Gluten: Bad for us ALL !

[xchocoholic]

Here's an interesting article written by Dr. Rodney Ford about what's currently being said by researchers about gluten in our diets. I only copied in the first part but it's the best article I've read to date that's written in layman's terms. He goes into great detail about where we've been and where we need to go.

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/gluten-bad-us-all

Gluten: ZERO global


By this I mean a worldwide change to a gluten-free diet.

Is there really enough evidence to demand such a massive changes to everyone's diet, farming practices and food manufacturing?


Growing numbers in the medical profession have come to the conclusion that gluten is a universal toxin.

Gluten! What is the fuss all about?

Is this gluten-free idea just a craze? Is it a fad that will soon pass by? Or is it for real?

The disturbing answer is that gluten is bad for us all. You, me and everybody else should be gluten-free. Furthermore, gluten should be eliminated from the entire human food chain.

These are extraordinary statements to make. However the latest medical research supports this stance. The predictions are that in another generation, gluten will be avoided by all reputable food processing companies.

This truth is difficult for anybody to comprehend. That is because bread and other wheat products have been the foundation of our diet for thousands of years. So, to suddenly find out that our basic food is harmful is almost impossible to believe. Hence, the quote from Arthur Schopenhauer, stating that: "All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed …"

Rapid changes in understanding


Twenty years ago, hardly anyone even knew the existence of word gluten. Nowadays, most people have heard that gluten is a substance in wheat and some other grains. But most people remain unaware of the harm that gluten could be doing to them. Most people think that gluten-disease happens to someone else. This is dangerous thinking.

I am a pediatric gastroenterologist and run a busy clinic in Christchurch, New Zealand. As part of my medical training, 40 years ago, gluten and celiac disease were considered "fine print" stuff. Hardly anybody was diagnosed with a gluten problem, and in America, any thought of gluten-disease was strenuously denied by the medical community.

However, things have radically and rapidly changed. Research now shows that the intestinal damage of celiac disease occurs in at least one in 100 people and the numbers of celiac-affected people has quadrupled over the last 50 years. Moreover, increasing numbers of physicians have come to the conclusion that gluten is potentially harmful for everyone. Yes that is "everyone", including you and me.

I too have adopted a strict gluten-free diet for the last 5 years, this follows my ongoing research into the serious harmful effects of gluten. I will have ZERO gluten, lifelong.

Professor Alessio Fasano, a leading researcher in celiac disease, is asked in an interview: "Should anyone eat gluten?" He answers that no one can digest gluten and that gluten sensitivity – the gluten syndrome – affects millions and millions. He goes on: "We also now know that 18 million people have a newly discovered immune response called "gluten sensitivity." People with this condition can have up to 100 symptoms, many similar to Celiac Disease. The difference is that Gluten Sensitivity does not involve the immune system attacking the intestinal wall of the patient." http://www.tenderfoodie.com/blog/2011/12/19/interview-w-dr-alessio-fasano-part-1-should-anyone-eat-glute.html

 

[xchocoholic]

This personally affected me in the form of ataxia that forced me to use a motorized cart for 16 1/2 years.

Brain, Nerve and Mental Illness

Frighteningly, evidence is rapidly
accumulating that shows gluten can severely affect our brains, nerves and minds. The links between gluten-and-the-brain has been extensively reviewed in Dr Rodney Fords book "Full of it! The shocking truth about gluten" - http://www.drrodneyford.com/shop/e-books/eclinic-guide.html?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=30&category_id=6
Disturbingly, many neurological diseases are associated with gluten sensitivity.

Also, schizophrenia, and other mental health illness have been shown to be associated with gluten (The gluten connection: The association between schizophrenia and celiac disease. Acta Psychiatr. Scand 2006;113:82-90. Full Text: http://www.bmlab.no/filestore/Forskningsartikler/KalaydijanAEetal.Theglu...). In addition, many gluten-symptoms are caused by gluten damaging the autonomic nervous system: "The gluten syndrome: A neurological disease" (www.medical-hypotheses.com…).


