[Jamie]

I tested positive for celiac... I've been researching online and every site says that going gluten free will cause weight gain, constipation, choloestrial levels to rise and vitimin deficiences.... is this true?

I eat very healthy.. natural and fresh foods... I am a personal trainer and I excercise vigerously 6 days a week.... am I going to gain weight anyway? I did not lose weight from being celiac... infact I did not have any of the classic symptoms... only constipation, bloating and stomach cramps here and there. So if I gain... I wont be putting on weight to a gaunt and stickly body... I am just the average weight I have always been. I just find it hard to believe that just by cutting out wheat products all this can happen. It makes it seem almost as if I'll be worse off than eating gluten.

[sbj]

Jamie, on Mar 9 2009, 09:10 AM, said:

I tested positive for celiac... I've been researching online and every site says that going gluten free will cause weight gain, constipation, choloestrial levels to rise and vitimin deficiences.... is this true?

I don't think any of that is necessarily true - some of it is true but it's all relative to your personal situation.

For instance, some people gain weight because their intestines are finally functioning normally. This might not be the case for you. Some people start to gain weight because they begin to eat more corn and potatoes and other starches in place of wheat flour that are higher in sugars.

There really is no need to be vitamin deficient due to a gluten free diet that I can think of. You may have to work a bit harder to get your whole grains . . . ? You can always take a supplement. People tend to be vitamin deficient because of untreated celiac disease, not after addressing it with a gluten-free diet.

Not sure why a gluten free diet would cause constipation? Perhaps some get their fiber from wheat products only? If that was the case with you, there are plenty of gluten free fiber sources. Apples, prunes . . .

Not sure why cholesterol would rise, either. Some others might know more. My overall cholesterol is good but I am deficient in HDL. I don't think a gluten free diet has much to do with this - probably the smoking I used to do . . .

[Takala]

Care to share just where you have been "researching" these erroneous conclusions about going gluten free online ?

[mushroom]

Jamie, on Mar 10 2009, 06:10 AM, said:

I've been researching online and every site says that going gluten free will cause weight gain, constipation, choloestrial levels to rise and vitimin deficiences.... is this true?

I lost 44 lbs, have been able to cure my vitamin deficiencies (caused by the celiac), have normal BM's instead of diarrhea, and cholesterol levels have remained the same. I think what happens when you start eating gluten free depends on where you start, your own individual metabolism, and too many variables to make any generalization on the subject

[Watercolor]

The celiac disease causes vitamin deficiencies, not the gluten-free eating.

The people who gain weight are usually those who had lost weight from the celiac.

If you eat high fiber there will be no problem with constipation.

[cruelshoes]

Many people gain weight after diagnosis. Before some celiacs are diagnosed, they have to eat lots and lots of extra calories just to maintain weight or keep from wasting away. If you think about it, when malabsorption happens, much of the nutrition from food just runs right through us. Pre-DX, I had to eat about double the recommended number of calories for someone of my height/weight just to keep weight on. But when I went completely gluten-free and started actually absorbing the food I was eating, to became very easy (too easy!) to gain weight. I had to relearn what was a normal portion size and stop snacking throughout the day. This meant reducing the number of calories I was consuming.

Cholesterol can rise for the same reason. Now that one is absorbing the fats and cholesterol from food, it can cause cholesterol levels to go up. Dietary changes can help.

Vitamin deficiencies can occur because many gluten-free foods are not enriched, and are lacking in some of the minerals that wheat products have. This can be compensated for by consuming nutrient dense foods and not switchin over to white rice flour and starch substitutes. The same is true for constipation. Many gluten-free replacement foods are lower in fiber than their whole wheat counterparts. But is one is comsuming a whole (gluten-free) diet with adequate fiber, it should be less of an issue.

It is also easy to assume that just because a food is gluten-free it is good for us. I can say that I was quite liberal with the M&M's in the beginning because I knew they were safe for me to eat.