By Jordan Roberts, Staff Reporter.
From diet pills to food fads, our culture has seen all types of diets that claim to promote weight loss. Steadily gaining popularity, gluten free dieting claims to do what so many diets before were supposed to. Before you give up all the wheat and gluten-containing cereal grains, just make sure you really are making the healthier choice.
In the book “The Wheat Belly,” author William Davis refers to gluten as a “chronic poison” and claims that if you “lose the wheat” you will “lose the weight and find your way back to health.”
This claim sparked controversy amongst medical professionals, especially because Davis is a cardiologist himself.
According to University of Michigan Health System the benefits of wheat include the promotion of “good gut bacteria, which may protect the gut from some cancers, inflammatory conditions, and cardiovascular disease.”
Davis also states that wheat is “addictive” because “during its digestion it breaks down into peptides that act as exorphins (exogeneous endorphins).” He claims that if wheat is removed from the diet there can be symptoms of withdrawal.
“The claim that wheat is unique in this regard is incorrect,” writes Julie Jones, from a scientific article from Catherine University. “In addition to milk protein and wheat gluten, rice albumin, bovine serum albumin or hemoglobin, and even a protein from spinach all produce peptide fragments capable of interacting with opioid receptor ligands.”
Gluten free dieting can help those with Celiac Disease and gluten sensitivity, but according to Celiac.org that is 1 percent of the population, while “about .4 percent of people have a doctor-diagnosed wheat allergy.”
According to Kristen Curtis, a registered dietician at Mclaren Bay Region.” People with a gluten intolerance and who have celiac disease should be on a gluten diet.” She expresses concern that gluten free dieting is creating an image of weight loss when the inverse is more likely. “But people who don’t [have celiac disease], who think gluten free is ‘healthier’ and will lose weight will actually gain weight, because gluten free foods are more dense.”
Does gluten free have the ability to be a diet fad with longevity? Will it merely be another allergy label on the side of a product, much like a nut allergy? Only time will tell.
As with most allergy concerns, it is important to talk to your health provider about a change in diet regiment.
