I Don’t Have Any Symptoms, So How Can I Be Gluten Intolerant?

There is a lot of media coverage right now about gluten and gluten free diets. Is it just another fad diet? Do I need to be eating gluten free?

There is so much information and differing opinions about the matter, that it is hard for even the most educated individual to make sense of it all.

What is gluten?

Gluten is a sticky protein that is made up of two smaller proteins, glutenin and gliadin. Gluten is found naturally in common grains such as wheat, rye, barley, oats (unless noted gluten free), spelt, and kamut.
Now, think about a piece of bread.

If you were to take that piece of bread, place it in your hand, squeeze and roll it into a ball, what would happen to the bread when you opened your hand? It would remain in that little ball, expanding very little if any. This is due to the binding properties of gluten.

Celiac Disease (CD) and Gluten Sensitivity

Celiac disease and gluten sensitivity are in many ways similar. They often have similar symptoms, and can be treated with similar interventions. What makes them different is that CD causes a physical damage to the tissues lining the gut.

Celiac disease is a genetic disorder that damages the small intestine and interferes with food absorption. It is estimated that 1 in 133 people have celiac disease, and most are undiagnosed. For every symptomatic person with celiac disease, there are eight others with CD that do not experience any gastrointestinal symptoms.

Gluten sensitivity is an immune response to an abnormal presence of gluten in the blood or body tissues. Your antibodies (cells that fight invaders in your body) attack the gluten protein because it should not be in your circulation. This reaction is seen as the single cause of many other diseases.

So, why are we suddenly hearing so much about gluten?

Our society is not eating the same grain that it did 50 years ago! The wheat of today simply is the not the wheat that was once an unblemished wild grass. Wheat has recently become a mutant species as a result of human intervention.

The question is, at what cost to us?
The New England journal of Medicine has linked wheat to the cause of 55 diseases. This is because we lack the genetic adaptations to properly digest the wheat of today.

What does this mean to you?

It is estimated by Dr. Kenneth Fine MD, a gluten researcher, that up to 81 percent of Americans have a genetic predisposition to gluten intolerance.

If you are having problems losing weight, are constantly tired, battle a cold or flu consistently, have any sort of digestive issue, and/or you are depressed, you may be sensitive to gluten. If you don’t yet have any of these symptoms, continuing to eat gluten will likely put your long term health at risk. If you have had a test in the past run and they came up negative you may not have the truth. The standard tests run are not thorough enough. They do not test for all of the possible gluten related allergens, they generally only test for two out of twelve. In addition, these tests are not 100% accurate so the best thing you can do is do an elimination diet monitored by a qualified health care professional.

It is essential that you contact an expert that works with a lab that does extensive gluten testing to discuss the elimination of these potentially harmful foods to get your health and body on the right track today!