This is a fascinating discovery for me that illuminates both my own situation, and just how much we don’t know or understand about autoimmunity in general. We put things in a neat little categories and ignore the fact that our bodies the beautiful and complex materials dimension of an interconnected whole person. Which is to say, we can never truly understand the relationship of a thing to everything.
Anyways. Eureka. I’m pretty confident of this discovery, but my source is “trust me bro.” I’ve done a pretty drastic deep dive into these topics over the years, and I’m not going to cite every bit of authority or research to support my claims. So there.
So, here’s what happened: For a couple years now, I react when I eat eat eggs. Well, let me qualify: that is to say, I can eat eggs no problem. I can eat eggs, as long as the chicken hasn’t been fed wheat – if it’s been fed wheat, however, I don’t get a full blown celiac reaction, but I feel terrible – icky stomach, hurts, gross, etc.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been eating ridiculously clean. Not 100% clean; I fudge things occasionally – wild and crazy. in other words, I do things like eat supper, eat rice, and – gasp – once ate a handful of Organic Costco corn chips (yes with seed oils). That one wasn’t worth it. Anyways. Most days, most of what I eat is deer meat mixed with animal organs. Yum. that, and also taking homeopathics that make a noticeable difference in bloating. Ok. so, that’s the backdrop.
The other day, I decided to try eggs again. As in, wheat fed eggs. around 8:00 a.m., I had some Pavlova, and waited for the repercussion. Nothing. So, with my typical restraint, I had four more. Still nothing. Unbelievable.
I concluded that apparently I can have eggs again – hooray! Hit the Staples button, because that was easy. But then, the plot twist: Around 3pm, I had four pieces of gluten-free bread. Then I had meatballs with eggs.
Ouch. suddenly, backed the same egg symptoms: wretchy stomach, yuck, and ouch.
I didn’t think much of it, other than to wonder if it was something else. I tried again the next day, and made sure I didn’t eat anything else that could be iffy, same result: eggs made me feel icky again.
Weird. I couldn’t figure this out: The first time around, I had clearly had no problem whatsoever. What happened?
Also: research is pretty firm that It would almost be impossible for a proteins like gluten to get into an egg. On the other hand, I can 100% tell wheat-fed vs non wheat-fed eggs. What’s up with that?
So, I started digging. Kimi and I started digging.
One thing I noticed: A few years ago, I drink a hard root beer without realizing that it was actually beer. As in, barley. As in, gluten.
However, I didn’t have the same meltdown that I get when I get wheat glutened. The repercussions were more, well, kind of like the egg-related repercussions that I described above: wretchy stomach, headache, ouch, etc. Pretty average; not the 3-week/3-month takedown cycle I get from a microscopic bit of wheat cross contamination.
Interesting. It turns out, there are two pieces of information that are relevant here:
The first is immune system priming: This I am obviously familiar with in theory. essentially, if you’re immune system gets smote by something bad (same is true for your pain sensitivity etc), depending on who knows what, your system now responds with extra ferocity if that happens again. Maybe you developed more receptors for that, maybe it’s your body freaking out, who knows. whatever it is, you’re now “primed” to that reaction – in other words, you’re extra sensitive.
The second is a grain anti-nutrient called Amylase Triptase Inhibitor – ATI. Apparently, ATI is in almost every grain, however, not all ATI is equal: the types vary wildly, both from grade to grain, and even from grain strains. Note: This is why some people that are wheat-sensetive have trouble with oats: oats share some overlap in ATI types to wheat. Not as bad, but some overlap. Anyways.
I noted that all grains have this anti-nutrient ATI. Again, however, most grains have forms of it that are wimpy and benign. Wouldn’t you know it, Einkorn and Spelt (ancient forms of ~wheat) have almost zippo ATI, and no really-bad types. Our modern cash-crop wheat, however – well, you guessed it. BAD NEWS.
