Exploring Gluten Sensitivity: Is It Real or All in Your Head?

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Transcript

Is gluten sensitivity a thing or is it all in your head? These European researchers put it to the test and the results were fascinating and practical, especially if you have a gluten issue. And if not, you probably know someone who's avoiding gluten, but not actually celiac, which is an autoimmune disease, which when you eat gluten causes your body to attack your own small intestine. Celiac disease affects less than 2% of the population, but almost one in seven people self-report some level of non-celiac gluten sensitivity. And those people often do experience a lot of gut issues, and they may even feel better when they leave off of gluten. But there's a cost, both because most gluten-free products are only slightly cheaper than a Tiffany's tin can, and because gluten-free diets are more prone to nutrient deficiencies. And the worst part for me, they're missing out on fresh-baked bread, like mine. Other studies have shown that these people do start feeling worse when they start eating gluten again. But this new study asked the key question, what if it was all in their head? The researchers took 83 people and first split them in two. Half they gave oat bread with gluten, and half they gave the same oat bread but without gluten. But in each of those groups, they told half that they were getting gluten and the other half that they were getting not gluten, regardless of what they actually got, leaving us with four groups. For the next eight hours, they had them report on symptoms like stomach pain, brain fog, headache, and bloating. The results? The effect of expecting gluten was actually larger than the effect of their actually being gluten, i.e. the people who thought they were eating a lot of gluten but weren't still experienced a lot of GI symptoms. But the worst cases across the board still tended to be those who both expected gluten and got gluten, which is called the nocebo effect. So, gluten might still have some effect, which brings us to the practical takeaway. If you have gut issues, you've probably been told at some point that eating gluten might be the culprit, and maybe you started eliminating it, and then when you tried it again, you felt worse. But the human mind is amazing, sometimes to our own detriment, so it's time for you to think and act like a scientist. Let me show you my plan. Get a friend to help you and find a brand of gluten-free products that tastes almost the same as their glutinous equivalent, and have your friend give you one of them for breakfast each day, but not tell you which one is which. Then you record how you feel throughout the day. was for at least six days. At the end, see if you felt any worse on the days when you actually ate gluten. If not, you can keep looking for other gut triggers. And go enjoy a bagel.

Additional notes

The source caption notes that large diet/symptom surveys can miss expectancy/nocebo effects, mentions that a meta-analysis found placebo responses in gluten challenge trials, and asks for larger follow-up studies to better separate the four expectancy/intake groups.

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