Research at Washington University shows that people with osteoporosis (bone thinning) may be up to 22 times more likely to suffer from celiac (an autoimmune reaction to gluten) than people with normal bones.

“Our results suggest that as many as 3 to 4 percent of patients who have osteoporosis have the bone disease as a consequence of having celiac disease, which makes them unable to absorb normal amounts of calcium and vitamin D,” says principal investigator William F. Stenson, M.D.
“(In our study) bone density — which is the way bone health is measured — improved dramatically on a gluten-free diet,” Stenson adds. “We believe the diet allowed intestines to heal and that permitted normal absorption normal of calcium and vitamin D to reverse bone loss.

“One of our conclusions is that the incidence of celiac disease in patients with osteoporosis is high enough to justify screening for everybody with osteoporosis,” Stenson notes. “The idea is that if a patient has osteoporosis as a consequence of celiac disease, the most direct way to correct their bone loss would be to put them on a gluten-free diet.”

Not Just Digestion

Problems deriving from the gluten in wheat, barley and rye were once thought to be mostly digestive issues. No more. Increasingly, gluten is found to cause brain and nerve problems. Oftentimes, people who suffer these neurological injuries don’t report any stomach or intestinal symptoms.

In a study looking at a connection between gluten and mental illness, scientists examined birth records and blood samples from more than 700 children born in Sweden between 1975 and 1985. More than 200 of the children eventually developed psychoses like schizophrenia and delusional disorders. They found that the mothers who had gluten sensitivities were much more likely to give birth to children who later suffered from schizophrenia. While the researchers are not sure what links a mother’s gluten sensitivity to a child’s later illness, they believe their research points an important way to improving long-term health.

“Our research not only underscores the importance of maternal nutrition during pregnancy and its lifelong effects on the offspring, but also suggests one potential cheap and easy way to reduce risk if we were to find further proof that gluten sensitivity exacerbates or drives up schizophrenia risk,” says study lead investigator Håkan Karlsson, M.D., Ph.D., a neuroscientist at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

Delusional Disorder

Now when these researchers discuss delusional disorders linked to gluten, it reminds me of the strange experiences I used to have before I began my gluten-free diet in 2007. Back then, bedtime had become a delusional funhouse. Floating faces in the dark, distorted alternative universes, strange visions — my brain would be hard at work providing a side show that had me convinced I was dreaming before I was even asleep.

After I gave up gluten, my evening visions petered out. Occasionally, when I relapse and experience an unusual vision in that twilight zone between being awake and asleep, I suspect it is connected to the inadvertent consumption of a food contaminated with gluten.

Neurological Difficulties

My mental difficulties with gluten are hardly unique. Other brain and neurological problems that may be linked to gluten include:

• Dementia: When researchers at the Mayo Clinic fed a gluten-free diet to people with celiac who were suffering from memory and cognitive problems, they found significant improvement in some of the patients.
• Migraine: Researchers have reported that a migraine headache can be the first sign of celiac disease.
• Nerve damage: Studies show that up to half of all people with celiac disease (intestinal damage from gluten) suffer from peripheral neuropathy — deterioration of the nerves in the hand and feet that can cause numbness, pain, burning and tingling.
• Difficulty in walking: Known as gait ataxia, difficulty in walking caused by gluten can be a serious issue. It can interfere with your sense of balance and make you unable to stand on one foot.
• Epilepsy: Epilepsy, especially in children, is frequently linked to celiac disease.
• Autism: Research at Penn State shows that when parents of autistic children eliminate gluten and casein from children’s diets, their behaviors and physical problems often improve.

Intolerable Proteins

Despite the dangers gluten presents to large numbers of people, gluten permeates much of our food supply. If you read food labels, you’ll discover sources of gluten like wheat, barley, rye and malt (made from barley) are added to a surprising number of foods. Added to that, many foods that should be gluten-free are frequently contaminated with gluten.

So going on a gluten-free diet can be quite a challenge. But if you need to eat gluten-free to save your brain, the task is obviously well worth the effort. I know that for me, the alternative is unthinkable.

Not Just For Kids

Celiac disease, the autoimmune reaction to gluten that can destroy the walls of the small intestine, was originally considered to be a childhood illness. After World War II, when scientists figured out that gluten was the culprit in killing children with celiac, it wasn’t believed that older adults could develop the disease.