So there is ample evidence that gluten can be a troublemaker in the brain both with and without celiac disease. This is now called gluten-sensitivity. Hadjivassiliou (1999) first put it like this: "It remains controversial whether gluten-sensitivity (a state of heightened immunologic responsiveness to ingested gluten) without intestinal involvement should be considered the cause of cerebella degeneration in ataxia of otherwise unknown cause." However, his research over the last decade had made this an established fact (http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(09)70290-X/abstract).


Many others agree, for instance, Hernandez-Lahoz (2011, Rev Neurol. 2011 Sep 1;53(5):287-300. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21796607) wrote a paper "Neurological disorders associated with gluten sensitivity". He concludes: "Gluten sensitivity is a systemic autoimmune disease.

Neurological manifestations of gluten sensitivity, with or without enteropathy, are also frequent, their pathogenesis including an immunological attack on the central and peripheral nervous tissue accompanied by neurodegenerative changes.


The clinical manifestations are varied, but the most common syndromes are cerebellar ataxia and peripheral neuropathy. The early detection of cases of gluten sensitivity with neurological manifestations and subsequent treatment with the gluten-free diet could provide remarkable benefits to the patients."

As for the autoimmune disorders, once your nervous system is damaged by gluten, it can be too late to get any relief by going gluten-free. So the only prevention is to eliminate gluten from your diet before you get diseased.

 

[Calathea]

There are plenty of foods which have been proven to be bad for some people but not provably bad for everyone (and sorry, but they absolutely have not proven their case that gluten is definitely bad for everyone). If we removed them all from worldwide consumption, we would be creating mammoth changes to society, farming, economics, health, all sorts of things, and quite frankly many of these changes would cause far more trouble than they would cure. I personally think humans would do very well if we all eliminated, say, milk and sugar from our diets, but the employment and economic ramifications would be unthinkable, and cultures which are heavily reliant upon dairy products would also have to make some nutritional adjustments. I mean, we can't even get tobacco out of our society, and that's pretty much purely bad.

Anyway, if we all gave up dairy, wheat, gluten, additives, sugar, nuts, high-fat foods, high-carb foods, fungi, foods containing oxalates, foods which have been in contact with artificial hormones, and the other things which we are variously told are purest evil, then the main problem we'd all be facing would be massive malnutrition. Gluten is a common problem food, and that needs to be more widely known, with better screening and dietary alternatives. But I don't for a minute believe that it is as universally harmful as they are claiming, nor that we could remove it from the world's diet that simply. I am also very wary because there are a lot of people out there claiming that going on a gluten-free diet is a miracle cure for practically anything. It is fantastic for the people who genuinely are badly affected by gluten, but for those who have no problem with gluten, it mainly affects them in that it needlessly makes cooking more difficult and more expensive.

Meanwhile, I'm sorry to hear that you had such a horrendous time with symptoms caused by gluten sensitivity, and glad that you finally worked out that gluten was culprit.

 

[Esther12]

I am also very wary because there are a lot of people out there claiming that going on a gluten-free diet is a miracle cure for practically anything.

Yeah - me too. Also, lots of foods are bad for us in some ways, good for us in others.

On the other hand, some people seem to be instinctively hostile to those who claim to respond poorly to gluton, but do not have objective test results to support their assertion. Gluton does cause an immune response, and we don't understand how our bodies work well enough to say that this normal response cannot cause problems for some people in a way which we do not yet have an objective test for.

We need our friends to do blind test of one week with secret bits of gluton at a random point in time!

PS: I know this is lazy of me, but I tend to be a bit suspicious of pieces which cite 'medical hypotheses' without making it clear that it's a journal which specialises in rather outlandish theories.

