To ask if everyone who is 'gluten-free' has an actual allergy to it?

[Caribou58]

I'm not being disingenuous here. Time was when people suffering from coeliac disease were few and far between, but yet another acquaintance has declared themselves suddenly 'gluten-free' (when we were out as a group for dinner recently).

I wasn't near enough to ask her about it discreetly.

Has there been a sudden upsurge in allergies?

If it helped my IBS, I’d definitely be jumping on the gluten free bandwagon, fad or not.
Strangely, my body seems to like gluten. White bread and plain white pasta = happy stomach. Salad/spinach/corn= diarrhoea for weeks.

I don't know about other people but I have an auto inflammatory decease which gets worse if I consume wheat, barley is fine but rye is not. It is not as sensitive as celiac but if I ate wheat for 2 weeks or more I would start getting symptoms. I love wheat and I find it very hard to moderate - I don't even know where my level is once my symptoms have been triggered they take months to resolve. I develop abscesses on my groin and underarms that fail to heal, weep constantly and form fistulas - it is fucking awful and incredibly painful and very embarrassing and while I am not getting at you OP, it's very fucking frustrating to be be treated like a fraud because I do not have celiac disease.

When I can stay off gluten I don’t get bloated or gassy, my skin is better, I can focus my brain better and I feel much more energetic. ( takes about a fortnight to start to feel the benefits)

My dd1 has chronic fatigue syndrome and was advised to come off it and milk for at least 6 weeks but she hasn’t noticed enough difference to keep it up.

I’m gluten free as it was an almost last resort to try and control my autoimmune disease that makes my life a misery. (Drugs weren’t working / caused too many side effects after 20 years) There’s a fair bit of research that suggests low starch is helpful (different to gluten free I know).
I absolutely wouldn’t be on it if there was no illness. I wouldn’t say it’s healthier as you can still stuff your face on loads of gluten free cakes etc. So assume most people on it find it helpful in some way as otherwise it’s a real pain in the backside ... all that lovely food you can’t eat!

If I eat gluten, I get mouth ulcers that are a complete bitch, incredibly painful and take ages to clear up, none of the usual remedies work.

DS1 gets an ear infection within 24 hours of eating gluten.

DS2 used to get terrible diarrhoea and when he had gluten but can now tolerate some gluten. However, if he has too much, he gets tired, sniffly, coughs more than usual and is more likely to get asthma symptoms.

DD is small, but generally healthy, though quite anxious. Without gluten, her mental health is much improved.

www.melisa.org/allergens-tested/

We have all tested positive for gluten using the Melisa test but it did not show up on skin prick or IgE blood test.

I can focus my brain better Absolutely - brain fog is much reduce - I can now drive for longer than 30mins. Ds is also gluten free as he has allergic oesphagitus - his GI consultant had no tests for the triggers for ds's condition, it basically is a case of removing the allergen and seeing if the symptoms stop - they don't have a blood test to work out what is causing the problem.

I don't have ceoliac's disease but since going gluten/wheat free, my IBS and asthma have improved to the point where I rarely need to take any medication for either ( I used to take 2 IBS medications and 3 asthma ones)
I can get away with eating the occasional biscuit but would get very bloated and uncomfortable if I ate more than that.
I've no idea whether that makes me allergic to wheat or gluten but as I've noticed the improvements, it gives me a reason and incentive to steer clear of them!

Not being a celiac does not mean you do not have problems with wheat. Very separate issues. My little boy has severe eczema (80% of body) and cutting out wheat reduces his symptoms drastically as with a lot of inflammation type diseases. Allergy testing showed high results for wheat and pollen. Him not eating wheat HAS a massive impact on his life. He is not coeliac but he is not 'faddy' either.

My friend who is ceoliac has a lot to thank people with faddy diets for, as gluten free alternatives are now so much easier to find, and cheaper, as more people are buying them.

A cousin was (she's died since, from other causes) coeliac, diagnosed in her forties. It's a very damaging illness, affected her health really badly. :( Her husband was diagnosed subsequently as well. I think there's a very high incidence of it in people of Irish extraction.

One of my sisters has IBS, and wheat causes her problems. She can eat a very small amount, but mostly sticks to a gluten-free diet because it's easier than keeping track of how much wheat she's had - too much and the pain kicks in.

