[SJackson]

True. Are you familiar with Celiac Sprue?

[Aquinasfan]

I have it. And a form of rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis that is probably related. An estimated 1 in 250 people have Celiac disease. (And in my opinion, Celiac disease explains "beer bellies," if you've ever wondered why some beer drinkers get a distended abdomen and some don't.)

[Age of Reason]

Is that the wheat allergy thing?

If so, that's only part of it.

The starch in bread turns to sugar in your mouth while forming a sticky nutrient paste on your teeth, making a perfect home for the bacteria that rot your teeth.

I would not be surprised to learn that the occurrance of cavies in mankind skyrocketed with the farming of wheat and the baking of bread.

I suspect bread may also contribute to diabetes.

And then there's the digestion problems you mentioned.

I know of one fellow who had chronic diarrhea his whole adult life, which no doctor was able to help him cure . . . until he discovered, on his own, that eating wheat was causing it all along.

[aruanan]

Bread is unhealthy, and I have posted that here in the past.

Humans did not evolve to eat bread.

True. Are you familiar with Celiac Sprue?

Both of you are getting carts before horses. The cause of celiac sprue does not lie in bread (or gluten) but in defective production of digestive enzymes followed by immune response often after an infection of the digestive tract that breaches the intestinal mucosa, making possible the development of the immune response in the first place (this is why feeding solid foods to infants is a bad idea--their intestinal mucosa still has leaky tight junctions and proteins can enter and provoke an immune response with life-long consequences). Some people are unable to rapidly break down aspartame because of a defect in the metabolism of phenylalanine. This doesn't, though, mean that aspartame is the cause of phenylketonuria or is dangerous and should be avoided.