Most important thing. A lot of people claim to have a gluten allergy. They have blood tests for that. As far as we are concerned, in humans, gluten is not bad unless you have the allergy. If you think wheat is causing you problems the blood test is cheap and will tell you what you need to know.
I am convinced otherwise people are mixing up cause and effect. Cutting out gluten from your life also cuts out a sizeable source of calories. Not overeating, weight loss, etc are all associated with lower inflammatory states. This would certainly explain the ambiguous "I feel better" from most people who claim removing gluten fixed their problems.
Strongly disagree here. You're denying that the constituents of food matter and that it's all calories. No one is "allergic" to sugar but it has an effect on the body. Cutting out sugar is (or at least FEELS) different than cutting out the same number of calories in vegetables or meat.
There's no (known/convenient) blood test for so many dietary idiosyncrasies.
The celiac disease test covers most cases of gluten sensitivity. Of the non-celiac gluten sensitive people the rest of them can be found (trivially) with in-office tests at a gastroenterologist.
Most gluten containing products also contain simple carbohydrate. Could it be a reduction in insulin resistance? Possibly. Point being, there are tests for this. In fact, a GI can test for many (but probably not all) serious dietary problems.
This isn't exactly true. The blood test and biopsy can _sometimes_ find celiac disease, but it _cannot_ diagnose gluten intolerance/sensitivity.
If you have an intolerance or sensitivity, the blood test will come back negative as your body doesn't produce antibodies indicative of celiac, and your villi remain intact, so the biopsy will show nothing. However, you can still have some incredibly unpleasant side-effects from eating gluten.
Even in folks with celiac disease, it can go under the radar. If you've been eating a gluten free diet prior to the tests, the results can come back negative, but that doesn't mean you don't have it.
Source: I have celiac disease, and it was a pain in the ass to get diagnosed.
It is insult to injury that the charity Coeliac UK is completely unwilling to assist those who are 'only' gluten intolerant, that is, those for whom the blood test comes back negative. At least here in Britain, the general attitude towards allergies and intorlerances has improved, but the majority of establishments still have no gluten-free menu, let alone an isolated coeliac-safe kitchen.
It's the same in Canada (Montreal, specifically)—if not worse. It's getting better, but oh man, the amount of "gluten friendly" restaurants dripping in cross contamination is horrid. The amount of trust I have for most restaurants, even "gluten free" ones, is pretty much at zero.
Always avoid supporting them. Always joke about their incompetence and rudely ask any of their members asking donations to leave. Do it frequently enough they will soften their stance.
My aunt had celiac. She would have some real problems if she accidentally ate the wrong things. My mom tested negative for celiac several times, but she would have the same problems if she ate the same wrong things as my aunt. A more distant relative (child of a cousin or something) developed Crohn's disease (I think) and basically had similar problems as my mom and aunt if she ate similar things.
While I do think that previous posts are not wrong in that there is too much of a fad in blaming everything on gluten by people who probably aren't sensitive, we should not be dismissive of people just because some people might be mistaken. Plenty of people appear to have real problems, which, like you say, aren't always straight forward to diagnose.
I am negative for the Celiac blood test (got tested three times) but I am absolutely allergic to gluten. Starting three years ago randomly I became allergic and severely ill for months - losing up to 30 lbs in a matter of a month - before isolating the problem to gluten. I have also on multiple occasions accidentally eaten gluten without realizing and immediately felt the symptoms. None of the tests I've taken show gluten as an allergen or problem in my body but cutting it out removes all my symptoms. Our tests are not nearly good enough and I suspect many people deal with chronic inflammation and other health issues due to food they can't eat and don't even realize
I posted a reply to your main link. I think you overestimate the ability of the tests to rule out issues caused by strange interactions with food and/or constituent components of food. I think you are referring to 1) genetic tests for celiac genes, 2) IgA tests, and/or 3) biopsies for flatten villi. These can rule out celiac specifically, but cannot rule out a variety of other issues that can be a result. (My evidence of that you may not find convincing, but it comes from discussions with several gastroenterologists and rheumatologists that I've worked with).
Celiac disease make up a minor part of gluten sensitivity. It's obvious you know little about the topic and are just spouting misinformation. Also you seem to have little respect for what your fellow humans think, all the while displaying very limited cognitive abilities yourself.
This is the effect everyone claims when they try any diet.
Even the faddiest of fad diets might be the first time in decades they've eaten consciously and, what do you know, they are losing weight when they aren't on autopilot filling their gullet. But the weight loss didn't come from a calorie deficit, of course. It came from some magical interaction that seed oils / gluten / MSG / vegetables were having in their body.
