When You Think Gluten-Free, Don't Think Fad

Celiac.com 07/24/2017 - Are many non-celiac gluten-free eaters actually treating undiagnosed medical conditions? Is the gluten-free movement less a fad than we imagine?

Currently, about 3 million Americans follow a gluten-free diet, even though they do not have celiac disease. Known colloquially as "PWAGs," people without celiac disease avoiding gluten. These folks are often painted as fad dieters, or hypochondriacs, or both.

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Call them what you will, their ranks are growing. According to a study in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, the number of PWAGs tripled from 2009 to 2014, while the number of celiac cases stayed flat. A new study from the Mayo Clinic supports these conclusions. The study derived from data gathered in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, as well as serological tests.

There is also a growing body of data that support the existence of non-celiac gluten sensitivities, though the evidence is not conclusive. Moreover, researchers really don't have any idea how many non-celiacs on a gluten-free diet may have legitimate reactions to gluten. The phenomenon has emerged in the past five years in medical literature.

For a long time, researchers just assumed that only people with celiac disease would eat a gluten-free diet. About a decade ago, when research into celiac disease and gluten-free dieting began in earnest, says Joseph Murray, a celiac researcher at the Mayo Clinic and an author of the new research, researchers "didn't think to ask why people avoid gluten. When we designed this study 10 years ago, no one avoided gluten without a celiac diagnosis."

The latest research by Murray and his colleagues showed that the total number of celiac cases leveled off in the last few years, while more non-celiacs began to avoid gluten for different reasons. Researchers still aren't sure what's driving the trend, and whether it will continue. Part of the increase is doubtless to growing awareness of gluten sensitivity.

However, Benjamin Lebwohl, the director of clinical research at Columbia University's Celiac Disease Center, estimates that more than half of the 3.1 million PWAGs noted in this latest study have legitimate gluten sensitivity. "An increasing number of people say that gluten makes them sick, and we don't have a good sense why that is yet," Lebwohl said. "There is a large placebo effect — but this is over and above that."

Non-celiac patients with gluten sensitivity often complain of symptoms similar to those of celiacs, such as intestinal problems, fatigue, stomachaches and mental fogginess. And while researchers don't know the reason, clinical studies have shown that these symptoms are often relieved by eliminating dietary gluten.

One theory that is gaining some credence is that these people may be sensitive to other irritants, such as FODMAPS, a class of carbohydrates shown to cause gastrointestinal symptoms found in wheat, milk, onions and cheese.

Look for more studies into this topic, as researchers seek to nail down answers about celiac disease and gluten-sensitivity, and similar symptoms in non-celiacs.

Meantime, the number of people who suspect they have non-celiac gluten sensitivity, and who seek improvement in their symptoms by eliminating gluten from their diets, continues to grow.

 Source:

• DailyTribune.com