Why Not Everyone Need Avoid Gluten?
The simple answer here is that not everyone has to avoid gluten.
Gluten is however an inflammatory food and so some people have an issue with eating it or at least eating too much of it. The key may be in finding where your threshold lies.
There is also the issue of quality. The processed supermarket gluten is a poor quality compared to what our grandparents used to eat. So if you are buying store bought gluten products then yes you might want to avoid those. Instead swap them for a bakery / homemade gluten product, like a lovely bakery made sourdough loaf.
Don't just swap out for gluten free store bought products, they are probably full of as much rubbish if not more than the gluten containing counterparts.
So should everyone avoid gluten...no. It can actually be worse when people do.
But you should buy good quality gluten products and eat them in moderation.
*This of course is for the average person, coeliacs, those with gluten sensitivity or autoimmunity will/may need to avoid gluten altogether.
Myth Busting - Gluten will give me gut symptoms.
Gluten is well known for being an inflammatory food, gluten sensitivity is an immune inflammatory reaction to gluten.
Many people think that this inflammatory response will show up as gut symptoms, after all they ate the food that's the logical response with a food sensitivity, right? But it’s not that simple.
As well as creating this immune inflammatory response the symptoms you get can depend on what genotype you have.
So in coeliac's we know that there is a massive T cell response to their HLA genotype.
If a person has transglutaminase 2 the effect of gluten is seen on the intestinal lining
If its transglutaminase 3 its seen on the skin so you might get dry skin, eczema, a rash, or psoriasis
If it's 6 it's the brain, so you might get brain fog.
There also a high likelihood that many of these links haven’t been discovered or linked yet.
It’s also important to bear in mind that you could have 2 or more of these genes, not just 1.
3 ways you might react to gluten...
- People with coeliac disease who have a specific autoimmune disease response to gluten.
- People with autoimmunity who have inflammation which is further driven by the inflammatory food gluten.
- People with non coeliac disease sensitivity where they have these genotypes that respond to gluten.
Regardless of your autoimmune disease or symptoms, gluten may be playing a role. We run comprehensive 3 day gut test to get you the answers you need so we can optimise your health and longevity.
If you are ready to get the answers you need, book a free enquiry call here.