Is Gluten Bad for You? Dietitian Explains

🤔 Is gluten really as harmful as some claim? As a Registered Dietitian, I’m here to clarify those myths and help you navigate your relationship with gluten!

With gluten being demonized online and every health coach suggesting you cut it from your diet, do their claims really have any proof? Will gluten increase disease risks? Is eating gluten giving you brain fog? And what if you switch to gluten-free foods? Are they really any better?

In this episode, I break down some common claims I see repeatedly and share my opinions on whether they are true or not, with some backed-up studies. 

TOPICS COVERED 👇
What is gluten? (03:04)
The 'need' for a gluten-free diet (04:01)
Claim: Gluten is Inflammatory (06:21)
Claim: Gluten Increases Disease Risk (09:13)
Claim: Gluten Causes Brain Fog (10:30)
Claim: Gluten-Free Diet and Hashimoto's (11:39)
Claim: Gluten Exacerbates Autism (15:19)
Claim: Gluten-Free Foods are Healthier (16:32)

RESOURCES MENTIONED
"Why Are You Overeating?" Free Quiz
Article

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Transcript

Michelle 00:00:00  Welcome back to another episode of the Nourish and Free podcast, brought to you by My Closet. This is the last episode that will be in my closet, so say goodbye to it because I'm about to move and I will not have this fantastic closet anymore. I'm going to have a different one, so it's not as good as this. So anyway, enjoy it while while you can. For those who are watching on YouTube, if you're new to the show, my name is Michelle Yates. I'm a registered dietitian with my master's in health psychology. I'm a certified health mindset coach, and what I love doing is helping people become more nourished and free. What does that mean, you may ask? It could mean a lot of different things. Obviously, we want to be nourished and healthy and have a balanced relationship with food, but we want to do that in a way that's at least in my world. I want to be sure that's being done in a way that's free from unnecessary food rules, misinformation, confusion And disordered eating and body image distress.

Michelle 00:01:04  And so a lot of the things we talk about on this show, all kind of in the grand scheme of things, at the end of the day, they help us to accomplish that goal of becoming more nourished and free. And sometimes that means doing some myth busting. So today's a bit of a myth busting episode on the topic of gluten. It's amazing to me how there's there's still I feel like this was something that was way more of a thing like five years ago, but there's still these remnants of the myth hanging out that gluten is harmful for us and that it's healthier to not have it. And so I want to just do a deep dive into the topic and just cover our bases as we as we ultimately try to live more nourished and free. Big shout out to everybody who has been leaving ratings and reviews. It means so much. It's so helpful for the show. If you haven't done so, please do so on Apple Podcast or on Spotify. I also want to bring your attention to the show notes for a quick second.

Michelle 00:02:06  First of all, I'm going to have an article on this subject matter that you can go look where you're going to have links to all the studies that I'll be talking about in this, episode. So you can go do all that digging if you like. And then second of all, I'm going to put a link to a quiz that I have. I haven't talked about this in a while, so I just want to bring it up. In case you haven't heard about it yet, it's a quick two minute quiz that goes through why you may be overeating if that's something that you struggle with. So if you find yourself overeating quite often and you're not really sure what's going on, and you want to know why it's happening, and even the next steps that you might need to take in order to overcome it. Definitely check out the show notes to go take that quiz. It's free, of course, and will only take like two minutes of your time. So how we're going to structure today's episode is we're going to address a lot of the common claims or I guess, complaints that people have Against gluten.

Michelle 00:03:04  Now, of course, gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley and rye, so it's found in many grains. It's not in all grains, though you can certainly still have grains in your diet if you need to follow a gluten free diet, for example, amaranth, quinoa, millet, buckwheat, corn, and oats are all naturally gluten free, with the exception of if they have cross-contamination from processing in a factory or anything like that. So it's not like if somebody is gluten free, they can't ever have grains again. It's just going to look a little bit different. It's going to be a little bit harder. They certainly can't have wheat again or barley or rye. And why would anybody need to go gluten free you may ask. Well we're going to dig into what, like I said, a lot of the reasons why people think they need to go gluten free. But first, I do want to say that there is legitimate reason to go gluten free if you have something called celiac disease.

