Avoiding gluten is getting easier, but for many people doing so may not be smart - Washington Post

[Scott Adams]

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Open Original Shared Link Washington Post He notes that this number includes everyone from children with wheat allergies to the estimated 1 percent of Americans who have celiac disease — a serious autoimmune disorder that interferes with absorption of nutrients, causing wide-ranging health ... Open Original Shared Link The News Journal Open Original Shared Link Fox News Open Original Shared Link Forsyth County News Online Open Original Shared Link Open Original Shared Link

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[Takala]

Yeah, well, reading the Washington Post for medical information might be easier, but for most people may not be smart.

So Carolyn Butler of the WAPO goes to the grocery and is dismayed by the availability now of gluten free foods, which might be eaten by others not diagnosed by biopsy, or probably worse from her point of view, be served to her at a cocktail party on the Beltway. The horrors.

Here is something from 2009, an interview with the author of that, Carolyn Butler, a so- called recovering "cyberchondriac."

Web Sickness, transcript fri Nov 13, 2009

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BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield. So you have an odd pain, a strange twinge, a rash, a tremor or some apparently unexplainable bruising. Eh, what can you do? Well, what people are increasingly doing is rushing to Google, commencing an online odyssey, leading to a terrifying self-diagnosis. The phenomenon is called cyberchondria, and Washington Post columnist Carolyn Butler was one of its victims. It began innocently enough with a little twitch in her eyelid.

CAROLYN BUTLER: You have the sort of common things that come up, like too much caffeine, being tired, looking at the computer for too long but, of course, I glossed right over all of those and headed to the big guns

[Skylark]

I think it's a really good article. It even talks about how non-celiacs can feel better off gluten and tells you to listen to your body.

[Takala]

The title is horrible, and it re- creates a theme going around the internet the past few months concerning health care costs. Like we need the FDA dweebles reading that and thinking, oh, right, let's not bother doing gluten free labeling standards seriously, it's just a fad diet.