GAF, I'm a scientist by trade (Cancer Scientist), and I love sharing scientific articles and findings with people that can benefit from them. I can imagine there are a few people on GAF that follow the gluten-free diet. This one is for you. I tried to make this as reader-friendly as possible by splitting the news article into bullet points.
Source: Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/gluten-sensitivity-and-study-replication-2014-5#ixzz3OtzZDdTA)
Background:
- Celiac Disease is an an auto-immune disorder triggered by gluten. For a while it was considered that only people with Celiac Disease should avoid gluten in their diets.
- What is Gluten? Gluten is a protein composite found in wheat, barley, and other grains. It gives bread its chewiness and is often used as a meat substitute
- Some time ago, scientists (Peter Gibson and his group) who posited the existence of a condition called "Gluten Sensitivity", in which people who do are not diagnosed to have Celiac Disease do not tolerate gluten in diets. The scientifically sound — but small — study found that gluten-containing diets can cause gastrointestinal distress in people without celiac disease.
Findings Re-evaluation: The same scientists expanded the study
- Since gluten is a protein found in any normal diet, Gibson was unsatisfied with his finding. He wanted to find out why the gluten seemed to be causing this reaction and if there could be something else going on. He therefore went to a scientifically rigorous extreme for his next experiment, a level not usually expected in nutrition studies.
- For a follow-up paper, 37 self-identified gluten-sensitive patients were tested.
- The subjects cycled through high-gluten, low-gluten, and no-gluten (placebo) diets, without knowing which diet plan they were on at any given time. In the end, all of the treatment diets — even the placebo diet — caused pain, bloating, nausea, and gas to a similar degree. It didn't matter if the diet contained gluten.
To put the nail in the coffin, the same scientists did yet another, much larger study:
- "In contrast to our first study … we could find absolutely no specific response to gluten," Gibson wrote in the paper. A third, larger study published this month has confirmed the findings.
- It seems to be a "nocebo" effect — the self-diagnosed gluten sensitive patients expected to feel worse on the study diets, so they did. They were also likely more attentive to their intestinal distress, since they had to monitor it for the study.
But some people still experience intestinal and digestive improvement following a gluten-free diet. It can't just be a mental effect. What gives?
- Other potential dietary triggers — specifically the FODMAPS – could be causing what people have wrongly interpreted as gluten sensitivity. FODMAPS are frequently found in the same foods as gluten (especially bread!). However, That still doesn't explain why people in the study negatively reacted to diets that were free of all dietary triggers so the scientists still have some research to do.
- FODMAPS: Short chain carbohydrates (oligosaccharides), disaccharides, monosaccharides and related alcohols that are poorly absorbed in the small intestine. These include short chain oligo-saccharide polymers of fructose (fructans) and galactose (galactans), disaccharides (lactose), monosaccharides (fructose), and sugar alcohols (polyols) such as sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol and maltitol.
Source: Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/gluten-sensitivity-and-study-replication-2014-5#ixzz3OtzZDdTA)
Background:
- Celiac Disease is an an auto-immune disorder triggered by gluten. For a while it was considered that only people with Celiac Disease should avoid gluten in their diets.
- What is Gluten? Gluten is a protein composite found in wheat, barley, and other grains. It gives bread its chewiness and is often used as a meat substitute
- Some time ago, scientists (Peter Gibson and his group) who posited the existence of a condition called "Gluten Sensitivity", in which people who do are not diagnosed to have Celiac Disease do not tolerate gluten in diets. The scientifically sound — but small — study found that gluten-containing diets can cause gastrointestinal distress in people without celiac disease.
Findings Re-evaluation: The same scientists expanded the study
- Since gluten is a protein found in any normal diet, Gibson was unsatisfied with his finding. He wanted to find out why the gluten seemed to be causing this reaction and if there could be something else going on. He therefore went to a scientifically rigorous extreme for his next experiment, a level not usually expected in nutrition studies.
- For a follow-up paper, 37 self-identified gluten-sensitive patients were tested.
- The subjects cycled through high-gluten, low-gluten, and no-gluten (placebo) diets, without knowing which diet plan they were on at any given time. In the end, all of the treatment diets — even the placebo diet — caused pain, bloating, nausea, and gas to a similar degree. It didn't matter if the diet contained gluten.
To put the nail in the coffin, the same scientists did yet another, much larger study:
- "In contrast to our first study … we could find absolutely no specific response to gluten," Gibson wrote in the paper. A third, larger study published this month has confirmed the findings.
- It seems to be a "nocebo" effect — the self-diagnosed gluten sensitive patients expected to feel worse on the study diets, so they did. They were also likely more attentive to their intestinal distress, since they had to monitor it for the study.
But some people still experience intestinal and digestive improvement following a gluten-free diet. It can't just be a mental effect. What gives?
- Other potential dietary triggers — specifically the FODMAPS – could be causing what people have wrongly interpreted as gluten sensitivity. FODMAPS are frequently found in the same foods as gluten (especially bread!). However, That still doesn't explain why people in the study negatively reacted to diets that were free of all dietary triggers so the scientists still have some research to do.
- FODMAPS: Short chain carbohydrates (oligosaccharides), disaccharides, monosaccharides and related alcohols that are poorly absorbed in the small intestine. These include short chain oligo-saccharide polymers of fructose (fructans) and galactose (galactans), disaccharides (lactose), monosaccharides (fructose), and sugar alcohols (polyols) such as sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol and maltitol.
