This must be one of the most popular questions we are asked here at Urban Wellness, and often the answer is “it depends”! In this article we take a deeper look into what is gluten, why it doesn’t suit everyone and also, how you can tell if it suits you or not.
What is gluten?
Rather than being one food source or agent, gluten is actually a group of storage proteins, known as prolamins, and they are found naturally in certain grains including wheat, rye and barley. These include:
glutenins and gliadins found in wheat
secalins found in rye
hordeins found in barley
These gluten proteins are elastic which is what gives bread its stretch. Oats don’t actually contain gluten as such, but since oats are often grown and processed along with wheat, most conventional oat products contain traces of gluten (see below re coeliac).
There are some main concerns with gluten:
The gluten proteins are highly resistant to our digestive enzymes that break proteins down in your digestive system.
Some people medically should not be consuming gluten (see below)
We all eat too much gluten! Wheat is a staple carbohydrate in Western diets, often being consumed in some form every day, and for some at every meal, e.g. toast for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and pasta for dinner.
Can anyone digest gluten?
There are three specific groups of people who should not eat gluten:
1.Those with Coeliac Disease
Coeliac disease is an inflammatory autoimmune disease, and though it affects many systems in the body, it is thought of as an inflammatory disorder of the small intestine. Gluten consumption in someone with coeliac disease damages the lining of the small intestine, which in turn then begins to affect nutrient absorption, digestive issues and can have a knock-on effect on things like skin (e.g. eczema) and brain health or moods (e.g. depression or brain fog).
2. Those with a wheat allergy
If someone has a wheat allergy, they will experience an allergic response when they consume, or even come into contact with, wheat and these symptoms can be mild, such as tingling lips and tongue or nausea, but it can also be life-threatening and induce an anaphylaxis reaction which requires immediate medical attention.
3. Those who are Non-Coeliac Gluten Sensitive (NCGS)
Increasingly, here at Urban Wellness we see more and more clients who are NCGS whereby they don’t have an allergy or coeliac disease, but they do experience digestive issues and symptoms such as headaches, joint aches and fatigue when they consume gluten.
We also recommend that anyone with a (non-coeliac) autoimmune condition, such as Ulcerative colitis or Hashimoto’s, should also avoid gluten as much as possible, if not completely, for the gluten proteins can cause something called intestinal permeability (aka “leaky gut”). (1). This essentially means the the gut’s barrier has become compromised, allowing toxins and proteins to move through the gut barrier into the blood stream and so removing gluten (along with a targeted gut repair program with a trained professional!) can allow the gut, which houses around 80% of you immune system, a chance to heal and repair (2) and reduce symptoms or flares.
What if I don’t have an autoimmune disease or allergy, should I still have gluten?
Gluten isn’t for everyone, but some people can tolerate it. As mentioned earlier, one of the main issues with gluten in today’s diets is that we eat too much of it! I often discuss with clients about their overall gut health and microbiome too as most of us do not have the optimal gut environment which may affect how you feel after eating gluten such as bread or pasta.
Factors such as stress, diet, toxins, medications and alcohol all work to ‘unwind’ gut function and/or its microbiome, a bit like coming down a helter skelter, so that eventually we may find that we get bloated when we eat bread or increased flatulence after a pizza! Hence we then need to work to improve gut function with better dietary choices, less sugar, minimising stress and alcohol and improving the microbiome with pro and pre-biotics.
Don’t waste money going for fancy intolerance tests - at the moment they are not 100% accurate. The best thing to do is:
Remove gluten from your diet completely for 21 days.
Then, after these three weeks have some gluten such as toast or pasta and wait to see what the reaction is.
If you notice bloating or flatulence, for example, this may indicate that your microbiome needs some work but if you experience wider symptoms such as headaches, pain, extreme fatigue it may be time to cut out gluten and work with one of our registered nutritionists to help you ensure your diet remains balanced and full of fibre without the gluten.
Replace not remove!
This is the mantra we use, as gluten can provide an important source of fibre for many and we know our gut bugs LOVE fibre - it’s what they feed on! Just taking out gluten may further aggravate digestive issues such as constipation, so plan ahead and get lots of non-gluten foods in the house
Legumes (beans, peas, lentils, chickpeas, etc)
Fruits (apples, pears, oranges, prunes, mangoes, papayas, strawberries)
Vegetables (carrots, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, aubergine, asparagus, okra, cucumber)
Sweet potatoes or white potatoes with skin on
Ground flax seeds and chia seeds
Quinoa
Buckwheat
Gluten fee oats or oat cakes
Millet
Wild and brown rice
Nuts (walnuts, almonds, pecans)
There are some good gluten free breads and online gluten free bakery’s but shop around for the best taste and texture, but also make sure you read the labels. Some of them are high in sugar or salt which won’t be doing you any good at all!
If you try going gluten-free for three weeks, and don’t notice any change in symptoms then you may well be ok to eat gluten, just try not to have it at every meal!
Or, if you find the same symptoms are still there even without the gluten, there is probably something else going on that needs investigating. It does all get a bit complicated!
So hit the button below and book a free call with with Nicola or Rachel, to see if we can help you get to the bottom of what’s going on and whether it really is gluten or not.
(2) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34338776/
