The advantages of a gluten-free diet
There's a new acronym out there and its usage is growing daily in popularity.
"No pie for me, thank you."
"You must be GF."
"How'd you guess?"
GF, to the uninitiated, stands for Gluten Free. And nowadays you may see those words everywhere from supermarket shelves to health food stores.
Gluten, according to the Mayo Clinic and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is a protein found in grains like wheat, barley and rye.
For people diagnosed with Celiac disease, gluten causes a serious autoimmune reaction in the small intestine. A gluten-free diet helps control the symptoms of this disease.
According to Katie Adrian, a registered dietitian at Kootenai Health, "Celiac disease is a real disease where our body acts to destroy its own tissues in the intestinal tract."
A recent NIH study stated that one in 133 Americans have Celiac disease.
There is another condition, however, that is known as "nonceliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS)" and it is NCGS that is most likely responsible for the jump in gluten-free products. NCGS is not an easy condition to identify.
Dr. Harold Preiksaitis, a gastroenterology specialist at Kootenai Clinic, said, "There is definitely some legitimacy to gluten sensitivity, but we need to learn more about it. What we're trying to do is find out whether the problem is truly gluten. We have known for a long time that some people who have symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating, episodic diarrhea or malaise end up with Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and within IBS, there is a subset who do feel better if they go to a gluten-free diet."
According to a recent study in the journal "Gastroenterology," scientists are now looking into the possibility that it may not be the actual gluten itself causing the problems but, rather, the sugars frequently found in combination with gluten in existing food products.
"We've discovered we are not very efficient at digesting certain sugars such as fructose and a bunch of other carbo-type sugars that are also difficult to digest," Preiksaitis said. "What we as a society are doing is poisoning ourselves with refined carbohydrates. Gluten-free eating eliminates a lot of sugars."
Adrian pointed to the potential fad aspect of GF dieting. "Unless you're experiencing severe symptoms like IBS, I would avoid doing an elimination diet on your own. Always check first with your doctor to find out if you do in fact really have Celiac disease. And if you're going to read books about dieting, make sure the person writing the books has an RD or MD behind their name."