Another "could I Be..." Thread

[Tranquillity]

To be clear, it's not wheat but rather wheat starch.

"CONCLUSION: Wheat starch-based gluten-free flour products were not harmful in the treatment of coeliac disease and dermatitis herpetiformis."

Open Original Shared Link

It should be safe according to Open Original Shared Link as well.

However, if I don't notice a change soon I'll obviously have to try completely without wheat and related ingredients. Casein seems pretty darn hard but I'll give that a try as well if I have to.

[CarlaB]

To be clear, it's not wheat but rather wheat starch.

Right, I understand. It's accepted in Europe that wheat starch is okay. Gluten-free in Europe is NOT gluten-free ... it is defined as below so many parts per million, not as the absence of gluten.

Last summer, one of our English members who lives in France and who is highly sensitive got very ill when he was visiting his mother and she served him bread with wheat starch (considered gluten-free). I guess some people can eat it with no problem, but many celiacs cannot handle it at all.

[gfp]

And the same person just tried again...

With the same results ......

Studies like the one posted are not very helpful.

Firstly it doesn't say if they are using pharmaceutical grade starch or regular stuff bought in a store.

Nor does it list the conditions of the control subjects.

It says they "followed a naturally gluten free diet" .. however what does that mean?

In Finland McDo fries are considered gluten-free but the more sensitive analysis shows that this is not true... In other words the baseline is skewed for the control group.

If you read enough posts on this board you will also see that most people starting a gluten-free diet alone do not really manage a gluten-free diet ... because there are so many gotcha's. These range from cross contamination to those surprise products that you just don't expect to contain gluten.

The EU food industry has a huge excess of wheat waste products and the food manufacturers are always interested in using waste products as food. This itself has an effect on what governments accept as gluten free. For instance things like dextrine and malto dextrine in Europe are often made from any starchy vegetable or grain. It is basically a commodity product ... they buy it by the ton... imagine "normal sugar" which can come from Cane or Beet. When we buy sugar as a "product" we can choose cane sugar and even less processed etc. and even cubes or other fancy stuff.

When a manufacturer buys sugar (sucrose) they just buy 300 tonnes of sucrose ... it can come from any source unles its a real "artisanal" product.

Hence buying malto-dextrine from a specified source is much more expensive ...

Interestingly in the US all domestic dextrines and malto dextrines come from corn. This is more accident than design but its nice for our American friends

This is just because the factories to extract and process this were set up in corn growing areas.

You might notice that sometimes starches are listed and this is becoming increasingly common in the UK. (potato starch, rice starch etc.)

With compound foodstuffs (those containing other products like say mustard or mayo etc.) you find confusing mixes... why did they use 3 types of starch ??? I think usually its just say the mustard used one and the mayo a different one.

Last point... regardless of the metrics they choose ... many of us feel lousy with the wheat starch! This would seem to indicate they are measuring the wrong things!

BACKGROUND: The safety of wheat-starch-based gluten-free products in the treatment of coeliac disease is debatable. Prospective studies are lacking. AIM: : To compare the clinical, histological and serological response to a wheat-starch-based or natural gluten-free diet in patients with newly detected coeliac disease. METHODS: Fifty-seven consecutive adults with untreated coeliac disease were randomized to a wheat-starch-based or natural gluten-free diet. Clinical response, small bowel mucosal morphology, CD3+, alphabeta+ and gammadelta+ intra-epithelial lymphocytes, mucosal human leucocyte antigen-DR expression and serum endomysial, transglutaminase and gliadin antibodies were investigated before and 12 months after the introduction of the gluten-free diet. Quality of life measurements were performed by standardized questionnaires and the bone mineral density was analysed. RESULTS: In both groups, abdominal symptoms were alleviated equally by a strict diet. There were no differences between the groups in mucosal morphology, the density of intra-epithelial lymphocytes, serum antibodies, bone mineral density or quality of life tests at the end of the study. Four patients on a natural gluten-free diet and two on a wheat-starch-based gluten-free diet had dietary lapses; as a result, inadequate mucosal, serological and clinical recovery was observed. CONCLUSIONS: The dietary response to a wheat-starch-based gluten-free diet was as good as that to a natural gluten-free diet in patients with newly detected coeliac disease.

Bolding mine....

57 people and only 6 made a mistake in 12 months? This is pretty much impossible, even the most diligent of us make slips and its rare I have never managed a whole year without a single slip, let alone a newly diagnosed patient.

