A gluten-free diet has become very trendy but if you don’t have celiac disease which is a serve gluten intolerance. Can you benefit from cutting out gluten foods?
Many wonder what started this gluten-free trendy diet. Abdullah Shatnawee, MD, medical director of Center for Gut Rehabilitation and Transplantation at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, stated “I see many patients on gluten-free despite lack of clinical diagnosis of celiac disease and I think the media has a lot to do with this trend.”
Jessica Laifer, RDN, a senior clinical dietitian at the Susan and Leonard Feinstein Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, agrees, noting she’s seen more interest in gluten-free diets in the past few years, often for weight loss.
Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye, per an article published in May 2016 in NIH News in Health, the newsletter of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). If you don’t have celiac disease, gluten in and of itself is not bad for you — though eating too many simple carbs, like white bread, pasta, and desserts — certainly can be.
People who need to go on a gluten-free diet usually have one of these conditions:
Celiac Disease People who have celiac disease actually have damage to villi (tiny fingerlike tissues that aid in digestion) in their digestive tract because of the chronic inflammation caused by gluten. When they eat even a tiny amount of gluten, they experience symptoms such as bloating, cramping, or specific types of skin rashes.
Gluten Intolerance or Sensitivity People with nonceliac gluten sensitivity do not have damage to their intestinal lining. Still, they experience headaches, bloating, fatigue, or diarrhea after eating foods containing gluten. As a result, they believe that a gluten-free diet improves their quality of life.
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Some studies show that people with IBS can benefit from a gluten-free diet, Shatnawei says. For instance, a small study published in May 2016 in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology found some evidence that a gluten-free diet could, after just six weeks, provide some benefit to patients with IBS.
For people who aren’t fighting gluten sensitivity, avoiding gluten is not a health necessity. In fact, going gluten-free can sometimes lead to nutritional deficiencies if not planned right, according to an article published in February 2013 by Harvard Health Publishing. That’s because many Americans get important nutrients like B vitamins through fortified breads and cereals, which contain gluten — while their gluten-free counterparts do not.
In addition, many whole-wheat products contain fiber, which is important for digestion, dietitians agree. If you’re thinking about a gluten-free diet, it’s important to see a doctor first, especially because going gluten-free can skew the results of blood tests for celiac disease, the Harvard Health Publishing article notes.
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