Bread shortages in Europe during the war had helped provide the clues needed to understand the roots of celiac disease. Until then, no one had been able to discern why children with celiac failed to thrive even though they seemed to be eating a nutritious diet. But when many Dutch kids were forced by the war to do without bread in the early 1940s, the children with celiac enjoyed improved health. When bread was reintroduced to the country, they became sick once again.

A doctor from Holland named Willem-Karel Dicke is credited with making the connection between consuming wheat proteins and celiac. In 1950 he wrote the thesis that helped convince the rest of the medical world that foods made from wheat, barley and rye were to blame for causing the misery of celiac.

Gluten For Adults

But what was first thought to be a digestive disease that afflicted children has now proven to be a disorder that increasingly strikes older adults. Research shows that “a substantial portion of (people with celiac) are diagnosed after the age of 50.” One out of three people discovered to have celiac are now over the age of 65. Researchers estimate that anywhere from 2 to 3 million Americans with celiac — about 95 percent of its victims — don’t even know they have the disease.

That high rate of undiagnosed disease is causing major health issues. Older adults may already have difficulties properly absorbing nutrients from their diet. But if they have celiac, which interferes with the proper functions of the digestive tract, their absorption of nutrients may grow even more defective.

A shortage of iron and other micronutrients is responsible for the fact that up to 80 percent of older people with celiac suffer anemia. They also frequently experience deficiencies of folate and vitamin B12.

Additionally, celiac can interfere with the absorption of calcium and vitamin D, nutrients that are needed to keep bones strong and help protect against a wide range of disease.

Autoimmune Dangers

If you’ve got celiac you also run a higher risk of other autoimmune dysfunctions. Autoimmune thyroid issues are rampant among people with celiac and most elderly adults with celiac suffer from an underactive thyroid.

Some of the most common signs that you have celiac include:

* Frequent stomach aches and cramps

* Diarrhea

* Anemia

* Depression

* Persistent fatigue

* Memory problems

* Muscle cramps

* Nerve tingling in hands and feet

Celiac Headache

A growing number of researchers now also believe that gluten can be linked to severe headaches. In a study reported in the Journal of Headache Pain, researchers emphasize that eliminating wheat may be an important step in relieving headaches. In addition, other research has shown that migraines are one of many neurological problems linked to celiac.

Nobody fully understands why older people are increasingly susceptible to gluten reactions. But it is understood that eating a gluten-free diet can make a big difference in your health if gluten is giving you serious health issues.

It’s A Gluten-Filled World

Every loaf of bread, bagel or cookie in the supermarket should come with a warning label: “This isn’t made with your grandparents’ wheat.” These loaves of bread, thick cookies, bagels and other wheat foods we consume have been baked with a grain bred to be rich in gluten, the sticky protein that gives them extra elasticity. Wheat from decades ago was much lower in this problematic protein.

All that gluten we’re swallowing (it’s also in barley and rye) is leading to a huge health problem. The 3 million Americans with undiagnosed celiac, those whose immune systems are silently destroying their bodies, are at quadruple risk of an early death. Another 20 million Americans are gluten-sensitive, made miserable by gluten. In these sensitive folks, gluten can cause stomachaches, memory loss, depression, headaches, lethargy, mental fog, eczema, infertility, joint pain and irritability.

For an unknown reason, the celiac rate among Americans has climbed 400 percent in recent decades.

When Gluten Escapes The Gut

In many of us, gluten stimulates a significant release of a molecule called zonulin, an evildoer that makes the walls of the intestinal tract much more permeable to large molecules. That allows gluten and other undesirables to penetrate the gut and have access to the rest of the body. When the immune system senses that these invaders have entered the circulation, it ramps up its attack on the body. It’s as though the body were a disabled spaceship in a science fiction movie and a crazed crew member has hit the auto-destruct button. But your body doesn’t blow up immediately. Instead, the immune system goes haywire looking for things to take apart. It may destroy the villi in the intestines (where nutrients are absorbed) or attack other parts of the body like the nerves or brain.

When zonulin levels climb to unmanageable levels, the intestinal tract gets extremely leaky, allowing passage to all kinds of large molecules from food that cause further havoc in the body. This can make you more vulnerable to diabetes, multiple sclerosis and a range of discomforting allergies. Zonulin may even make the blood-brain barrier deteriorate in people who have brain cancer.

