Gluten-free: health fad or life-saving diet?

Gluten-free: health fad or life-saving diet?
Up to a third of American adults are now avoiding gluten, and numbers in Britain are growing rapidly: gluten-free sales are soaring. But is it really our dietary enemy – or, as Jennifer Lawrence thinks, just the ‘new cool eating disorder’?
No grain no pain? Last year UK sales of gluten-free products reached £184m – up 15% from 2013. Photograph: Alamy
No grain no pain? Last year UK sales of gluten-free products reached £184m – up 15% from 2013.





If your nearest supermarket is anything like mine, you will have noticed increasing space being given over to “free from” products. Sporting images of foods that look as good as their regular counterparts, the packaging hints at health benefits; the labels proclaim their contents free from lactose, dairy, and most commonly, gluten. Gluten-free bread, cakes, curry sauces and pesto; displays of gluten-free easter eggs. Such is the hype that foods that have never traditionally contained gluten are now marketed by some producers as “naturally gluten-free”. As well as a dedicated aisle, around the store you will find gluten-free ready meals in the “healthier choices” chiller cabinet, and gluten-free chicken nuggets in the frozen food aisle.
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There was a time, not that long ago, when gluten-free food was only available on prescription – it was a medical need for a small minority of people. Humans, after all, had been consuming gluten in some form for thousands of years. But this was the era that we may come to know as BG (Before Gwyneth). For many, gluten is now the enemy. As one US talkshow host joked last year, in Los Angeles it is “comparable to satanism”.
Over the last few years, the market in gluten-free products has exploded. Alarmist, bestselling diet books have linked gluten to autism, depression, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis and diabetes, among others. In 2013, Gwyneth Paltrow revealed she had put her family on a gluten-free diet, “curing” her son’s eczema. The actor Jennifer Lawrence has called it the “new cool eating disorder”. A piece in the New York Times noted last year: “Eating gluten-free is dismissed outright as a trend for the rich, the white and the political left.” All of which must be quite an irritant for those who suffer an adverse reaction to consuming gluten, and are seeing their dietary needs dismissed as a trend.

The backlash is particularly prominent in America, where the diet has really taken hold (about a third of American adults are trying to cut gluten out, according to a Consumer Reports National Research Center survey). In October, an episode of South Park saw the whole town go gluten-free (the stuff, it was discovered, made one’s penis fly off). And on the Jimmy Kimmel show in the US – he of the “satanism” quip – several self-diagnosed gluten avoiders were asked what gluten actually was. None of them knew. It was something to do with bread, they said, or pasta. Either way, it was bad for them.
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Gluten is made up of two protein groups, gliadin and glutenin, brought together when flour and water are mixed to make a dough for bread and other processed foods, giving structure and elasticity. It is found in wheat, but also in other grains such as barley and rye. It isn’t simply enough to avoid bread, pasta and cakes – gluten can be found in sauces, stock cubes, sweets and a wide range of other products. It is vital for people with coeliac disease to avoid it – their immune system reacts to gluten, damaging the lining of the small intestine which hampers the absorption of nutrients, and can cause anaemia, weight loss, fatigue, bloating and pain. The long-term consequences of going undiagnosed and continuing to eat gluten include osteoporosis, anaemia and even bowel cancer. Around 1% of the population is thought to suffer from coeliac disease – and of those, nearly three-quarters remain undiagnosed – accounting for the small proportion of people who actually need to buy gluten-free products. But millions of others are.




It is a “massive misconception” that gluten-free products are superior, says Sioned Quirke, a dietitian and spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association. “I’m seeing an increase of people coming to the clinic saying, ‘I buy this gluten-free bread to help me lose weight’ or ‘it’s better for me’. If you have coeliac disease, then it’s essential that you have gluten-free products, but if you don’t have an intolerance, for the general population, gluten-free products are really not required and they won’t help you lose weight.” She points out the high cost of going gluten-free unnecessarily. “It’s a shame that a lot of people are wasting their money, when they could spend that money more wisely on having more fruit and vegetables.”


http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/feb/25/gluten-free-diet-life-saving-fad