 

[xchocoholic]

Hi,

I posted this article because it sums up what the researchers are saying on this. I believe it too but it's not important what I think. TBH. I wouldn't doubt that most medical professionals know this but find telling their patients to be cost prohibitive ... tc ... x

 

[Calathea]

That ends up being quite a conspiracy theory, though. I don't think that most medical professionals believe this, no. It's not the established medical consensus, it's nowhere near it. I have discussed the possibility that I am gluten-sensitive with my doctor. Cost doesn't come into her diagnosis (honestly, I can't actually see how it would be a factor - is this something to do with the American healthcare system?) and I see no reason why she would lie to me. She's done the appropriate tests on me, and this was after I spent a year on a gluten-free diet on the word of a nutritionist who had diagnosed me as being gluten-sensitive on the basis of my being premenstrually bloated on the day she saw me! (Well, my GP ran the tests after a year off gluten and then a couple of months back on it for the purpose of the test, of course.) While I found that I felt weird for a few weeks after going off gluten and also after going back on it, I found no other differences, and discovered to my surprise that once I was used to being on gluten again, I felt exactly the same as I had while I was off it. Only I was no longer spending a fortune on unpalatable specialist foods, and I was probably getting a more balanced diet. GF cooking is a drag as it removes a major food group, I think it's lower in some nutrients such as manganese, not to mention being a valuable source of protein and fibre, and I see no reason to do it if it's not medically necessary. I do think it's worth a trial, on the other hand, especially in conditions such as ME or autism where gluten sensitivity comes up more often, but that's not the same as continuing it lifelong without any reason to think that it makes a blind bit of difference to you.

Lactose-intolerance is far better-established and it's known to affect a huge proportion of the population, on the other hand. Around 25% in Caucasian populations, and up to 85% in other ethnic groups. Yet doctors do not routinely suggest that everyone gives up dairy. I think that's an area they are more aware of, though, and any doctor who misses obvious signs suggestive of lactose intolerance deserves a slap on the wrist. Of course, most of these dietary intolerances cause complex symptoms, sometimes in quite a subtle way, and diagnosis can be genuinely difficult.

And I do understand how frustrating it is when you finally discover that something you have been consuming or using on a regular basis all your life is actually remarkably bad for you, and wish you'd picked up on it years earlier. I had that feeling when I gave up dairy and my migraines and skin problems suddenly improved enormously. If only I'd known earlier! Why hadn't someone suggested it!

 

[Waverunner]

Stick to the facts. Billions of people are consuming gluten and billions of people are healthy. It is ridiculous to claim, that gluten is bad for all of us. It's even funnier when I take into account the observations I make. From all the healthy people I know (including doctors, athletes, military, academics etc.) everyone eats gluten on a daily(!) basis. The only people I know, who don't eat gluten, are those who are ill and think they can cure it with a gluten free diet. If someone has celiac disease or feels worse, she should stay away from gluten, that's for sure but this certainly is not true for healthy people. I myself lived on a gluten free diet for more than a year but enough is enough. It hasn't changed anything for me, in fact I live better with gluten in my diet because wheat is easily digestible and pasta helps raising some neurotransmitters. According to this gluten theory, all Italians/French people/Germans should be ill by now and the Roman Empire should have collapsed before it even started because wheat is part of their daily diets. It's so easy to claim that gluten is the culprit for many diseases because nearly everyone eats gluten. So if someone gets ill, he likely has eaten gluten before and there you go.

 

[xchocoholic]

Hi Calathea,

I'm sorry this didn't work out for you. FWIW tho were you eating those GF foods ? They're not really gf so this may why you wouldn't have noticed any difference. The FDA has yet to come up with standards in the US so we're taking our chances with these. Trish Thompson has a new website that's evaluating these foods.

The other side of that is that if you've been eating these foods, your nutritional status may have been too low. Dr. Terry Wahls explains this in her TED video.

FWIW .. I have good reason for thinking there's a conspiracy. The responses I got from my ex medical professionals after telling them that gluten was causing many of my symptoms was very telling. Not one of them was surprised ...

One said "Oh that explains it" and moved on like I'd said something he knew all along.

Another accused me of obsessing about my health and threatened to send me to a psychiatrist if I didn't stop researching my illness. LOL .. 7 years late, I'm a professional googler ...

Another said "Gluten sure did a number on you" ... This one I'd known for many years and that's all he had to say.


