Gluten-free need not taken seriously by radio prog

On paper I had no reason to give up gluten - I don't have coeliac disease, I don't suffer from bloating or gas or other effects of a gluten sensitivity. But I decided to give it a try because I'd read that it is helpful to people who are hypothyroid. Within a week I found that my uncontrollable and very scary temper had vanished, and my poor balance improved. Gluten doesn't just affect the gut, it affects the brain as well. And the improvements I got seemed to be ones connected with my brain. Since there were times I used to feel homicidal, and now I never do, I'm going to continue eating gluten-free.
 
Inara said:
The wheat today isn't the wheat from 100 or 2000 years ago. The new cultivation contains far more gluten. Maybe the human being needs a bit longer to adjust to this rapid change. Maybe too much gluten really is not healthy - I don't know.
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Can you elaborate on this?
 
MeSci said:
Switching to gluten-free made my excess weight melt away! There was no effort involved.
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Ditto. I lost 20 pounds over 3 months with zero effort, just switched to GF bread and pasta. I was actually consuming more calories, yet the excess weight fell away, leaving me at pretty much my ideal body weight. Avoiding gluten also brought the biggest improvement in my symptoms I've had in 17 years of illness, taking me from borderline severe to moderate. I would take some convincing that gluten wasn't doing something very strange to my metabolism.
 
I went gluten and dairy free in my thirties - years before I got ME at 40 - it successfully stopped the painful abdominal bloating and periodic bouts of vomiting I'd had since early childhood, and reduced the frequency and severity of the migraine's I'd just started having. It also stabilized my weight back to my normal fairly slender build. I've stayed gluten and dairy free ever since. I almost never buy special gluten free substitutes like breads or cakes, I simply changed my diet to eat other things.

So I can't say going gluten free affected my ME, since I have never eaten gluten in the whole time I've had ME. I have in the last few years developed gut problems again and am now wondering whether I have to cut back other starches too. :(
 
@Trish have you tried digestive enzymes?

I had gluten sensitivity tests done years ago but they came back negative. My functional doctor suggested I try a gluten free diet for 6 months to one year to see if it would improve my malaborption issues etc,. It did not help but I found digestive enzymes very helpful.
 
strategist said:
Can you elaborate on this?
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I can't cite papers.

From the German Wikipedia:
"Today's wheat originated from the crossing of several cereal and wild grass species. The first cultivated wheat species were Einkorn (Triticum monococcum) and Emmer (Triticum dicoccum).
...
In the US, a transgenic wheat produced by Monsanto in 2004, which confers glyphosate resistance to the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate), was approved for cultivation in the United States."
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weizen

and Gluten content of
Spelt (10.3 g / 100 g flour type 630)
wheat (8.66 g / 100 g flour type 405)
Rye (3.2 g / 100 g flour type 815)
oats (5.6 g / 100 g whole grain flour)
barley (5.624 g / 100 g whole dehusked grain).
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten

I couldn't find the numbers for emmer, kamut, einkorn, but I read it's slightly less than wheat.

So I can't prove that wheat today contains more gluten than the wheat in the past. There is only an indication, namely that via gene technology new wheat sorts were made with a higher gluten portion (which is desirable since food like bread tastes better and is longer fresh) or other desired characteristics (-> Monsanto).

But it seems food today contains more gluten:
- As mentioned, gluten makes bread, processed food etc. more moisterous and fresher. Plus it's cheap.
- In the past, dough lay or hung around which led to fermentation which reduces gluten content (e.g. sourdough). This isn't done today.

Low-carb bread normally contains a lot of gluten. (At least the ones I ate in the past.)

So, no proof, just an indication.
 
Mij said:
@Trish have you tried digestive enzymes?

