I. Vagabond Holiday Schedule for the Weekend:
Saturday, July 2nd, 2011: 9:00 am, 10:00 am
Sunday, July 3rd, 2011: Gym Closed
Monday, July 4th, 2011: 10:00 am Class Time- Take advantage as we will be one of the few Gyms Open!!
*Regular Schedule Classes back to normal on Tuesday.*
II. The Dangers of Gluten: Part 2 by Dr. Mike Molloy:
*Remember to sign up for the Nutrition Lecture on Saturday, August 6th, 2011 at Vagabond CrossFit with Dr. Mike.*
In my last post, I explored the ways by which gluten affects a certain small percentage of the population through the induction of adaptive immune responses that can both cause and exacerbate autoimmunity and excessive inflammation.
In today’s post, I want to focus on the inflammatory aspects of gluten that affect nearly every single one of us. To do so, I need to give you a little bit of biological background on microbiology and the gut. I’m going to try to explain anything overly technical in parentheses but post questions to comments. Despite trying to keep it straight forward, I’m sure I’ll go a little overboard at some point, so let me break this down as simply as possible. Gluten can cause inflammation in every single last one of us… whether or not you choose to care about reducing this inflammation is up to you, but if you’re suffering from any sort of inflammatory condition (autoimmunity, cancer, diabetes, anything that ends in “itis”) then you really need to think about removing it from your diet. OK, here we go…
ZONULIN AND THE GUT
A group from the University of Maryland characterized a protein called zonulin which is produced by enterocytes (cells lining the intestine) upon interaction with microbes. Zonulin causes the breakdown of a set of proteins called tight junctions (think of them as glue that keeps the barriers between cells tight). Why the body chooses to do this isn’t entirely well known, but one thought is that it will allow lymphocytes enter infected tissue to kill any invading pathogens.
GLUTEN AND ZONULIN
Gluten contains a molecule called gliadin which interestingly induces the expression of zonulin as well. It appears to do so in a CXCR3 dependent manner. This protein, CXCR3 is expressed on the enterocytes and another population of cells called macrophages.
When gliadin binds to CXCR3, it causes production of zonulin and breakdown of those tight junctions in a very similar way to what happens when bacterial products come into contact with the enterocytes/leukocytes. The reason we want to avoid this is that it allows for increased microbial translocation (a process where the commensal products in the gut move into the blood stream) which causes systemic inflammation. If you eat gluten frequently enough, this can become a chronic low-level inflammatory process which is associated with a number of diseases.
Additionally, when gliadin interacts with CXCR3 expressed by macrophages it appears to induce expression of a number of different inflammatory cytokines as well, providing yet another source of unnecessary inflammation (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21091908).
If you check out that study above, you can see that this happens in BOTH people with and without Celiac’s disease, which is important because it means that gluten causes inflammation in EVERYONE.
So in summary, if you want to have as healthy and intact of a gut as possible (and you really should) then you need to think about removing gluten (and probably other grains) from your diet as well.
III. “Saturday Sweat Fest Workout of the Day”:
“Death By Ten Meters”
Run 10 Meters on the First Minute
Run 20 Meters on the Second Minute
Run 30 Meters on the Third Minute
Run 40 Meters on the Fourth Minute…
And so on, until you can no longer complete the meters prescribed within that minute.
Post Total of Meters Complete to Comments.