I do not have the allergy. I also don't have Celiac disease. (Yes, I have been tested for these, presuming the tests are accurate)
However I do have these symptoms after a few weeks of including wheat in my diet again:
- serious muscle tightness, especially my chest and diaphragm/intercostals
- joint soreness/pain, ankles/wrists/fingers
- constipation
- pimples on my shoulders and chest
- occasional stuffy noses
These symptoms mostly alleviate within a few weeks when I stop eating wheat.
My doctor thinks it's probably some kind of "sensitivity". I don't really know what that means, but she said it's fine to stop eating wheat if that improves my symptoms. So I did. But it tastes so good that every several years I reintroduce it to my diet, and I end up regretting it as the symptoms come back.
Have had this problem with wheat since I was a teenager. Started taking action about it as a young adult. I'm middle aged now.
For me, the two that are so easy/obvious to me now that I've structured my diet dilligently... acne and joint pain/inflammation.
Besides getting to a healthy weight, the number one thing that keeps my back from hurting is avoiding gluten (or I should be more accurate, products that contain gluten). And to the GP, I spent years losing weight, getting a proper consistent diet going. It's not like the weeks that I cheat and have a slice of cake that I'm gorging myself. I OMAD, calorie count, and pretty much avoid anything with added sugar or preservatives these days. And yet, yes, absolutely, when I've been off gluten for a month I can tell from small isolated doses that its not good for me.
Granted, I'm not sure its actually "gluten" because "cheat" eating bread in Germany does not usually cause me the same problems as eating bread in the states. EDIT: someone in here is commenting about FODMAP. Whether here or elsewhere, you have my attention! Though the food lists I'm seeing don't super align with the symptoms I see, and I don't get IBS from it.
Try spelt products and peppermint tea. If you change nothing about your diet but wheat for spelt (spelt is not gluten free at all) and the problems get less intensive then you don't have gluten sensitivity, you have FODMAP sensitivity.
I believe buckwheat is most appropriate if you are gluten-free, as it isn't in fact a wheat grain at all. It makes very hard crumble though that 'squeaks'... it's a difficult grain to work with.
I think gluten is like lactose, fiber, fat, etc.: if you suddenly eat more than you usually do, your body will need a time to adapt your digestion to it. This looks like more than moderate discomfort, though.
How much time? I've given it like 6 months where I'm eating wheat again before I'm forced to stop because the symptoms become way too much to deal with.
I think I replied to the wrong comment, but I ammended mine. Your situation looks more serious than the expected temporary discomfort. Depending on the person, the adaptation shouldn't last more than a few weeks.
My wife is a coeliac (not an allergy, a disease linked to inflammation), and so doesn't eat wheat, but we end up talking to loads of people about wheat once they hear that.
I think most people would consider themselves to have a gluten intolerance, not allergy (at least here in the UK).
Similarly my wife is not allergic to milk, but drinking it after now not having it for a long time now gives her a bad stomach and also a rash on the inside of her elbows. But if you tested her I'm sure she wouldn't show as having an allergy.
Also - most gluten-free 'replacement' foods (pasta, bread etc.) have MORE calories than their gluten alternative.
Note that people can be allergic (and anaphylactic) to wheat, which is a very different thing to coeliac disease.
These people confuse an actual allergy with a sensitivity.
Also, it's a pretty weak hypothesis to claim that everyone feels better when eliminating flour and other grains because they're no longer experiencing inflammation from overeating and being overweight.
Celiac disease is not an allergy, it's an autoimmune disorder and just one confirmed mechanism of gluten sensitivity. There's a lot of people with similar symptoms but of unknown cause. Your "it's just the calories" speculation is ridiculous and dumb. I suggest you stay quiet on the topic and be happy you're not affected.
I believe you are right in the spirit of people overreacting to gluten. However, there may be more mechanisms at play which create more than 2 categories (celiac and non celiac). (I added some links below).
I only post this disagreement with your post as an autoimmune enjoyer who has 0 genes for celiac (although my dad developed full blown celiac at age 55 without any previous symptoms in his life). Having dealt with autoimmune issues for a while and doing a lot of reading and discussions with my various rheumatologists over the years, I find it amazing how little is truly known about the immune system, role of food, role of microbiome, and root causes of auto immune issues. Moreover, the lack of understanding on how auto-immune disease prevalence has gotten way worse in recent decades (at least in the U.S.), way moreso than can be explained by increased reporting/increased life expectancy.