“Amylase Triptase Inhibitor” describes what this anti-nutrient does. Essentially, Amylase and Triptase are enzymes that help you digest and extract nutrients from the grain. ATI is the grains way of punishing you for eating it and preventing you from getting nutrients from it (and believe me, it’s not the only anti-nutrient; plants are chock full of these bad boys. Eat meat kids).
Which brings us back to the egg: ATI is an extraordinarily resilient compound absolutely could survive a chicken’s digestive tract and make it into the egg. Even crazier: Even if an ATI’s enzymatic inhibition is denatured, it can still bind to your inflammatory receptors and promote inflammation – this guy is tenacious.
And here’s the final piece of the puzzle: I have trouble when I eat wheat-fed eggs. But if ATI is really in the eggs, and ATI is really that inflammatory, why doesn’t everyone else have issues with it like me? For that matter, why do people not have issues with it when they eat straight-up wheat?
The answer is that they DO – just not as intensely. The wheat ATI does cause an inflammatory response, in everybody. however, I’m now primed to have an extravagant response. Not only that, but the way ATI causes an inflammatory response: ATI binds to a receptor called TLR4. This receptor is essentially a “warning system” receptor that is triggered by unfriendly bacteria – it’s your body’s early warning system, beep beep. But, although there are if you receptors scattered on your gut wall, most of the TLR4 receptors are found under several layers of mucosal tissue. In other words, not only are most people not sensitive, but if you’re healthy and do not have a leaky gut, ATI will never get the chance to latch on to and activate the majority of your TLR4 receptors.
Leaky gut. ATI. TLR4. Boom.
Suddenly, it hit me like a bad histamine reaction: I figured out what happened. Here we go:
I was eating clean. Venison. Arsinicum and Lyocpodium. Low bloating. My gut was tight-knit, and doing well. I tried the wheat-fed eggs: I probably got some information, but it was unnoticeable because the ATI in the eggs couldn’t reach the vast majority of my TLR4s. Then, as one does, I ate gluten-free bread. Instant leaky gut: As soon as I ate another wheat-fed egg, the ATIs ran roughshod into my leaky gut wall, finding copious amounts of TLR4s to attack. Blah.
Which is super cool.
If I am not wrong – and I am never wrong (*that’s a movie quote) – then this tells me A LOT of things.
First, I’ll bet that there’s a lot of people who aren’t actually celiac; their actually non-celiac wheat sensitive (to ATIs). Or, they’re “celiac”, autoimmune, but their autoimmunity isn’t gluten or gliadan – it’s to bad types of ATI. (Yes, You can be autoimmune to pretty much anything). they go over to Europe, and European grain is often more or less clean from ATI, and voila! no reaction. Those types of people could probably eat Einkorn or Spelt.
But then there’s weirdos like me. If my theory is correct, I would still get smoked if I went to Europe and ate wheat.
Second, I could experiment with a bandaid solution – wouldn’t be a healthy long-term solution, but it would confirm if my theory is correct. I could take herbs or supplements that are TLR4 inhibitors at the same time at I ate wheat-eggs, and block the ATI from latching on to the TLR4. Theoretically, this would ameliorate the inflammatory response. Step #1 is I have to heal up a little (or alot) first – but then, I’ll update this article with the test results.
Third, and most cool of all: if this is accurate, this means that wheat-eggs are my instant-just-add-water “leaky gut test.” If my gut is doing well and isn’t leaky, I can handle eggs. But if it’s leaky (and yes, that can happen in realtime – your tight-cell junctions open and close in realtime as you eat – leaky gut is injury where they open too much), them ATI gets a VIP access pass to the deeper mucosal layers, and therefore TLR4. Yuckie. Flip side: if I eat clean, I get a bonus: freebie industrial eggs. Hooray! Hm. Maybe I should just get better eggs…
Another footnote that’s good to know: this isn’t an autoimmune reaction. It’s inflammatory: still bad, but autoimmunity = dead tissue (necrosis). Inflammatory just means angry tissue that gets better in a day or two. If you have to pick, always go with the latter, trust me Bro.
Eureka. One more brick in the wall.
