In a world that values skinny over healthy, it’s easy to get caught up in the need to “lose weight”. As we have discussed, there are several methods, both healthy and unhealthy, but as long as the focus is “weight” and not “health”, you run the risk of doing more harm than good. When health is the focus, we can say that the only safe way to improve your health and lose weight is through exercise and a change in your nutritional habits. For some, the latter means to “diet” — ie. drastically change the way one eats for a short space of time to achieve a drastic result. Some turn to fad diets to achieve their goals, so we’re going to discuss a few fad diets — gluten-free, paleo, keto, and intermittent fasting — and determine their efficacy and safety. This week, we start with the Gluten-Free diet.
What is Gluten?
Gluten is a group of proteins found in various grains(1), especially wheat (though also found in rye, spelt, and barley). This means that it is present in just about anything that has flour. It can, however, be extracted since the starch in flour is water soluble and gluten proteins are not.
What we think it does:
Many people believe that gluten is responsible for some gastrointestinal stress. They’re not totally wrong, but it is a huge oversimplification that the “health food” industry has capitalised on. It has been blamed for everything from weight gain to diarrhoea and vomiting to a general feeling of unwellness.
What it actually does:
Gluten is responsible for sticking flour together, giving dough that elasticity and allowing us to work with it to make bread and other things from the flour(1). Also, it helps to make the dough rise. Lastly, it is also responsible for some of the flavour in our bread – this makes a gluten-free existence a little bit more challenging in the flavour arena. The truth about why it may be bad is that it does cause some level of gastrointestinal stress (among other things), but primarily for people with a condition known as Celiac Disease(2). Those with Celiac are unable to properly process gluten. There is still a debate on whether there is such a thing as non-Celiac gluten sensitivity(3) (people showing an allergic reaction to gluten even though they don’t have Celiac) with only a few cases. For these cases, it is unclear whether it is the gluten that’s the cause, some other organic compound or trace chemicals (for e.g. the pesticides or some chemical used in processing the grain)(4). Additionally, research has shown some potential harmful effects, ranging from financial to sociopsychological, of removing gluten from one’s diet(5).
How to safely go gluten-free:
Well, anyone can go gluten-free, but there are some issues with it. First of all, it may make you take a hit on the flavour front and cause you to cut out some of your favourite foods. Also, it means a small reduction in your protein intake (as mentioned above, gluten refers to a group of proteins) which means you now have to supplement that with another source of protein (maybe eat more legumes). Overall, there is absolutely no need to go gluten-free unless you suffer from Celiac disease or appear to suffer from non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity.
Now you have a little bit of basic information on the gluten-free diet. Hopefully this helps you to decide whether it can truly be a part of your drive to improved health. Next week, we’ll look at the paleo diet. See you then!
1. Biesiekierski, J.R. (2017). What is gluten?
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jgh.13703
2. Celiac disease: Fast facts. (n.d.).
https://www.beyondceliac.org/celiac-disease/facts-and-figures/
3. Maria Tanveer, Ali Ahmed (2019). Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity: A Systematic Review.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30630570/
4. Benjamin Niland, MD and Brooks D. Cash, MD (2018). Health Benefits and Adverse Effects of a Gluten-Free Diet in Non–Celiac Disease Patients
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5866307/#__sec4title
5. Benjamin Niland, MD and Brooks D. Cash, MD (2018). Health Benefits and Adverse Effects of a Gluten-Free Diet in Non–Celiac Disease Patients
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5866307/#__sec11title