Gluten-Free Diet

Lately, as more and more people try eating gluten-free to see if it improves their health, there’s been a backlash among naysayers who insist the gluten brouhaha is overblown. Kara Rowe, for example, director of outreach for the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, is currently going on a gluten-free diet for a month (and blogging about it). She says she is doing this to better understand the implications of a gluten-free diet, but you can’t help but wonder if she’s looking for talking points to use against the idea of going gluten-free.

Rowe seems a little obsessed over planning her diet too carefully. She notes after one day that “I am a bit off on the ideal breakdown of calories. Am also going to have to work at getting about another 100 calories in and more water. Body feels fine…” She figures she ate 30 percent carbohydrates, 46 percent fat and 24 percent protein that day.

Which makes me wonder: If her body feels fine, why get bent out of shape worrying about a few carbs here or there? And since she lives on a wheat farm, it’s hard to believe she’ll come out in favor of a diet that omits wheat.

Walking In The Park

Of course, if you’re considering going on a gluten-free diet, only you can decide if you want to try it as an experiment to see if it improves how you feel. As Alessio Fasano, director of the Center for Celiac Research at the University of Maryland School of Medicine notes, in an interview with the website Living Without, “… the gluten-free diet isn’t a walk in the park.” He also adds, “If you’re gluten sensitive, you’ll see quick improvement on the diet, in a matter of days or weeks at the most.”

I know that when my memory was being destroyed by gluten, a gluten-free diet improved it noticeably within 10 days. On the other hand, I’ve been off gluten for more than five years, and I feel that it has taken all that time for some aspects of my digestion to improve significantly.

Meanwhile, researchers are continuing to search for the physiological mechanics that make so many people vulnerable to celiac and gluten sensitivity. As Fasano points out, “… if we can understand what the heck is going on with celiac disease, it could lead to huge, huge changes in preventive medicine.”

Gluten Confusion

Many people are confused by what gluten is and the problems it causes. A contributing factor to this conundrum: Medical researchers are still busy trying to clarify exactly how gluten does its damage in the human body. Scientists don’t completely understand why some people seem to react badly to gluten while others apparently tolerate it.

But here are some of the most common myths that people believe about gluten:

1. Eating a gluten-free diet is a fad that will soon fade away. For people whose health suffers because of gluten, this diet is no fad; it is a necessity. Since there is no cure for gluten sensitivities, the only recourse is to avoid gluten permanently.
2. Gluten sensitivities and celiac disease are problems that people develop as children. While researchers used to believe that celiac, the autoimmune reaction to gluten, was a problem that always appeared in younger people, they now know that you can develop a gluten problem at any age. As far as researchers know, you can be gluten-tolerant today and, for some unknown reason, wake up tomorrow with a gluten sensitivity or celiac disease.
3. Sensitivities to gluten are allergic reactions. When you suffer a health problem like celiac, it is a disease, not an allergy. Allergies cause reactions to things like pollen, peanuts, dairy, eggs, etc. An allergic reaction is a direct immune response to an allergen. For instance, inhale pollen and you sneeze it out. In contrast, when you have celiac, your immune system is inflamed and the immune cells attack the body itself. In many cases of celiac, the immune system attacks the intestinal walls and destroys the sections that absorb nutrients. That can lead to anemia, osteoporosis and other diseases that result from nutrient malabsorption.
4. If a food is wheat-free, it doesn’t contain gluten. Even though wheat may be the most common source of gluten in the American diet, it isn’t the only one. Foods containing barley (like malted milk and beer) are also rich in gluten. So is rye bread. And foods that should be naturally gluten-free may be cross-contaminated with gluten. For example, some packages of beans may note that they are processed in a plant that also handles wheat. In that case, there may be gluten present in the beans even though beans are a naturally gluten-free food. French fries at many fast food places may contain gluten from seasonings or be contaminated from frying oil that unintentionally contains gluten from other foods.
5. Eating a gluten-free diet is very expensive. Eating gluten-free is pricey if you insist on eating gluten-free baked goods that substitute for normal bread, cookies, waffles, cakes and other processed foods. But if you stick to meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruit and nuts, the diet should not be any more expensive than a conventional diet. However, eating out at restaurants that do not make allowances for preparing gluten-free items may be problematic. Many restaurant workers don’t understand how to make sure dishes are gluten-free and not cross-contaminated.
6. Only a small number of people suffer from celiac disease. Experts estimate that about 1 percent of the U.S. population has celiac disease. Those same experts note that at least 2 million of these people don’t know that gluten is the source of their health problems. If you are one of these people and you unwittingly keep eating foods containing gluten, you quadruple your risk of dying this year. In addition, research shows that the number of people with celiac seems to be doubling every 15 years. Nobody knows why.
7. When gluten causes a health problem, it is a digestive problem. Gluten has been connected to 300 different symptoms including depression, headaches, ataxia (difficulties controlling muscle movement), brain fog, arthritis, thyroid malfunction, skin rashes, etc. In my case, gluten caused my immune system to attack my brain and nerves. I suffered Alzheimer’s-like symptoms until I gave up gluten.
8. Going gluten-free is an easy way to lose weight. If you eat gluten-free baked goods and indulge in sugary soft drinks, juices and other beverages rich in sweeteners, you probably won’t lose weight on a gluten-free diet. But if you stick to meats, fish, vegetables, fruits and nuts and go easy on the sugar, you may find it a relatively painless method for taking off pounds. Plus, if gluten is fomenting inflammation in your body that causes you to retain fluid, giving up gluten may help you lose weight. When I gave up eating gluten, I initially lost five pounds in the first three days on a gluten-free diet.
9. If you don’t have celiac or an apparent sensitivity to gluten, you can digest gluten just fine. Despite the fact that you may seem to tolerate gluten, you can’t digest it. Nobody can. Even under the best of circumstances, gluten passes through you without incident. But you derive no nutritional benefit from gluten.
10. If you’re gluten-sensitive, you can still eat some bread or other food containing gluten once in a while as a treat. Gluten difficulties are diseases. If you react to gluten, there is no such thing as a safe level of gluten exposure. Giving gluten up entirely is the only safe course of action.