Another got really hostile with me and told me "We recommend that all of our patients eliminate wheat from their diets !" .. I went on to try to tell her it was gluten not just wheat but by then she was in a tirade ...

so, yes, I do believe many, but not all of course, of those in the medical profession know about this but aren't telling us. I would assume that many of those who don't believe it are waiting for the AMA to recognize it ... or Merck ... lol ..

I really like this article tho because Dr. Ford discusses how difficult this would be ... emotionally and financially ... we in the gluten free community have been having these conversations for years too. But I think he nailed it ..

tc ... x

 

[xchocoholic]

Hi Waverunner,

I can't see how posting this article was any different from the other research articles we see here on PR. Does XMRV ring a bell ? This doctor is entitled to his opinion ... I just happen to agree with him. As do most gluten researchers at this point.

FWIW .. I've been seeing the info on the harmful effects of gluten come to the forefront for the last 7 years so I'm not surprised by what's in this article. If you read his links you'll see others aren't either. And then there's theglutenfile.

So Sticking to the facts is irrelevant on PR... tc ... x

 

[Calathea]

Which foods do you think I'm talking about? I mainly mean GF pasta, and I haven't heard that there are any contamination issues with them. There's been the odd scandal about GF bread, but I only had that a few times, as I only managed to find a palatable vegan GF bread shortly before I went back onto gluten, and it was madly expensive. I used various GF flours for this and that, but not all that often. For breakfast, I discovered that GF mueslis are revolting, so I either made rice congee, or ate a cereal I concocted myself out of puffed rice with some dried fruit and nuts. I did stay off oats, I'm aware of the problems there. Also, do remember that I'm not in America, so the FDA, AMA and so forth don't have that much to do with what goes on in my life.

I do think that doctors are given far too little training in nutrition, however. Both when I decided to lose weight and when I had to modify my diet due to gallstones, the doctors were well-meaning but very ignorant of even basic nutrition. The number of people with food allergies and intolerances should be enough reason for this to change, and the number of people who are seriously overweight is more than enough reason for all doctors to get immediate training in nutrition and weight control, but hey, sometimes the medical profession moves very slowly. Especially when there isn't the incentive of profits for drug companies, eh.

As for doctors not being surprised at your finding that you are sensitive to gluten, but not having suggested it first, give them a break! You have ME, you therefore have a madly complicated set of symptoms, and there are a huge number of potential problem areas that they could look at. They can't predict them all. It would have been lovely if they had thought to check that, but it's not something that's flagged up much in the medical profession, and they are trained to look at the most obvious things first. That's hardly the same as deliberately lying to you. I too have had experiences where I've told my GP that changing X has helped Y, and she has said, "Oh yes, that makes sense," but I haven't held it against her that she hadn't thought of it before - it's never been anything that obvious. There are also plenty of times where she has suggested something quite subtle that hadn't occurred to me, such as the link between my menstrual cycle and my IC flares.

 

[xchocoholic]

if you google Tricia Thompson, a known GF advocate in the US, you'll find info on her gf website. She's in the process of testing foods for CC. Here it is ...

http://www.glutenfreewatchdog.org/

There's also a website called glutenzap that's been around for several years that tests these foods too.

I don't know where you're from. I really can't keep up with those kinds of things ... I'm lucky to remember my kids birthdays ... BUT if you look in your area, you should be able to see what kind of GF standards are set for you.

The lowest amount of acceptible gluten in a GF product that I've seen any country establish was 20 ppm but that was a long time ago. I've been Paleo for about 4 years now so I don't keep up with all this as much. This article probably tells you this tho ..

Imho, I have the right to think whatever I want about how my doctors treated me. It makes me angry so I say it makes me angry. IMHO, this is what these forums are for ... I'm allowed to rant here ...

Did you know that I couldn't walk normally for 16 1/2 years due to ataxia and now I've been walking since Sept 2006 ? That's enough to piss off most people.

Most of the people in my celiac support group are pissed off too. The medical community says it takes an average of 11 years to diagnose someone with celiac disease .. REALLY ? How hard is it to tell someone to try a gf diet ? Or do a biopsy if they wanted to ? Conspiracy again ? Some think so ...

tc .. x

ps. i need to drop this subject. i have adrenal fatigue and this is bothering me. IMHO, the article says everything anyone needs to know about this.