In conclusion I think it more likely NON of the newly diagnosed patients had ZERO gluten and since they lack a control (a set of subjects who only ate food analysed by the most accurate methods, they should by their own methodolgy remove ALL patients that did not eat ONLY food which has been analysed and have lived in a environments where no gluten is present ....

Hence the study is actually LESS THAN worthless, its misleading and valueless scientifically.

[Tranquillity]

And the same person just tried again...

With the same results ......

Studies like the one posted are not very helpful.

Firstly it doesn't say if they are using pharmaceutical grade starch or regular stuff bought in a store.

First... Huh?

Anyway, I guess the sum of all that is: wheat starch bad... Yes?

I'm looking at alternatives, actually. Finding one that is also free of soy isn't very easy. I created a new thread in the other intolerances section regarding soy/casein/corn. It's not pinned yet though.

[darlindeb25]

Yup--WHEAT STARCH bad, very bad. Soy and corn are bad for me, but not everyone. Maybe if you can manage to get the wheat out of your system, maybe then you will feel better, but for now, it seems you are still "feeding the monster" so to speak. Try eliminating all wheat first and go from there. You may be ok with soy and corn.

[nora-n]

i,

I live in Europe, and with wheat starch in this context, they mean the codex alimentarius wheat starch. In the UK, they call it codex wheat starch or just codex.....

The naturally gluten free starch, is what they call anything that you would call gluten-free in the US.

Here in this country, the govt. institutes have analyzed a variety of gluten-free merchandise and published several studies. The codex wheat starch typically has half the allowed gluten. They found large amounts of contamination in some baked goods made by a baker and the products were removed form the market. Normal oats were tested and most of them were actually gluten-free. Only gluten-free certified oats are allowed, actually but surprisingly many oats were clean anyway.

Me and my daughter cannot tolerate the codex wheat starch.

On the celiac forum, there are sometimes parents of children with persistent antibodies, and then they switch to naturally gluten-free bu doctor's orders.

all newly diagnosed celiacs here are sent to a nutritionist experienced in celiac and to a baking school. daughter was lucky and got sent to a baking lesson without milk or codex whet starch. Imagine going to a baking lesson and you cannot eat anything in that room? Many people have experienced that.

The celiac society wants the wheat starch.

nora

[gfp]

First... Huh?

Well all wheat starch will have some residual gluten.

If its analysis grade or pharmacutical grade then it is likely to contain very little whereas food grade it can contain significant amounts, depending what you call significant.

Wheat starch is basically extracted just by washing flour or the byproducts. Its the most soluble part that comes away however this doesn't mean some of the gluten will not also be washed along.

The purest form is analytic grade...this is what is used for calibrating analytical instruments like mass spectrometers.

If you were to have wheat starch analysed then this is what would be used as the baseline. So basically almost all food grade wheat starch contains appreciable gluten.

In other words the control subjects were probably (almost certainly) also ingesting SOME gluten... you can't just do a 'scientific study and ask... "have you been gluten free" because most people can never be gluten free and I find it incredulous that of these control subjects only two actually slipped over 12 months.

Anyway, I guess the sum of all that is: wheat starch bad... Yes?

I'm looking at alternatives, actually. Finding one that is also free of soy isn't very easy. I created a new thread in the other intolerances section regarding soy/casein/corn. It's not pinned yet though.

As nora_n has said many people DO react to the CODEX wheat starch and I am one. I also try and avoid Soy but not to the same extents as gluten.

The actual definition of the codex is itself flawed. It states that for a product to be labelled "gluten free" it MUST contain trace amounts of gluten. If not then it cannot legally be called gluten free but "naturally gluten free".

[Tranquillity]

The "huh" was about this part:

And the same person just tried again...

With the same results ......

[CarlaB]

And the same person just tried again...

With the same results ......

Gfp is the person I was speaking of ...

Steve, you tried again??? Why? I hope you're feeling better.

[gfp]

Gfp is the person I was speaking of ...

Steve, you tried again??? Why? I hope you're feeling better.

Hi Carla

Yep I stupidly tried the UK Codex bread again ...

New job and lots of travel.and very long hours.. (and I mean lots) and I have been trying to get portable food.

I thought I'd try the UK gluten-free bread again... with disastrous results. It does seem cumulative. The first time I thought I was OK then after 1-2 days I just got worse and worse...

@Tranquility .... that person is ME....

Even though the bread is labelled gluten-free it contains wheat starch...