Permanent Problem

Millions of Americans suffer from celiac and gluten sensitivities, and these are health menaces that continue to grow. Researchers continue to puzzle over how gluten causes its physiological destruction, but there is no puzzle over how to treat a gluten problem: Eat a gluten-free diet.

Gluten Confusion

If you feel like you don’t really understand why there’s such a big fuss over gluten and why this troublesome protein is causing so much controversy, you’re not alone. Researchers who specialize in studying the topic have been confounded by the different types of sensitivity to gluten they have found, the growing numbers of people who react to gluten and the wide range of physical illness it causes.

According to scientists, there seem to be at least three main forms of reactions related to gluten. The first, an immune response to wheat, is an outright allergy. In that instance, the body’s immune system attacks the allergen as though it were a life-threatening pathogen.

The second type of reaction is what is called an autoimmune response. In this case, eating foods like bread, cookies and cakes made from wheat, rye and barley causes your immune system to attack the body. This can cause celiac, a condition that destroys the digestive tract. It may also lead to gluten ataxia (autoimmune damage to the motor neurons that coordinate movement) and dermatitis herpetiformis (rashes and other skin problems).

In my case, gluten caused an autoimmune attack on my brain and nerve cells. My mental condition deteriorated to the point that I suffered what seemed to be Alzheimer’s disease. But I was lucky and caught the problem in time. When I took gluten out of my diet, my descent into dementia stopped and I recovered my memory.

Sensitivity

In some people, gluten causes sensitivities that cannot be classified as either allergies or autoimmune responses. Despite the uncertainty of what causes these sensitivities, they are still making people miserable. Gluten sensitivity can lead to bone and joint pain, weight loss, chronic fatigue, eczema, headaches, depression, anemia, numbness, diarrhea and brain fog.

Research into how gluten affects us shows that “you’re never too old to develop celiac disease,” says Alessio Fasano, M.D., director of the University of Maryland’s Mucosal Biology Research Center. Fasano’s research shows that in the United States, since 1974, the number of people with celiac has been doubling every 15 years.

“You’re not necessarily born with celiac disease,” says Carlo Catassi, M.D., a researcher with the Universita Politecnica delle Marche in Italy. “Our findings show that some people develop celiac disease quite late in life.”

