Gluten-free need not taken seriously by radio prog

[arewenearlythereyet]

I didn't suggest you were.

Oh ok....it seemed to be going quite anecdotal about ME experiences there for a while.

You seem to be saying that because it's not been studied and verified, it can't be true and must be some kind of fashion-led misattribution. Which is the kind of bs we have to put up with all the time.

I’m not saying that if it hasn’t been studied therefore I dismiss it, I’m saying that the most likely reason why this enormous explosion of gluten free popularity is that it’s a myth perpetuated by things like “it makes you lose weight” or “you will lose inches off your waistline due to being less bloated”

These are unsubstantiated and highly likely to be false claims when you test the idea against the basics of known science.

There are many studies that show how biasing positive (and negative) message reinforcement is for food. It taps into something quite primal I think.

I suspect that all of these anecdotal instances of people losing weight with gluten are due to calorie reduction. if you calorie counted to check you would almost certainly show that people had actually reduced their weekly calorie consumption. You don’t need to reduce calories by much (can be as little as 200kcal) to see weight slowly coming off. If people don’t feel like they are dieting this can lead to them thinking it’s sometning other than calorie management.

The most probable reason for people feeling like they are eating the same calories is that by eating less refined carbs and more complex carbs (and normally more fibre) this stabilises the release of glucose into,the bloodstream, you feel fuller (due to the fibre) and are less likely to snack/graze and eat smaller portion sizes. Now there has been quite a bit of research on that.

The alternative is a positive bias. This is not being dismissive of the anecdotal but as with PACE or any other scientific study you have to accept that there will always be a positive bias, and food will have a bigger bias than most things purely by the way our brain is wired to assess the food in our environment (us being a highly adaptable ominivore and all that)

So I’m not saying anything other than proposing a more plausible hypothesis using the evidence we have. This is that calories in vs calories out is the best thing we have right now to explain weight loss.

This model has been challenged over and over but the alternatives found to be generally a load of hot air mainly popularised by people who are either wishful in their thinking (want to be seen as finding the holy grail) or seem to have a vested interest in selling something.

It’s the same as those machines that stimulate stomach muscles to give you a six pack ..it’s tapping into what peole want to hear so it becomes popularised and many an urban myth is spawned. The internet just accelerates this process.

 

[FreeSarah]

I can only repeat that when I went gluten-free my calorie intake went up slightly, and as I was already eating healthily the only change in my diet and eating habits were a different formulation of bread and pasta to preclude wheat. Nothing else changed. No grazing or snacking before, none after. Portion size unchanged.

To be honest, you're giving me the same feeling I get when I read comments online to the effect that ME isn't a real illness. You're conflating lack of current evidence with evidence of absence, and you're pushing a personal hypothesis as 'science-based' without any actual evidence for it. A more plausible hypothesis" isn't a scientific statement. It's just another way of saying "I prefer this hunch".

Positive bias? Who knows, but as I gave up gluten 10 years ago on the advice of a Canadian GP and at the time had never even heard a suggestion that going gluten-free might lead to weight loss, it seems pretty unlikely in my case (and I know others with a similar experience). It's kind of upsetting to anyone who, like me, has experienced not just weight loss but a huge improvement in health from going gluten-free. You seem to be ignoring the element of real health improvements experienced by some people who quit gluten and concentrating exclusively on weight loss. And yes, of course some people peddle nonsense about this, often for commercial reasons, but that no more invalidates the notion of non-celiac gluten sensitivity (an idea my current very sensible GP finds totally unexceptionable) than the existence of the Lightning Process invalidates the reality of ME.

 

[MeSci]

Copied previous messages:

"arewenearlythereyet said: ↑
Here it is

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28765272

I think I have the full report at work...the calories in vs out was challenged by a theory about carbs and insulin etc but that was proven to be insignificant in the scheme of things."

MeSci said: "Won't the quality of excreta be important? For example, a lot of us suffer from digestive problems, some of us have diarrhoea, etc."

I think a lot of my diarrhoea problem (every day for over a year) was possibly due to a range of things. My b12 and folate was low I was low thyroid, my histamine symptoms were off the scale. I don’t think I was eating differently? Well may be a bit more carbs at the beginning ...due to brain going ...need more energy eat more carbs.

Mostly though I stabilised, probably because I stopped doing as much and paced better.

I did DIY ketogenic for 8 weeks then slowly increased my carbs to around 150g per day and so far so good only mild diarrhoea when I crash. I am mild/moderate though and probably have more scope for manoeuvre than some ? I can’t say that low carb made my diarrhoea go away ...it could be any number of things.

I know a lot of PWME have gluten problems perhaps this is a sensitivity of the gut generally which is exacerbated by some things more than others? I think we are all very different in this experience.

What I meant was that diarrhoea could account for weight loss, or nutrient loss, by losing nutrients before they are digested.

Added just after: You said "the calories in vs out was challenged by a theory about carbs and insulin etc but that was proven to be insignificant in the scheme of things."

Sorry but I have had trouble reading scientific papers for the last 2 years, but would that account for more or less than 200 calories a day, the amount you said could lead to weight loss?

 

[Trish]

I can see the arguments on both sides about the expansion of people going on gluten free diets.

Some individuals, like me, have found it helps with gut problems to cut out wheat - this may be because of a sensitivity to gluten or something else in the wheat.

Some people want to eat healthily and are taken in by the hype of the GF foods industry and think it is helping them be healthier when it's really making no difference to their health.

As to weight loss, I'm sure in my case the main effect on going GF on my weight was that I ate fewer calories.

It's also possible, I guess, that someone who finds going GF who eats the same calories as before still loses weight because they are feeling healthier and therefore exercising more, perhaps without being conscious of the difference. Or perhaps there are differences in digestion meaning they absorb more or less on one diet or the other.

There's not a lot of point arguing this one way or the other without doing very strict analysis of energy output (as activity and metabolism) and energy input as food - counting calories, however carefully we do it ourselves is not that precise so we can't really be certain just why one individual loses weight.

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

Copied previous messages:

"arewenearlythereyet said: ↑
Here it is

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28765272

I think I have the full report at work...the calories in vs out was challenged by a theory about carbs and insulin etc but that was proven to be insignificant in the scheme of things."

MeSci said: "Won't the quality of excreta be important? For example, a lot of us suffer from digestive problems, some of us have diarrhoea, etc."


What I meant was that diarrhoea could account for weight loss, or nutrient loss, by losing nutrients before they are digested.

Added just after: You said "the calories in vs out was challenged by a theory about carbs and insulin etc but that was proven to be insignificant in the scheme of things."

Sorry but I have had trouble reading scientific papers for the last 2 years, but would that account for more or less than 200 calories a day, the amount you said could lead to weight loss?

Oh I see...sorry I seem to have not got what you were saying.

Answer is I don’t really know ...I think most of the issue with Diarrhea is water loss and any associated minerals/ions causing dehydration. It depends I guess on the frequency type and duration on what effect it has on nutrient absorption? I would imagine that inflammation has an effect on absorption if it’s in the upper gut and that food poisoning would be more likely to be short lived and mostly water loss with possible lack of eating weight loss? but I don’t know.