Eating gluten doesn’t cause gastrointestinal symptoms if you don’t suffer from celiac disease
Gluten-free diets have become very popular in Western countries. Nevertheless, there is no scientific evidence that such a diet might be healthier for most people than a gluten-containing diet.
Contrarily, subjects with celiac disease, an autoimmune condition with hereditary predisposition, must strictly follow a gluten-free diet. The prevalence of this medical condition is roughly estimated at 1% in our Western populations.
Nonetheless, a great many people claim that they are gluten-intolerant. With this background in mind, a group of British researchers performed a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial, designed to assess the effects of gluten on healthy subjects. Overall, 28 healthy men or women, aged 19-63 years, were recruited. At the study’s onset, these participants underwent a blood test to exclude that they were affected by celiac disease and filled out a questionnaire that assessed various gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms like abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, and so on.
The participants were then assigned to a strict gluten-free diet for 2 weeks. By the end of this period, they were asked to continue with that diet for another 2 weeks, while mixing into their food, each day, a packet containing 14 grams of flower, with half of the participants assigned to receive gluten- containing flower and the other half gluten-free flower. At this 2-week period’s end, all participants filled out another detailed questionnaire assessing any GI symptoms.
As a result, the participants of the “gluten-flower group” were not more likely than the “placebo- flower controls” to report GI complaints According to the authors’ opinions, subjects should be actively discouraged to embark onto a gluten-free diet if they have not been diagnosed with celiac disease. In the authors’ views, gluten-free packaged food is often high in fat, sodium, and sugar, yet low in fibers and in other nutritional elements.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31129127
Reference: Croall ID, Aziz I, Trott N, Tosi P, Hoggard N, Sanders DS. Gluten Does Not Induce Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Healthy Volunteers: A Double-Blind Randomized Placebo Trial. Gastroenterology 2019;157:881-883.