Gluten Intolerance: Is Wheat Making You Fat?

WIDE_Wheat-LeadsToFat.jpg


Gluten Intolerance: Is Wheat Making You Fat?

Alongside the growth of “organic/natural food” sections of grocers across the globe, there has been a simultaneous increase in promotion of “gluten-free” foods. In fact, sales of gluten-free foods rose nearly 34% over the past five years.
But why? What is it about gluten in particular that has scared consumers away and is leading food manufacturers to remove it from many of their products?
WHAT IS GLUTEN?
Gluten is a protein complex commonly found in wheat/rye/barley-based foods. It is unique in that the human body lacks the enzymes necessary to break it down completely, though we do break down most of it.
However, the fragments of gluten that don’t get broken down remain in the small intestine and can cause complications in susceptible individuals. Susceptible individuals include those who suffer from celiac disease, wheat allergy, or non-celiac gluten sensitivity.
A prestigious doctor by the name of William Davis has written a popular book titled “Wheat Belly” about the damaging health ramifications associated with wheat consumption. Dr. Davis purports that by simply removing wheat-based foods from our diet the body will be more efficient at burning fat (especially around the belly). Yet there is little-to-no scientific research indicating that to be true.
If you read Dr. William’s book, you may notice that it suffers from a major flaw—the data is cherry-picked. Cherry-picking, in science/medicine, is selectively picking studies that support your hypothesis (read: expected outcome) and purposefully ignoring data that contradicts it.
This happens quite often in the health/fitness industry since many “experts” just want to sell you something. Read on as we look at what data actually tells us about gluten/wheat-based foods.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND GLUTEN-RELATED COMPLICATIONS
Let’s start by characterizing celiac disease, as it’s the most dangerous condition to have for individuals who watch their gluten intake. Celiac disease is a condition in which the body triggers an immune response if gluten-containing food is consumed. This leads to damage of the small intestine which can cause a host of health complications.
In “Wheat Belly,” Dr. Davis asserts that every day over 100 million American’s suffer adverse effects from consumption of wheat/gluten-containing products. That’s practically 1/3rd of the total United States population, suggesting that one out of every three people doesn’t tolerate gluten.
However, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that as few as 1 in every 133 people are affected by celiac disease and roughly1 in every 22 people are non-celiac gluten intolerant. Only ~25% of the population contain the gene variant that increases risk of celiac disease, and merely ~3-4% of that 25% actually develop the disease.
How about wheat allergies? Data indicates that the prevalence of all wheat allergies (i.e. not just gluten-related) in the U.S. population is 0.4%; that’s 1 in every 250 people. Clearly these numbers don’t align with how much gluten-free food sales have risen in recent times.
So what are we missing here? Is Dr. Davis lying or does he have access to information on gluten that isn’t available to the general public (or the CDC, for that matter). Maybe the CDC is forging these numbers? Or it could simply be a ploy by food manufacturers to help sell “gluten-free” products at a premium price.

SHOULD YOU BE EATING GLUTEN-FREE?
Statistically speaking, very few people should be concerned about eliminating wheat/gluten completely from their diet. If you’ve been eating wheat/rye/barley-based foods over the years and aren’t experiencing any gastrointestinal/digestive issues, odds are you are at a low risk for celiac disease, and probably tolerate gluten just fine.
The best thing you can do to test your tolerance for wheat-based food/gluten, aside from blood and/or genetic testing, is an elimination diet. An elimination diet is done by methodically removing certain foods from your diet (in this case, it would be wheat-based products) and assessing how you respond over the course of a few months. Note that it’s nearly impossible to conclude one way or another just on a few days of gluten/wheat-free dieting, it has to be over a sufficient period of time.
Consider that the symptoms of celiac disease/non-celiac gluten intolerance come in many forms and are hard to notice. If you really do have reactions to gluten, the damage to the intestinal lining and inflammatory tissue response can take months, if not years to be apparent.
Thus, if you eat some wheat-based food and suddenly have gastrointestinal distress, that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t tolerate gluten/wheat; there are a multitude of reasons complications arise from the ingestion of various foods, not just gluten intolerance. Either way, the important message to take home is that gluten isn’t the culprit that’s halting your fat-loss efforts.