What Is the Deal With Gluten Intolerance

By Tina C.
Gluten intolerance begins to make sense when you learn what it is first. It has an glue-like consistency and is actually proteins found in wheat and other closely related grains. These include spelt, kamut, rye, triticale, barley, oats and 1,000s of processed foods that contain some parts of the these grains. You see gluten is great for making food products. Bread in possible in its current form largely due to gluten. Bread. Do you see how big this is? Unfortunately, with each passing year we begin to realize that many people suffer from the intake of gluten. And their symptoms can be mild to severe.

There is an actual disease (celiac) that is a direct result of gluten sensitivity. It is characterized by a whole host of awkward symptoms like diarrhea, bloating, stomach pain and severe weight loss. It can even be life threatening to children.

When the body turns on itself it is known as an auto-immune disorder and this is just the type of thing that can happen. Some of these are diabetes, dermatitis, thyroid disease and soft tissue problems. The severity of these has been directly linked to the amount of time the sufferer has been exposed to gluten. In the future we might find that many problems might be cleared up with a gluten-free diet. But as of yet, no big studies have been done.

Even osteoporosis may be associated with gluten intake. This may be caused by poor absorption of nutrients. The good news is that low bone density has been shown to be reversible in people who adopt a gluten-free diet.

Infertility and poor pregnancies are also closely related to problems with gluten digestion. In diagnosed celiac sufferers cutting gluten out of all the food they consume has been shown to reverse this effect!

Celiacs even have up to 100 times the chance of getting some forms of cancer that can be prevented if gluten is eliminated!

So, this is serious business, eh? Who would have thought that a little grain could actually lead to a loss of life.

How many people are have gluten intolerance you may ask. Well that is an interesting question. The latest studies tend to indicate that at least 50% of the postulation is gluten sensitive. Yes, this many people may have immune system problems due to gluten and not even realize it. Since the immune system affects so many parts of the body you may not know just how far reaching your consumption of simple bread may go.

Scientist have begun to understand gluten sensitivity and how far reaching its damage may be. One recent study concluded, though, that high wheat diets lead directly to lesions in the small intestine in otherwise healthy people. This could indicate that almost everyone may be a potential victim of our modern day diet. The interesting thing to consider is that our best current archaeological knowledge seems to indicate that humans never consumed hardly any gluten until recently. This may explain the problem. This sheds a whole new light on gluten intolerance.