An overview written by the author mentioned in the NPR Article:
Zonulin, regulation of tight junctions, and autoimmune diseases
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3384703/
Gluten causes leaky gut syndrome, which makes people more susceptible to other problems. This inflammation happens regardless of whether you have celiac disease or not. Most people who have problems with gluten actually have IBS because of FODMAPs but low FODMAP food is a niche product. You can make low FODMAP bread with wheat without changing ingredients just by letting the dough sit longer but that cuts into profit margins so it won't be done.
Just anecdotally, looking at photos of Americans from 50-60 years ago vs the average people I see when I go out, the difference is just night and day. People were just naturally lean. Now I see so many people who look like walking inflammation. Something is causing this. Not sure if it’s the wheat, all the sugar, seed oils, etc. or some combination but there is more going on in nutritional health than just ambiguous feelings.
I don't know about how to detect it but that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying they look like inflammation: puffy, bloated, red. Something I don't see when I travel to places that eat traditional diets.
> Cutting out gluten from your life also cuts out a sizeable source of calories.
I'm convinced of this as well. People say that they cut gluten but what they really did was stopped eating frozen pizzas and started eating Mediterranean style. It must be the gluten though. /s
No, you're wrong (sorry to be blunt). I used to think as you do, that gluten was just another "white fluffy" that should be avoided to stay lean.
Then I got sensitized to wheat around 2018 for a variety of reasons. Mostly work stress, chronic dehydration, drinking too much rye whiskey and beer, occasional tobacco which is really hard on the gut, and a total lack of awareness of how overconsumption of any food injures the body. And getting older, even after 20 years in the gym and generally following a healthy diet.
The main problem is that gluten and other components of wheat/husk make it past stomach acid, and their partially digested compounds injure or kill the villi of the small intestine. We don't notice until middle age, when the villi start losing their ability to regenerate. Then people who succumb enter an IBS phase where their digestion is never the same, and they have trouble absorbing nutrients in their small intestine. Gluten also mimics proteins in the body, like in the thyroid, which can trigger various autoimmune diseases. Glyphosate in high concentrations in wheat and oats also disrupts gut flora and can lead to dysbiosis, which may be the cause of a whole host of autoimmune diseases like arthritis, multiple sclerosis and even cancer. Many older obese people are actually starving, and their body composition looks like one of an alcoholic, with hormone imbalances from a deficiency of key vitamins, and too much fructose which is broken down by the liver once the small intestine can't absorb it.
There is a wealth of information from the holistic community which hasn't made it into western medicine yet, and tons of books like these which started gaining popularity a decade ago:
Another anecdote is that I've struggled with ADHD symptoms my entire life, which can be loosely thought of as having depression and anxiety at the same time. I've found that avoiding the following foods has largely eliminated my symptoms, as well as completely stopped the chronic joint pain I used to have:
* wheat
* unaged dairy
* caffeine
* alcohol
* sugar
Note that caffeine speeds gut motility, which can be mistaken for IBS. I think it hits vegetarians especially hard, because meat slows digestion. I went through a healing journey from around 2019 to 2022, and my comments from that time are filled with me blaming FODMAPs as the cause of my symptoms. But in all honesty, I think that too much coffee could have been as much as 50% of my problem, tied with wheat and dairy. Legumes and nightshades are still inflammatory, but I feel they contribute perhaps 10-25%.
I could write at length about all of this, but I already sound like a conspiracy nut. The big takeaway is that calories-in-calories-out is NOT the cause of obesity - that's propaganda. If you're struggling with your weight and/or mental health, please consider your diet, and get advice from older people. I want to emphasize that I've derived my solutions here as a programmer from firsthand experience, so if something is wrong in my analysis, it doesn't mean that I'm wrong, because I'll just incorporate any new evidence and form a stronger theory. Hope this helps someone!
Edit: imtringued's comment about peppermint tea reminded me that peppermint oil is a traditional cure for diarrhea. It may help get IBS in check long enough for the body to return to a healthy state as long as the guidelines I've mentioned are followed.
What is the source of the gluten they used, wheat that was desiccated with Roundup? Did they try gluten from organic wheat?
It is known that wheat products from the EU (where Roundup is banned) such as Italian pasta (for which bronze pasta extruders are used instead of PFAS-coated ones) do not cause the same inflammation as wheat products from the USA
I cut gluten from my diet more than one year ago. After the first two or three months I started noticing the effects: I never felt better in my whole life, my weight went down to what a normal figure for me would be, a lot of people told me I looked less bloated and chronic pains I had diminished substantially. I’m sticking with a gluten-free diet unless I’m lost in a jungle in Italy and all I can I find to eat and save my life has gluten.
It was surprising to me when I went to Italy and found them incredibly accommodating to different dietary needs. How could someone gluten-free survive in the land of pasta?!