 

[Waverunner]

Hi Waverunner,

I can't see how posting this article was any different from the other research articles we see here on PR. Does XMRV ring a bell ? This doctor is entitled to his opinion ... I just happen to agree with him. As do most gluten researchers at this point.

FWIW .. I've been seeing the info on the harmful effects of gluten come to the forefront for the last 7 years so I'm not surprised by what's in this article. If you read his links you'll see others aren't either. And then there's theglutenfile.

So Sticking to the facts is irrelevant on PR... tc ... x

Again, I'm not saying that someone is not entitled to have an opinion. If someone has problems with gluten he/she should stay away from it, I agree. On the other side however, I highly encourage people to use their common sense! If gluten is bad for all of us, then we all should be ill by now because daily gluten is part of the european, american and australian and many other diets.

 

[xchocoholic]

.. ok, i see this is a foreign concept for some of us.

FWIW I reacted exactly the same in 2005 when I first learned that food intolerance could be causing my CFS symptoms. I was really po'd when I found out that the doctor who told me this had known this for awhile and let me suffer.

Everyone in the Paleo movement says the same as this doctor. Cordain's info is good, imho .. And I remember Dr. Terry Wahls addressing this too. All I remember her saying tho was that we're kept alive through a complex system of biochemical processes ... or something like that. It's in her TED video ...

FWIW ... I was a successful "healthy ?" gluten eating programmer analyst until I was 34 and then I got ME/CFS/OI. So I can see how people function on gluten. I could actually remember all sorts of details back then. Whether gluten set me up to get ME/CFS/POTS is still an unknown but I wouldn't be surprised ...

tc ... x

 

[Calathea]

Sorry, hon, I wasn't trying to have a go at you! We do seem to have ended up snarling somewhat, and I really didn't mean to. And I can't remember where most people are from either - actually, it'd be really handy if we could have an option to display that below our avatars. Anyway, yes, it is bloody awful that they missed it for that long, and while a year or two's delay can be understandable (though crap) with that difficult a diagnosis, this was a long way beyond what was reasonable.

What I find particularly frustrating is when you discover after several years that something really simple makes a huge difference to your life. As you said, gut biopsies are not rocket science. I discovered a grab rail that clamps onto the side of the bath and makes the most enormous difference to my ability to climb over the side of the bath in order to shower. Not one single occupational therapist suggested it, I found it myself and picked it up for twenty quid on eBay. There have been so many days where I was just over the borderline for being unable to shower, where that grab rail could have made it possible in a way that the grab rail on the wall didn't. And when I discovered light and darkness therapies for sleep disorders, it was all so magnificently simple and logical, not to mention backed up by significant amounts of research, and made such a profound difference after years of insanely disabling sleep disorders. Yet the doctors are very much about it as you report: they are vaguely aware of it, but not really interested in finding out about it properly, and certainly wouldn't bother to suggest it if you didn't.

It still doesn't mean that gluten is so damaging to the entire population that the whole world should give it up, just as it's not the case that everyone should spend an hour sitting in the sunlight every morning in order to keep their circadian clocks on schedule. I think people here tend to be a bit jumpy when we're told that something is good or bad for all of us. "Gluten - can be much more damaging than you may have thought, and everyone should check whether they do better without it" would have been a much more popular title, although it's a bit too long!

 

[xchocoholic]

Hugs .. I was getting tired of the snarlfest we'd gotten into too. Lol ..

i can understand some of the mistakes our
Doctors make, they're only human, but when the same mistakes go on for years I lose my patience. imho, taking 11 years to diagnose celiac
disease is a huge red flag. The fact that they tell us this without flenching is an even bigger red flag. We've
all seen how pwcs are treated so I think we can grasp this.

Fwiw, Since I've been a part of the gf community and watching the studies that have come thru in recent years, I
have no doubt humans or animals should NOT be eating gluten, dairy, chemicals, etc. But that's just my opinion.

