By Princewill Ekwujuru

The reason for eating wheat has become apparent, no thanks to the increasing number of diabetic patients. Wheat consumption according to investigation by some diabetic patients say it helps to   enhance the health and fitness of patients  as a result of its fibre content, fast digestive tendency and its low sugar level, as it also helps to stabilise the body system they explained.

While exhibiting some marketing stunts and employing Integrated Marketing Communications  (IMC) tools, the Wheat market is now filled with various range of wheat brands with each battling for consumers mind and market dominance.

The deployment of media tools explains the reason consumers are head bent on having a taste of  the Wheat  brand, aside its heath benefit,  for some time now the media be it Above-the -Line or Below-the-Line have been awash with marketing communications materials to drive sales for each product whilst targeting the same market.

Some of the Wheat brands are; Golden Penny Wheat, Honeywell Wheat, Flour Mill Wheat and the locally processed. Today, the locally processed wheat meal is preferred more to the industrially  manufactured wheat brands, because consumers say there are notices of  sugar in them.

Today, non-diabetic, pre-diabetic patients also eat wheat, this makes it more interesting that consumers aged 40 and above are now health conscious and aware of the ravaging effect of diabetics if unnoticed on time

Dr. Ifedayo Odeniyi,Department of Medicine, University of Lagos at the 16th annual lecture on the sickness, titled, Diabetes; The emerging threat to human race, identified diabetes as a major cause of poverty and  barrier to economic development, whilst urging government to grant wavers on importation of drugs for its treatment.

Odeniyi said about 8.6 million people were leaving with diabetes worldwide, thus called for more education on diabetes, whilst noting that diabetes is a global health disaster with critical connections.

He also  described diabetes as a neglected cause of maternal hospitality and a household burden on girls and women caring for family members with the ailment.

According to him, “Diabetes is not only caused by what we eat, but insulin; it is a life-long disease that no cure has been discovered yet.

He averred that by 2030, about 570 million people worldwide would be suffering from the disease, as  Africa would experience 98 percent increase of diabetes patient, if the scourge was not adequately tackled.

Chairman of Lagoon Hospital Friends, Dr. Adeola Onakoya, who also spoke at the event urged government to educate the public on diabetes to ward off  the scourge in the society.

“The government spend so much money on communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV, AIDS etc.  We are trying to get advocacy to the government, so as to reduce the cost of drugs and import duty paid for the importation of the drugs.

Dr. Amusan James, a Medical Officer at Tolu Medical Centre, Ajegunle, categorised the sickness to type A and B, in Type A,  he said is a situation the insulin level of the patient is low, thus requires an insulin injection to stay afloat and the type B is a situation where the patient has fat which does not allow the insulin to breakdown the sugar level in the body, thus the patient has to lose weight to allow the insulin to function. He pointed out that

Dangers of wheat consumption

Dr. Williams Davis, an American Preventive Cardiologist, was contrary in his view,  in his book, Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find your path back to Health, had postulated that Wheat consumption causes heart disease. It’s not cholesterol, it’s not saturated fat that’s behind the number one killer of Americans; it’s wheat according to a research carried out in America.

The nutrition community has been guilty of following a flawed sequence of logic: If something bad for you (white processed flour) is replaced by something less bad (whole grains) and there is an apparent health benefit, then a whole bunch of the less bad thing is good for you.

Let’s apply that to another situation: If something bad for you—unfiltered Camel cigarettes—are replaced by something less bad—filtered Salem Cigarettes—then the conclusion would be to smoke a lot of Salems. The next logical question is  what is the health consequence of complete removal? Only then can you observe the effect of whole grains vs no grains and from what I witness every day, you see complete transformations in health.

Consumption of wheat, due to its unique carbohydrate, amylopectin A, triggers formation of small, dense LDL particles more than any other common food. Small, dense LDL particles are the number one cause for heart disease in the U.S. The majority of adults now have an abundance of small LDL particles because they’ve been told to cut their fat and “eat plenty of healthy whole grains.”

This situation of excessive small LDL particles can appear on a conventional cholesterol panel as higher levels of LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, along with low HDL cholesterol and higher triglycerides that often leads to statin drugs. When more sophisticated lipoprotein testing is obtained, then the explosion of small LDL particles becomes obvious.

Compound this with the increased appetite triggered by the gliadin protein in wheat that acts as an appetite-stimulant, and you gain weight. The weight gained is usually in the abdomen, in the deep visceral fat that triggers inflammation, what I call a “wheat belly.” Wheat belly visceral fat is a hotbed of inflammation, sending out inflammatory signals into the bloodstream and results in higher blood sugar, blood pressure, and triglycerides, all adding up to increased risk for heart disease.