Well I was on a week long group tour and of the two Italian guides with us, one was vegan and the other gluten-free.
Turns out their love for food and the ritual of eating means they're going to make you happy, all you have to do is ask. Restaurants advertised specifically as gluten-free or vegan were to make tourists comfortable, but I was told to avoid them and just goto a locals spot and make a request.
A relative of mine said much the same thing after visiting Milan; even the local ice cream shop was able to provide for a gluten/dairy/soya-free and vegetarian person a fresh bowl of fruit! I'm not sure any ice cream shop where I live would even have fresh fruit in their refrigerators.
I'm not sure about Italy's jungles (https://ecobnb.com/blog/2017/01/vallone-dei-mulini-sorrento/), but I found that Rome was superb for eating gluten free. Recently went to Naples, however and found that wasn't nearly as accommodating. (I'm not celiac, but find that gluten is a trigger for my psoriasis)
100% anecdata but my dad had (diagnosed) celiac disease. Did the diet for a while then got stubborn and decided to keep throwing in regular bread and beer rather than be "miserable." Fast forward a couple of years of agonizing pain, first in the gut then in his head, and he had three brain haemorrhages and now lives in 24/7 care with no memories or language in a daydream most of the day. I've long suspected it was gluten induced inflammation, so stories like this are interesting to see.
I appreciate the clarity in the title that this study was in mice. At the same time, as a celiac, the title is basically common sense and I don't need a study to tell me that this applies to humans. One microscopic bread crumb and I'll have brain fog for a week.
> One microscopic bread crumb and I'll have brain fog for a week.
It's widely known that a bread crumb will have harmful effects if you have celiac disease. A human who has a peanut allergy will have very negative effects from eating a fraction of a peanut.
It's also widely known that foods that are fine for one species can have toxic effects in others. A well-known example is that chocolate is fine for humans (in moderation) but deadly to dogs in similar quantities.
A finding that humans without an allergy or hypersensitivity to it react to wheat gluten with brain inflammation would be big news, as would a finding that a large fraction of the human population has a hypersensitivity.
> the title is basically common sense and I don't need a study to tell me that this applies to humans
Not sure how this is common sense. If it were mice engineered to have celiac disease or recently diagnosed humans, it might make sense. Extrapolating it to the general population of a different species in a part of the body not related to digestion is a bit of a leap.
What I mean to say is that it is common sense to a celiac that gluten causes inflammation throughout the body and brain even of non-celiacs. I'm not extrapolating from the study, just saying that the study is concluding something that was already pretty obvious to many people.
> [I]t is common sense to a _celiac_ that gluten causes inflammation throughout the body and brain even of _non-celiacs_
(emphasis mine)
I don't follow how this is common sense. It looks like extrapolating from your condition (celiac) and projecting it onto those that don't have your condition (non-celiacs).
Can't speak much for the science, but anecdotally, my wife started cutting out wheat from her diet and noticed a significant decrease in feeling of a general sense of "bloat".
I suspect that many folks probably have some sort of wheat gluten intolerance/sensitivity with symptoms that probably go unattributed to wheat gluten.
It's a thing that's been messing me up for ages and only just got suggested as the cause/trigger for some remaining allergy like symptoms after my allergies went away (lots of issues besides it, it's just a trigger).
Well, humans have been selecting for high levels of gluten in wheat for decades (centuries?) so that bread can become lighter and fluffier, but other than that, gluten is naturally occurring in many grains.
That's a more general question as plenty of non-gluten containing crops will be grown with pesticide use. I believe this particular experiment didn't use whole grains, and so the pesticides are likely irrelevant.
So gluten had no impact on mice eating a low fat diet but it increased body mass on mice getting 60% of calories from fats. Yet they also explain that those mice didn’t eat nor expend more calories. wat?
This makes sense. We tend to think of wheat as being a wholesome natural food source, but modern wheat is far from that. It's genetically engineered and drenched in herbicide far beyond its original easily digested form.
Even in ancient times, wheat products and bread have always been cheap "filler" foods. It's calories, easy to store and transport, will keep you alive, and most people tolerate it well, but it's not really healthy food.
Most important thing. A lot of people claim to have a gluten allergy. They have blood tests for that. As far as we are concerned, in humans, gluten is not bad unless you have the allergy. If you think wheat is causing you problems the blood test is cheap and will tell you what you need to know.
I am convinced otherwise people are mixing up cause and effect. Cutting out gluten from your life also cuts out a sizeable source of calories. Not overeating, weight loss, etc are all associated with lower inflammatory states. This would certainly explain the ambiguous "I feel better" from most people who claim removing gluten fixed their problems.