Fact is, nobody can digest gluten. In those without an apparent reaction to gluten, the substance merely passes through the digestive tract and is eventually excreted. Because of gluten’s indigestibility and toxicity, our use of wheat as a food has been called an “evolutionary mistake.”

Researchers writing in BMC Medicine note that during the 10,000 years humans have raised wheat, the types of wheat we use have been bred to contain more and more gluten. They note that “Apparently the human organism is still largely vulnerable to the toxic effects of this (gluten) protein complex…”

Serious Dilemma

If you have puzzling health problems that don’t respond to treatment, going gluten free can be worth a try. Consider that at least 3 million Americans right now have life-threatening issues with gluten but don’t know about it. And if you have celiac and keep eating gluten, your risk of death is quadrupled. It is also estimated that more than 36,000 women in the United States are infertile because of celiac and don’t know it.

While not everyone needs to be on a gluten-free diet, make sure that you are not a victim of an evolutionary mistake.

Gluten Research

Medical researchers are having a hard time nailing down all the implications of what gluten does to human health. We know that gluten, a type of protein found in wheat, barley and oats, cannot be digested by humans. We know that some people have an extreme reaction to eating foods containing gluten. After that, the research picture grows murky.

For those who suffer what is called celiac disease, ingesting gluten causes the body to begin an autoimmune reaction that destroys the lining of the intestinal tract. As the structures in the small intestine called villi are compromised, the body’s ability to absorb nutrients malfunctions. The results are often severe digestive distress and nutrient deficiency diseases. And as you start to suffer malnutrition because nutrients are passing through you, you can also be subject to leaky gut syndrome. The walls of your damaged intestines begin to leak, allowing substances into the body that can stimulate further destruction by immune cells.

In people who react to gluten as I do, digestive problems are milder but gluten sets off an immune inflammatory attack on nerves, brain cells and other parts of the body. This can lead to brain fog, problems with muscle coordination and memory difficulties that resemble Alzheimer’s. In my case, going off gluten restored most of my memory. (Though I can still be in trouble at the supermarket if I don’t have a written list of all the items I intend to buy.)

Beyond those symptoms, reactions to gluten can include a collection of discomforts so bewilderingly wide-ranging it’s hard to believe they’re all linked to same substance. People sensitive to gluten can suffer headaches, chronic fatigue, osteoporosis, lymphoma, irritable bowel syndrome, eczema, irritability, depression, joint pain and a whole host of other distressing difficulties.

Gluten Complications

Complicating this situation is the fact that some people react to gluten but don’t seem to suffer full-blown celiac disease. Consequently, researchers want to categorize these folks as gluten-sensitive but have so far failed to come up with a rigorous definition of who falls into this category. As you might expect, they also are having trouble coming up with a precise calculation of the percentage of the population that suffers these sensitivities.

Don’t forget – nobody can digest gluten. Does that mean everyone has at least a low-level gluten discomfort but only some have problems serious enough to notice? So far, the experts can’t seem to agree.

If you decide to eat a gluten-free diet, you should focus on eating real food, not items designed to mimic foods that contain gluten. Minimize processed gluten-free foods like cookies, cakes and breads. Seek nutritional guidance if you need help recognizing which foods contain hidden gluten. (Look here for some tips.) Eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily. Eat good sources of protein like fish and meat. (Eat organic, free-range meat where possible.)

If you’re worried about your nutritional status on a gluten-free diet, you can also take a multi-vitamin and multi-mineral to stay supplied with micronutrients.

Inescapable Problem

Experts now estimate that at least 1 percent of the U.S. population suffers from celiac and most don’t know it. Researchers are also baffled about the fact that the incidence of celiac has quadrupled during the last 100 years. Amidst all this controversy, increasing numbers of people are trying a gluten-free diet. Although others differ, my experience with going gluten-free has convinced me it’s a great idea for just about everyone.

“Research has shown that children with ASD commonly have GI [gastrointestinal] symptoms,” says Christine Pennesi, medical student at Penn State College of Medicine. “Notably, a greater proportion of our study population reported GI and allergy symptoms than what is seen in (most children). Some experts have suggested that gluten- and casein (dairy)-derived peptides (linked amino acids) cause an immune response in children with ASD, and others have proposed that the peptides could trigger GI symptoms and behavioral problems.”

