I posed this question recently: Given the extravagant health successes people are experiencing by living the Wheat Belly lifestyle, are we on the dawn of an age of self-direction in health? If doctors misdiagnose/misclassify our acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, intractable constipation, migraine headaches, chronic sinusitis, asthma, depression, binge eating disorder, type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, autoimmune hepatitis, and hundreds of other conditions, which we then reverse on our own with the lifestyle changes we introduce . . . WHO NEEDS THE DOCTORS?
Christine provided her perspective:
“Absolutely, and I am living proof of it. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease 20 years ago and have endured multiple surgeries, every drug you can imagine and an indescribable amount of pain.
“In 2014, I happened across your book, Dr. Davis, in an airport bookshop. When I broached the subject with my gastroenterologist, her words were ‘I would never prescribe a gluten-free diet to help. It’s just too expensive.’
“To make an incredibly long story short, I am happy to report that a scope I had done in May, 2015 showed ‘no active disease.’ In fact, my gastroenterologist even repeated the test last month just to confirm. Still no issues. And I am seeing my surgeon next week, to book a date to reverse an ileostomy he did in April, 2014.
“I feel better than I have felt in 20 years. So, absolutely, I’m ALL FOR self-directed health!”
A chance encounter at the airport provided better information than years of dealings with gastroenterologists. There are undoubtedly times when we need doctors and the healthcare system, such as suturing a laceration or repairing a broken femur. But look at the wide variety ofchronic health conditions (not acute injury or infection) that are reversing in the face of wheat and grain elimination, followed by the strategies we introduce to correct the health disruptions they introduced (e.g., thyroid disease, dysbiosis). As story after story shows us, people are reducing, often curing, themselves of chronic health conditions that doctors misdiagnosed, were unable to diagnose, but prescribed drug after drug and advised procedures.
By rejecting all wheat and grains, we revert back to the way humans ate for the first 99.6% of our time on earth before we figured out how to harvest the seeds of grasses and cultivate them–“grains.” We thereby also revert back to the way human life was that can still be observed in primitive cultures who do not grow grains—no obesity, no hypertension, virtually no diabetes, heart disease, cancer, or autoimmune conditions, i.e., none of the “diseases of civilization” that we view as common today.
Fold in the boom in tools that empower us in health, such as social media, new websites that collate collective human health experiences (e.g., Patients Like Me), home health tools, and smartphone health apps, and I do indeed believe that it is going to be a very exciting few years ahead as we become less reliant on a predatory and flawed healthcare system and more reliant on our own resources.