Michelle 00:04:01  So celiac disease if you're not familiar with it, which I'm sure you are. But just in case, here's a quick overview is a autoimmune condition that it's estimated to affect about 1 in 100 people worldwide, according to the Celiac Disease Foundation. But only about 30% are properly getting a diagnosis, and diagnosis is pretty difficult with celiac disease. It takes some time and some various testing and trials and elimination. You got to do it right. And so yeah, a lot of people aren't getting the diagnosis because either the testing didn't produce the test result that we need in order to get that diagnosis, even though it might actually be there, or people just aren't getting tested in the first place. So like I said, celiac disease is an autoimmune condition. Basically, somebody's body is having an immune response that attacks the small intestine in the presence of gluten. These attacks on the small intestine damage the villa, which are these things, these little finger like projections on your small intestine that help to absorb nutrients and process things.

Michelle 00:05:06  And so when that's damaged, then we don't absorb things properly. And that can lead to side effects like stomach pains, diarrhea. I mean, there's all kinds of brain fog is another one we'll talk about. But anyway, it's a serious condition. People with celiac disease are suffering when they eat gluten. It is not fun for them. They genuinely need a gluten free diet. It is a medical prescription for them at that point. There's also something called a non celiac gluten sensitivity. This is something that we're still trying to figure out. Like how prevalent is this? How can we even figure out if it like you can't necessarily test for it? So it's we're still trying to figure out how to get a grasp on it, but it's essentially like a step between not struggling with gluten and then having celiac disease. You could struggle with it a little bit, but not so much that it's a Actual autoimmune disease. It could be that you just have certain tolerance levels to it. Basically, the best way to figure something like that out is an elimination diet, where you eliminate it for a couple of weeks and then you reintroduce it at small doses and then larger doses and see if you have any symptoms.

Michelle 00:06:21  So non celiac gluten sensitivity is another reason that somebody may want to go gluten free. But according to our culture there are a lot of other reasons why everybody should go gluten free. So let's go through each one. So the first thing that we hear a lot is that gluten is apparently it's inflammatory for everybody. Now again in the case of celiac disease or non celiac gluten sensitivity. Yes absolutely. It can be inflammatory can be causing chronic inflammation. But that doesn't mean it's doing that to everybody. In fact in a randomized crossover trial which again I'm going to be linking all this research. In my article, researchers found that a diet rich in whole grain wheat was associated with a reduction of body weight and in systemic low grade inflammation. So suggesting actually it's doing the opposite is anti-inflammatory. We see other health benefits of whole grain wheat. In another study, which was placebo controlled parallel group randomized trial comparing refined wheat products to whole grain products. This study was more focused on the effects of whole grain wheat on the gut microbiota, and what they found was an increase in fecal ferulic acid, as well as serum di hydro ferulic acid, which I don't know a lot about, that.

Michelle 00:07:49  It's a bit beyond my the breadth of my knowledge, but from what I gather, this is ideal for maintaining good gut health and in turn, that would be aiding our overall inflammation. Another way to decide if something is inflammatory is to see if it's an aggregator for something like inflammatory bowel disease, and a study that was utilizing the data from the Nurses Health Study, the first and second, and the Health Professionals follow up study, which is, if you don't know anything about those, it's essentially data following over 200,000 participants from the US and spanning from 1986 up to 2017. So this is like a monster amount of data on these 200,000 individuals. It found that gluten did not increase the risk for inflammatory bowel disease. So all in all, we're seeing that for those who do not have celiac disease or non celiac gluten sensitivity, gluten might actually be anti-inflammatory. It's not inherently inflammatory. And this makes sense because we know that a diet rich in whole grains which again there can be gluten free whole grains. But typically a diet rich in whole grains is including gluten can do amazing things for our health and help to prevent diseases like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, all these things.

Michelle 00:09:13  And I'll talk more about that actually with my next point. So that is the second claim is that gluten increases risk for disease, gluten in and of itself. That protein found in wheat, barley and rye is increasing risk for disease. And while it is again possible to have whole grains that are gluten free, and it's possible to have a generally quote unquote disease preventing diet that's gluten free. It's not the lack of gluten that's making the diet healthier. Unless, like I said, someone has celiac disease or non celiac gluten sensitivity. What we're seeing in large prospective cohort studies is that the risks of heart disease and diabetes actually go down with increased gluten intake, which we can infer is from the higher consumption of whole grains. So like I was just saying a minute ago, when we see a higher intake of whole grain consumption, we naturally see a decrease in risk for those non-communicable diseases. Okay. The third thing we hear is that gluten causes brain fog. Now for sure, people with celiac disease experience that not everybody does with celiac disease.

