School project about grain consumption - Need help!

Hi guys!

I will very soon be doing a large school project and I've chosen the topic "Health consequences caused by grain consumption". I'm doing the project in chemistry class so I can't include an awful lot of biology even though it's unavoidable. I want to focus the project on starch's break-down to glucose and further VLDL as well as the impact on the body of lectins and this is where I need some help. I've read plenty of theories answering why lectins cause health problems but they are all based in biology - stating that they irritate the gut and so on.

I need some kind of reliable source explaining the chemical process which lectins contribute to - can anyone provide me with this?

I remember reading that lectins are proteins which sticks to the gut as they are not digested and cause the body to attack them along with other proteins in the body that look alike. Something like this is what I'm interested in but I'm looking for some sort of chemical process I can analyze!

I hope you guys understand my question. I will appreciate any kind of help you can give me!!

I probably won't be much help at this but I'll try. Perhaps you can do something about how the structure of a lectin molecule is similar and that is the reason the body attacks itself when it sees them..? I don't know what all the molecules look like but maybe they look similar and you could explain that as the reason that they are able to get in in the first place as well as be force the body to mistake them for other normal proteins.

Philip, I was thinking pretty much the same thing. As far as I've understood reading "The Paleo Solution" amongst some other sources, which I do not recall, it seems that some lectins have similar amino acid structures to the proteins in the body. If anyone knows about a good and reliable source explaining this in more detail I'd love to hear about it! Just explaining this would not be solid enough so I would need at least some specific structures to compare and preferably also a few studies that connect this theory with health consequences.

I'm not a great researcher - especially because ALL of the stuff about this topic is in academical English so any input would be MUCH appreciated

To reinforce your arguments I suggest having a conversation with someone open minded, yet still a critical thinker who hasn't heard of things that are in the domain of paleo diet. Express why grains and bad, chances are he/she will be skeptical and ask questions. Those questions are what you want to know the answer to and be able to address without hesitation. If you can do that for all questions than you know exactly what will be in your project.

The above reply would probably get you an A (or whatever the high grade is in Denmark). Great suggestion!

Svend, perhaps go on google and look up the molecule of a lectin and a human protein or something of that nature? I sucked at chem so I have no idea of the terminology but maybe you could find a nice picture of both and compare and show how that is what allows the lectins to sneak in?

Svend,

I don't have any studies to point you towards that look at lectins from a chemical standpoint. I'm sure there are studies out there if you look hard enough, however. From what I understand, lectins are a problem because they can bind to the villi in the gut lining and cause cellular death. They can also cause leaky gut, which allows partially digested food to enter the bloodstream. This is how autoimmune issues form, as the body tries to protect itself from the onslaught of potential pathogens.

If you want to talk about all the effects grains have, you might also want to discuss gluten and phytates, which bind with minerals and prevent their absorption. If I find anything that could help you out, I will let you know.

You may wanna try Robb Wolf although I'm guessing he is a very busy man

RandomHavoc said:

To reinforce your arguments I suggest having a conversation with someone open minded, yet still a critical thinker who hasn't heard of things that are in the domain of paleo diet. Express why grains and bad, chances are he/she will be skeptical and ask questions. Those questions are what you want to know the answer to and be able to address without hesitation. If you can do that for all questions than you know exactly what will be in your project.

Thanks. Actually, I already did this and since I'm not allowed to write more than 8-10 pages about the chemical part of the project I chose to focus on starch and lectins since this seems to be the biggest issue. I'm not sure, however, how to explain the lectin problematics from a chemical point of view. I've looked up the structure of WGA (wheat germ agglutinin), since this is the most thoroughly studied lectin I think, but it seems to be quite a complex structure! Maybe I can find the specific part where it looks similar to a protein of the body.

I'll write Robb Wolf an e-mail after I finish this post and hope for the best - who knows, he may have the time After that I'll keep researching but any sort of additional help from you guys would be much appreciated. I'm sure there are plenty of you who knows way more about this than I do!

Post on his blog instead. Andy and him read it as well as any other paleo buffs who could maybe answer the question.

Thanks! I'll do that!

Ok, here's a question that has nothing to do with the previous mentioned in this topic. Right now I'm looking into the whole carbohydrate breakdown and I'm trying to understand de novo lipogenesis. It seems to me that this process is only the transformation of carbohydrates to VLDL is this correct? And this VLDL is released into the blood and nowhere else, right? If so, and this may be a very basic question, what process accumulates body fat as in the fat around the gut and so on?

Oh, and another question. Does anyone know of a good source explaining the lipogenesis in detail? The sources I've found so far has remarkably little information on this.

Sorry for asking so many questions but I know that there's some of you who knows a lot about this stuff