Why Do So Many People Think They Need Gluten-Free Foods? - Slate

[MJ-S]

Open Original Shared Link

[Takala]

Open Original Shared Link

 

....going gluten free seems somewhat faddish.

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There’s not even a mediocre blood test for gluten intolerance. The diagnosis simply relies on someone’s subjective feelings of bloating, bowel changes, or mental fogginess after eating gluten. This is a set-up for all manner of pseudo-scientific self-diagnoses, especially when you consider that 2 percent of people believe they have illnesses Open Original Shared Link.

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And yet, the data suggest that almost two-thirds of people who think they are gluten-intolerant really aren’t. Part of the problem is that there is a lot of really bad science out there on gluten intolerance.

 

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Until the science gets sorted out, perhaps the best course for physicians is to suspect celiac disease and diagnose or exclude it correctly. They should also help patients sort through the conflicting data on wheat allergy and gluten intolerance. At the same time, patients convinced they have gluten intolerance might do well to also accept that their self-diagnosis may be wrong. In the end, it seems, medical uncertainly can best be approached by a little open-mindedness and humility from us all.

 

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(the author) Open Original Shared Link is Slate's health care columnist. He is chief of pediatric cardiology and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School as well as the author of Open Original Shared Link. Follow him on Open Original Shared Link.

 

 

The supercilious tone of this article is so different from this one from January 27th, Open Original Shared Link     allegedly by the same author, that I wonder if it was ghostwritten or partially cut and pasted from all the other ignorant, anti- gluten free labeling garbage being passed around by the various government, GMO, and agricultural lobbyists.   One also notices that the comments are a bit of a train wreck, compared to the much better comments one sees when the gluten free community is commenting instead.

 

Ironically, the example used in the second article, about avoiding medical malpractice lawsuits, was about a premature infant suffering and then dying from enterocolitis.  I have no idea if this Sanghavi fellow knows that a thickener/gluten replacement used in some gluten free baking, guar gum, is also added to formula liquids given to premature infants, because they have trouble swallowing thin ones, and that, in turn, has been linked to infant necrotizing enterocolitis, but perhaps, since he is an infant heart doctor, and not a gastro doctor, nor an ob-gyn, nor an internist, nor a nephrologist, nor a neurologist, he ought to leave the speculation about digestive and allergies and auto immune diseases suffered by adults, especially females, to those researchers actually working on this topic - and doctors who have those patients, or to those who really do have a "gluten problem."   After all, it frequently takes DECADES to develop enough DAMAGE from being UNDIAGNOSED, and as a baby doctor, I doubt he ever sees much of it.  Perhaps that's why he so interested in preventing medical malpractice lawsuits, by having his state pass a law that "usually allows doctors to speak more openly to patients and families who were harmed, even apologize to them, without worry that their words will later be used against them in court."