What I've enjoyed seeing in the last few years is how medical professionals are beginning to recommend
the gf diet for their patients. It's on most forums now but when I first posted about this in 2006, it wasn't.
As Dr. Ford points out change takes time ..

Have a great day. I'm mid spring cleaning here .. Fun fun fun .. X

 

[hixxy]

I'm starting to believe that gluten intolerance is an indicator of underlying imbalance and/or disease as opposed to the disease itself. To put it another way, I think it's just yet anothert symptom!

Just like many other kinds of 'sensitivities' that are on the rise, there has to be a reason for this rise.

I'm certainly not saying you shouldn't avoid it though if you benefit from avoidance.

 

[RustyJ]

At one stage I had severe gall bladder attacks with vomitting. (I also had bloating etc from gluten.) Apparently I had gall bladder stones and there was some talk of surgery etc. When I gave up gluten these attacks disappeared within a day or two. They reappeared as soon as I went back on gluten. Needless to say I went off gluten again permanently.

What surprised me was that none of the specialists or doctors had heard of this happening.

 

[xchocoholic]

Hi hixxy,

Researchers are looking at that too .. Here's an article I found on celiac triggers that may apply. Fasano has some really good articles on the web.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/27/science/la-sci-celiac-disease-20100928

Hi justy,

I have a freind who was heading in for surgery to get her gall bladder removed and her doctor ordered a celiac panel for her because he KNEW of the gluten connection. She was positive and still has her gallbladder. Mine was taken ... If I'd only known about this ...

btw .. love the avatar ... lol ...

tc ... x

 

[nanonug]

I'm starting to believe that gluten intolerance is an indicator of underlying imbalance and/or disease as opposed to the disease itself. To put it another way, I think it's just yet anothert symptom!

Hixxy, you took the words out of my mouth! I am somewhat convinced that "leaky gut syndrome" is quite prevalent among CFS sufferers and gluten just happens to be a tough molecule for the immune system to deal with.

 

[Mark]

At the very least, I think it's abundantly clear that there are fairly widespread gluten intolerance issues that are not detected by current tests for gluten intolerance and coeliac etc. It's definitely a health issue that has gone unrecognised and is still not taken as seriously as it should be. I have no doubt about that. Taking 10 years or more to get a diagnosis...and think of all of us who have issues there but the tests show nothing.

I've had loads of such tests, and they all come back normal. Yet I can say with certainty that unless I am strict with myself about what bread products I eat, my digestion gradually degenerates. Over many years I have cut it out and reintroduced it and gone back and forth with it, and the connection with my digestive problems, bloating, and other symptoms is quite blatant.

Last weekend I ran out of food and got a particular brand of pizza that I used to really like. I rarely eat such things nowadays, too many intolerances, but I treat myself occasionally and much of the damage is cumulative so I can get away with the odd luxury here and there. I hadn't had that particular pizza for ages and I'd forgotten how devastating is is - the next day, well, I won't go into detail...but the point of that is that I have also found that there are very specific products that are much, much worse than others, and some pizzas are OK.

So anyway, I just mention that because I think there is more detail to this. I don't think it will just be 'gluten', it will be the type of gluten, and perhaps other ingredients too, that turns out to be significant.

Also I'd like to mention that I've spoken to quite a few healthy people over the years concerning gluten and the gut, and many times I've found that they have similar issues going on with digestion which are clearly caused by wheat or gluten. There are definitely a lot of 'healthy' people who are suffering effects from this on a lower level, and who knows what medical conditions they might develop in the future as a result. So the idea that it's bad for everyone does not sound at all far out to me.

And finally, the developments in typing the gut flora are fascinating; last I heard they were talking about three quite distinct types of people in terms of gut biochemistry, which they were talking about as analagous to different blood types. It may not be absolutely everybody who gluten is bad for, but I'm sure there's a large proportion of us who it affects to varying degrees and in a cumulative way; I think it will be viewed similarly to fat and cholesterol in the future. And that's pretty bad news, because wander into the average small convenience supermarket and try to find something gluten-free and you quickly realise that about three quarters of the food in the shop has bread in it somewhere along the line...