Clinical Effects of Wheat Germ

The best dietary source of the longevity elixir spermidine is wheat germ, followed by tempeh and mushrooms. To get 20 mg of spermidine solely from wheat germ you’d have to eat like a half a cup, though. I would instead recommend increasing intake through a variety of healthy foods, but massive doses of wheat germ have actually been put to the test in clinical trials. Diabetics given 30 g of wheat germ in the morning and 30 g at night for 6 months had significant improvements in blood sugar control, dropping from a hemoglobin A1c level of 8.4 to a nondiabetic 6.4. (The control group stayed at 8.4.) However 20 grams a day (about three tablespoons) did not appear to help.

Those with high cholesterol given about a quarter cup a day for a month dropped their cholesterol by 25 points and their triglycerides by about 60 points. This cholesterol-lowering effect is mainly thought to be due to the healthy phytosterol content of wheat germ, given that removing the phytosterols diminished the benefit). Twenty grams a day only seems to lower cholesterol, though… and six grams a day (about one tablespoon) doesn’t appear to do either. That one tablespoon does, however, appear to improve the microbiome.

Study subjects randomized to eat bread enriched with 6 grams of wheat germ experienced an increase in the proportion of Bifidobacteria in their stool compared to those eating non-enriched wheat bread. I talked about the benefits of boosting Bifidobacteria with foods like apples and wild blueberries in How Not to Diet. A common constituent of commercial probiotics, Bifidobacteria are considered one of the proxies for a beneficial balance of good bugs in general. The prebiotic effects of wheat germ are consistent with a significant drop in stool pH, presumably due to enhanced production of short chain fatty acids. The only other clinical effect I could find was an improvement in pain, fatigue, headache and mood swings associated with painful periods in women randomized to a wheat germ extract.