug that works because it targets the addictive nature of wheat is in the process of being licensed.

And I quote;

"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."

If wheat was a new drug, would the FDA licence it knowing that it was both; one - addictive, and; two - leads to obesity due to both the blood-sugar spike - insulin release and the consequent fat storage mechanism.

I don't think that we need to know what the true answer is, we can already guess.