I think for some people it is a fad. Which makes life harder for people who are coeliac, like my friend who needs to avoid all trace of cross-contamination, or for my DD2, who is intolerant and really needs to be careful when she eats wheat. She avoids it so that she can always track how much she has had and how long ago - one doughnut or a small naan every month is pretty much her limit, otherwise cue severe abdo pain and diarrhoea.

the paltrow brigade do rather make life difficult for those with actual problems.

@specialsubject Have you read Paltrow's story, what makes you disbelieve that her Hashimoto's was not vastly improved by her change in diet? Have you read Deliciously Ella's story, same question? And if people who struggle to get answers from conventional medicine have vast improvements to their health by changing their diet, who are you to say they do not have 'actual problems'?

It is easier to diagnose coeliac disease by blood test nowadays, in the past it involved something more invasive. I believe there are also many undiagnosed coeliacs who do not suffer from the obvious bowl related symptoms but have other issues like depression or migraines that can be less obvious symptoms of coeliac.

I think that few people have coeliac disease, but a lot can have gluten sensitivity. Tiredness, bloating, bad stomach etc.

both babble about detox, chemicals and superfoods and therefore have no right to my time.

paltrow is an actress who has a track record of peddling some real snake oil, some just the usual lies and some actually dangerous. woodward says she used to guzzle student crap and now eats veg, which is better.

and in other news, bears shit in the woods!

Can I just add there is no such thing as an intolerance any more. It is classified as IGE allergy and Non IGE allergy. Non IGE allergy being the previous intolerance. No gluten issues here, but I hate when people poo poo non IGE allergies. Of course I understand that IGE allergies can be more serious, but I've had two milk allergic kids, one has mild IGE reactions which everyone took seriously and one had non IGE which everyone thought 'a little bit won't hurt it's not a true allergy' and she'd end up with stomach cramps and diarhoea for days and couldn't go to nursery and we'd be house bound.

Diagnosis is on the increase for coeliac disease because there is more awareness of it in medicine among other reasons.

I’ve been diagnosed with coeliac disease for 9 years and it’s welcome news to me that more people are eating gluten free. Eating out is so much easier than it used to be.

FWIW I do often say that I’m gluten free because lots of people don’t know what coeliac disease is.

I don't have an allergy but I have an autoimmune condition (Hashimotos) which is made worse by gluten
I'm gluten free on the advice of my endocrinologist, and my condition is a lot more manageable now than when I ate gluten

As an aside, I also feel a lot better for it. Less bloated, not as farty

Does everyone who says they are 'gluten-free' have an auto-immune disease or an intolerance or an allergy to it?

I try as best I can to restrict gluten. I'm hypothyroid.

Ds1 has coeliac disease, I often have people commenting on how they didn't have it in their day etc. I've also read lots of research on the subject.

There is a line of thought that our food is now so over processed our children just can't tolerate it. I read an article comparing a supermarket loaf 20 years ago to one now and there was significantly more gluten in it. I was chatting to another coeliac about the modifications on farming wheat and how a sheaf of wheat years ago a coeliac could tolerate (ive not actually read about that one though - could be an myth).

I think that years ago lots of children would of been misdiagnosed, toddler diahorrea, failure to thrive etc. I'm also suspicious of choking children in years gone by and wonder if anaphylactic might of played a part.

But anyway, if people choose not to eat gluten for whatever reason that's their call. I don't get why anyone cares it's their choice. We only eat where we are confident the restaurant understands coeliac and DS is safe.

Jammy. I think it’s a combination of the quick rise method of making modern bread and the modern wheat varieties.

bloating after eating loads of bread , pizza, pasta is totally normal and not a reason to need to be gf (for non medically ill ppl). as a dietician, when you show people portion sizes of these carbs that they should actually be eating compared to what they think is ok, its no wonder they have "problems"

I am wheat intolerant. I was tested for coeliac disease but I definitely don't have it.
However wheat causes me severe gastric problems. It's not a fad. I would dearly like to be able to eat it if only to make travelling easier and not be a pain as a dinner guest.
I haven't eaten it for 18 years.
I also can't eat onions, leeks and new potatoes. The onions part is probably the most difficult. They are in everything!!
It pisses me right off when you get about eating wheat-free. I don't give a monkeys about those who go gluten-free for a fad or whatever. It makes things easier for everyone who genuinely can't eat it. 18 years ago you could barely buy gluten-free bread. Now at least I can have a pizza when I go out, a pudding that's not ice-cream and a god-awful g-f meal when I fly