Michelle 00:10:30  Like from the literature we're seeing that it's more of like a small percentage of people with celiac disease experience that, but not all of them. But there's no evidence whatsoever to show that individuals without celiac disease or non celiac gluten sensitivity experience brain fog from gluten intake. There's just not like there's not there's no reports evidence like yes of course I'm sure there's somebody down the street who's saying I get brain fog with gluten intake. Maybe they have celiac disease. Maybe they have non celiac gluten sensitivity, or maybe they don't. And they just think that they're getting brain fog from gluten because somebody told them that that's a thing. And so now they're like, they've got this nocebo effect or the opposite of a placebo, where they experience negative effects because they expect to experience negative effects. It could also be something completely different that's causing that brain fog. Maybe they didn't get enough sleep that night or whatever. But yes, certainly some of those who have celiac disease do experience brain fog and report feeling a lot better after adhering to a gluten free diet, and they see that brain fog go down.

Michelle 00:11:39  They don't have as many issues with cognition. But like I said, that doesn't mean that gluten has that effect on everyone. It doesn't even have that effect on everyone with celiac disease. The next thing that we hear a lot is that a gluten free diet will improve Hashimoto's disease. So Hashimoto's thyroiditis, if you don't know, is an autoimmune disease impacting the function of the thyroid, thus causing hypothyroidism. Some researchers think there's a connection between Hashimoto's and gluten due to some structural similarities between the thyroid gland and gluten at the molecular level. However, there's no actual basis for requiring a gluten free diet for those with Hashimoto's if they don't also have celiac disease. So like I said, with celiac disease, a gluten free diet is a prescription at this point. Like, yes, you should do the work requiring that you follow a gluten free diet to improve this condition that you have. There's no basis for doing that same thing with Hashimoto's unless there's also celiac disease present. Things can get a little confusing with this, because there was a small pilot study published that made it seem like a gluten free diet, improved some clinical markers of Hashimoto's, but there's a few problems with that.

Michelle 00:12:57  Number one, it was a small pilot study. You shouldn't ever make a blanket prescription based on a small pilot study. It's just not. That's lazy medicine. The other problem with that is there was no in this pilot study, there was no baseline test for celiac disease beforehand to know if those markers improved because of the Hashimoto's itself, or because they also happen to have celiac disease. We just know it. And then the other thing about this study, too, is that participants were allowed to choose whether they follow the gluten free diet or not. So there was no regulations on who was assigned what they just got to choose. And the other big issue with the study is that there was no regulations on the rest of the things that they consumed. It was just gluten free or not. We don't care about the rest of what you're eating. So why does this matter? Number one, it's a poorly controlled study you need to control for everything in someone's diet. If you're trying to isolate out one thing and figure out if that's causing one thing.

Michelle 00:14:03  Second, because individuals had the choice, the ones who had the motivation to go gluten free may have also been motivated to make other choices and changes, and adopted a generally more anti-inflammatory diet compared to the other groups. So did they improve their Hashimoto's biomarkers because they went gluten free, or did they improve them because they were already motivated to make some changes? So they change their diet in big ways instead of just that way? And if it was just the gluten that they changed, did they improve just because they actually had celiac disease? We didn't know it though. It was just not a good it was a poorly designed study. So that's where things kind of get confusing with the whole Hashimoto's and gluten free diet thing. But if somebody doesn't have celiac disease or perhaps non celiac gluten sensitivity, there's no basis for recommending a gluten free diet, which is something that I see a lot of coaches do online. The coaching space is the Wild West you guys like? The bad advice that I see on Instagram is insane.

