#1 - Grain Brain¶

Subtitle: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers

Author: David Perlmutter, MD

Completion: 2026-01-05

Recommended: No

Summary: "Because a handful of my patients improved after changing their diets, the entire world must now follow my doctrine. Amen!"

I don’t know Mr. Perlmutter personally, but whenever an author places MD after their name, it comes with an implied halo: “He’s a doctor, therefore he must possess capital‑T Truth.” My issue with this book is that Perlmutter seems to have put on tinted glasses—gluten‑colored ones—and now everything he sees is shaded the same way. Some of his patients are sick, therefore everyone is sick. Some people react badly to gluten, therefore gluten becomes the universal villain.

According to the book, gluten isn’t just bad—it’s the apex predator of toxins. The usual suspects—smoking, overeating, overdrinking, environmental pollutants, total physical inactivity—are tossed aside as mere side characters. Gluten, and by extension carbohydrates, become the root of all human suffering. Beware the next cookie: if it doesn’t kill you, it will supposedly sabotage your cognitive abilities so profoundly you might as well unplug yourself from society.

The text is peppered with references to scientific studies that show risks “increasing” or “decreasing” by 10%—without ever mentioning the baseline risk. If your starting point is 0.10%, then we’re talking about moving to 0.11% or 0.09%. The book presents these microscopic changes as apocalyptic revelations, all while stripping life of any joy. Under this worldview, a cookie becomes a weapon.

And yet, buried in the middle, there is one chapter that quietly reveals what actually shifts health outcomes in meaningful ways: physical activity. Not ultramarathons. Not specialized biohacks. Just moving your body. Go walking. Just do something, for God's sake. That alone changes risk figures far more, orders of magnitude, than gluten abstinence ever will.

But that chapter sits where many readers won’t reach it. After being terrified by the gluten narrative, they’ll skip straight to the recipes—an entire section devoted to the culinary gospel according to the author—and eventually to the companion cookbook.

In the end, the book reads like a sermon delivered through dense, joyless prose that would benefit from a professional edit. No, I cannot recommend it to anyone.