In the surveys, parents who restricted their children’s diets found that the kids had fewer intestinal problems, better social behavior, better language, improved eye contact, engagement and longer attention spans. The study appears in the journal Nutritional Neuroscience.

In a report published in the journal Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology doctors report that tongue discomfort can be a sign of gluten issues.

You can also suspect you are sensitive to gluten if the enamel on your teeth is pitted or rough. In many cases, gluten interferes with proper tooth formation.

Gluten Revolution

As the gluten-free revolution has picked up momentum, more people are discovering that gluten sensitivity, including celiac disease (an autoimmune disease caused by reaction to gluten), lurks behind their problematic health symptoms. But how do you know for sure if you suffer from negative reactions to gluten? One possible way to test whether your health complaints are in fact due to gluten is to remove all gluten-containing foods from your diet and monitor the progress of your symptoms. If they clear up, you may have your answer. If your health doesn’t improve after a gluten-free period, your symptoms may nonetheless still stem from gluten reaction, but as part of a more complex picture of your health.

Sorting Through Gluten’s Damage

Nearly every person has some level of gluten sensitivity, and the digestive discomfort associated with gluten reaction may be only one part of the puzzle. You may find through proper medical testing that your symptoms are due to other food sensitivities, parasites, abnormal bacterial overgrowth, and neurological or emotional triggers. In addition, many people who are gluten-sensitive do not experience digestive symptoms, instead developing neurological or immune symptoms. The gastrointestinal (GI) tract is rich with neurological, hormonal and immune system components, so damage to the GI tract because of gluten reactions can have major impacts throughout your body.

False Negative Test Results

Blood testing and allergen testing can determine whether you have a minor gluten intolerance or celiac disease, which damages the lining of the small intestine and prevents certain nutrients from being absorbed. However, the gluten-sensitivity blood tests that have been available for years can frequently and misleadingly show a negative result, even in the presence of a moderate to severe gluten sensitivity. In my clinic, we use saliva and/or stool testing, which looks for an immune reaction directly at the level of contact between your gut lining and gluten-containing foods. This type of testing often gives a more accurate reading as to the level of gluten-sensitivity.

No test is foolproof, and even the newer gluten-sensitivity tests can give you a false negative reading if the immune system within your GI tract is not functioning properly. Digestive-immune impairment often happens after years of eating foods that you are sensitive to, as well from chronic inflammation caused by a variety of conditions. Even with these limitations, the saliva or stool tests are the most accurate we’ve found to date. One stool test that is available online can be found at Enterolab.com, and a saliva test kit can be purchased at Unikeyhealth.com without a doctor’s order.

Alternate Test For Celiac Disease

If you do have gluten-sensitivity, how do you know if it is mild or severe, or if you actually have celiac disease? With severe gluten reactions, continued gluten exposure can damage the lining of your small intestine, reducing the surface area for nutrient absorption and creating a host of related complications. In the past, more in-depth testing for celiac disease was typically performed by taking a sample (biopsy) of the small intestine during an invasive procedure in which a scope is passed down into the small intestine. This test helped to analyze the level of damage to the intestinal lining. Alternately, Enterolab has developed a stool test measuring fat in the stool. If the fat level is abnormally high, this indicates that fat is not being absorbed and is an indirect measure of intestinal damage.

Choosing Gluten-Free Alternatives

Because there is no straightforward test to distinguish between people that are highly sensitive and those who are mildly sensitive, complete avoidance of gluten-containing foods is the universal recommendation to heal gluten problems. However, gluten is often hidden in foods or not obviously listed in the ingredients, so you need to become a careful label reader to keep gluten out of your meals.

If a product is labeled as “wheat free,” it may not be gluten-free. To be safe, the label must be explicitly labeled as “gluten-free.” In addition, many other types of foods, such as nuts or beans are packaged in the same plant as gluten-containing foods, which can contribute to cross-contamination and induce allergies. Thanks to the growing demand for gluten-free foods, many manufacturers now are clearly labeling their products for gluten-free consumers.

Our knowledge of gluten sensitivity and its many complications is constantly evolving as the gluten-free movement gains a significant foothold within conventional and integrative medicine. The avoidance of gluten has restored the health of millions of people — sometimes quickly and at other times more gradually. If you feel you have issues with gluten, remember to always follow your gut and get appropriate testing to increase awareness of your own personal health and wellness.