Michelle 00:15:19  Like it is just so bad. Bless people who call it all out on their page. Like I don't like creating conflict or being ultra negative. So I don't really do those types of videos. But man, they are necessary because there are so many people that just have no clue what they're doing, but they're giving out all this advice anyway, and they've got hundreds of thousands of followers, and then they're making people pay for it too. So anyway, two more claims. This should go quickly in regards to gluten. So another thing that people claim is that gluten exacerbates autism spectrum disorder, and a gluten free diet will allegedly help with that. I hate to break it to you, but there's no evidence to support that. There's a common theme with all these claims, right? People like to talk about how gluten passes through a quote unquote leaky gut, Guts and which is an overly exaggerated thing and creates issues with behaviors because of that. But unless somebody has celiac disease and autism spectrum disorder, there is no convincing data to show that gluten would worsen the autism spectrum disorder.

Michelle 00:16:32  So there's that. And then the last one that we'll go through is this idea that gluten free foods are just generally healthier. So if you were kind of reading in between the lines of what I was explaining about gluten, gluten is just a protein. That's it. It's just this little tiny piece of the puzzle of what makes up a grain and specific grains wheat, barley and rye. Gluten in and of itself, has nothing to do with the health promoting potential of a food. If anything, like I said, it might actually be helpful for our health because of the research we're seeing with, you know, an increasing gluten intake because of probably whole grains is going to help prevent diseases or whatever. But just like it's it's a protein, right? Like it's just a protein. It's just a part of the whole thing. So it's kind of ridiculous that people have demonized it so much without the context of celiac disease. Right. Like it makes no sense to demonize this random molecule. And actually the interesting thing too, is many packaged foods that are gluten free are objectively less healthy.

Michelle 00:17:52  Because now that we've taken out the gluten, we have to kind of compensate for what's been lost in texture and flavor by adding in more sugar and sodium and saturated fat. So it's actually, you know, these gluten free products a lot of times are actually less healthy from an objective perspective. Now, of course, healthy is always going to be Contextual. What's healthy for someone in one moment may be healthy for somebody else in that same moment, or might be healthy for them in a different moment. Like it's just it's all context matters, right? But objectively speaking, if we were to talk about like consuming something in mass quantities, gluten free foods, especially the packaged ones are are generally like less healthy. And again, like there's there's still whole grains that are gluten free. Like that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about like, if you get the gluten free Oreos or the gluten free crackers or whatever, you know, in some cases it does provide a little bit more nutrition, because sometimes with these companies, when they're appealing to nutrition fads, sometimes they are generally more mindful about nutrient profiles of food.

Michelle 00:19:02  So it'll have, you know, more fiber in it or something that actually does make it generally a little bit more healthier than the conventional version. But in a lot of cases, the gluten free options are just not they're not any healthier, especially if we're talking about like baked goods or something like that or like the Oreos. So that's it, folks. Gluten free diets are not for everybody. They're certainly not for everybody. Is gluten bad for you? The consensus is no, it's not. Unless you have celiac disease or you have a gluten sensitivity. That's not celiac disease. So if you suspect you may have an issue with gluten, please hear me. That is a legitimate issue. And I'm not saying that you're crazy for thinking that, like, you could actually have celiac disease or non celiac gluten sensitivity. So please don't hesitate to reach out to a professional about that suspicion. If you think it might be an issue for you. You deserve to feel good. You deserve to feel better. And if all it's going to take is following a gluten free diet, good news is that it is such a fad that there's a lot of gluten free options available for you now, so definitely look into it.

Michelle 00:20:19  If it's something that you're concerned about. And I would reach out to your gastroenterologist about a potential celiac diagnosis. If it's not a celiac diagnosis, then you could try an elimination style diet. You'd have a I recommend you have a registered dietitian to help you with that, to make sure you do it safely. And you could see if eliminating it makes you feel any better. And then especially if you reintroduce it, if you notice those symptoms returned. So I hope you found this episode helpful. Let me know. Send me a text message in this show notes. Give me some feedback. Let me know if you learned anything. Let me know what you want to hear next. And just reminder, I can't actually respond to those text messages, so if you're expecting a response, I'm not ghosting you. I'm not trying to be a jerk. I just, I there's literally no way for me to respond. So anyway, I'd love for you to connect with me on Instagram. I'm at Yates Nutrition.

Michelle 00:21:10  Feel free to let me know that you're listening to the episode. Tag me in your story and we'll catch you on the next one.