I had gluten sensitivity tests done years ago but they came back negative. My functional doctor suggested I try a gluten free diet for 6 months to one year to see if it would improve my malaborption issues etc,. It did not help but I found digestive enzymes very helpful.
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Which ones do you take and how much?
 
yep, I think the idea that gluten content of wheat has increased significantly has been shown to be wrong now. There's a theory that it's actually other characteristics of wheat that are problematic, as:

–Altered structure of the gliadin proteins. The Glia-alpha9 sequence, for example, that is associated with triggering the changes of celiac disease in HLA DQ8/2-positive people, has been enriched in modern wheat, though nearly absent from the wheat of 1960 and earlier.
–Change in the structure of wheat germ agglutinin, the indigestible protein of wheat that exerts direct toxic effects on the small intestine and may block leptin, the hormone of satiety.
–Unique antigens (allergy- and immune-stimulating proteins) posed by new forms of alpha amylase inhibitors and other proteins.
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[https://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2013/02/is-gluten-on-the-increase/]

And this may be a pretty good summary:

There are many other theories that could help explain gluten intolerances. Some scientists are looking at the changes in gut bacteria. There's also growing evidence that antibiotic use early in life and the timing of introducing babies to wheat and other grains could favor the onset of celiac disease later in life, says Stefano Guandalini, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago and medical director of the university's Celiac Disease Center.

As for why so many people say they feel better on a gluten-free diet, Guandalini says that might have nothing to do with the gluten.

"It could be another protein in wheat," he says. "It could also be that once you remove gluten, you're also removing a number of other carbohydrates that are hard to digest. So you eliminate them and that makes you feel better."

But, he admits, doctors are really just beginning to understand what gluten sensitivity truly is. "It's a moving target," Guandalini says. "The more we learn the less we really know."
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[https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...xplain-rise-of-celiac-disease?t=1531842754619]

We're still a long way from understanding this stuff, but something like antibiotic use leading to acquired reactivity to certain proteins may be involved..

For now, as Jaime said earlier on, if you do much better without gluten-containing foods in your diet you shouldn't eat them.

Having food clearly labelled and having non-gluten food alternatives for those who need to avoid it are GOOD THINGS. If food manufacturers are cashing in, well, nothing new there. Just be an educated consumer and avoid the rip-offs. Gluten-free bread and pasta aren't very expensive. Much of the rest of what's in the GF aisle at my supermarket is basically junk food and best avoided.
 
Inara said:
I can't cite papers.

From the German Wikipedia:
"Today's wheat originated from the crossing of several cereal and wild grass species. The first cultivated wheat species were Einkorn (Triticum monococcum) and Emmer (Triticum dicoccum).
...
In the US, a transgenic wheat produced by Monsanto in 2004, which confers glyphosate resistance to the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate), was approved for cultivation in the United States."
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weizen

and Gluten content of
Spelt (10.3 g / 100 g flour type 630)
wheat (8.66 g / 100 g flour type 405)
Rye (3.2 g / 100 g flour type 815)
oats (5.6 g / 100 g whole grain flour)
barley (5.624 g / 100 g whole dehusked grain).
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten
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The protein in oats is actually avenin - see https://www.coeliac.org.uk/gluten-free-diet-and-lifestyle/gf-diet/oats/
 
Just saw this, thought it was topical,
WORLD'S OLDEST BREAD FOUND AT PREHISTORIC SITE IN JORDAN

"We now have to assess whether there was a relationship between bread production and the origins of agriculture," Arranz-Otaegui said.


WASHINGTON - Charred remains of a flatbread baked about 14,500 years ago in a stone fireplace at a site in northeastern Jordan have given researchers a delectable surprise: people began making bread, a vital staple food, millennia before they developed agriculture.

No matter how you slice it, the discovery detailed on Monday shows that hunter-gatherers in the Eastern Mediterranean achieved the cultural milestone of bread-making far earlier than previously known, more than 4,000 years before plant cultivation took root.
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https://m.jpost.com/Middle-East/Worlds-oldest-bread-found-at-prehistoric-site-in-Jordan-562680
 
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