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Non-celiac Gluten Sensitivity Now Thoroughly Shown to Not Exist

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Shanlei91

Sonic handles my blue balls
Is that easy. Problem is, people eat until they are about to explode, and then they complain that it was because it had gluten, or too much fat, or too much carbs, or because it wasn't grass-fed organic meat with water from Alaska glaciers that you probably never heard of.

Ya, but IBS is a real thing.

I have a friend who has Celiac Disease and when she's starting to gain weight she eats a stack of pancakes to lose it all. Now that's owning a disease and making it your own.
 
I have a friend who would be most displeased if I shared this with her. Probably better to leave it be, she seems happy and she's being doing the gluten-free thing for like a decade.
 
Is that easy. Problem is, people eat until they are about to explode, and then they complain that it was because it had gluten, or too much fat, or too much carbs, or because it wasn't grass-fed organic meat with water from Alaska glaciers that you probably never heard of.

Like I said, I wish. Life would be so much easier for me.

Ya, but IBS is a real thing.

People think it's a joke, but I'm used to it.
 
Is that easy. Problem is, people eat until they are about to explode, and then they complain that it was because it had gluten, or too much fat, or too much carbs, or because it wasn't grass-fed organic meat with water from Alaska glaciers that you probably never heard of.

Except IBS is a medical condition though.
 

marrec

Banned
Oh yes, I'm serious. I recently started reading papers on r/science and the common complaint I see is the sample size is relatively small. So excuse the fuck out of me for wanting to know.

For this type of study the size is perfectly fine. If there were any credibility to gluten sensitivity then monitoring the self-reported diets of 40 people and studying the self-reported effects would have resulted in a clear correlation. The results, however line up properly with expected nocebo results.
 
I have a friend who would be most displeased if I shared this with her. Probably better to leave it be, she seems happy and she's being doing the gluten-free thing for like a decade.

Man I've got a family member that got her depression to a manageable place "because of going gluten free." Yes, she believes that gluten fucks with your head.

I'm not telling her that it's because she's got control of something and making positive changes in your life helps...she'd start questioning it. If it works for her, I'm letting it roll, y'know?
 

marrec

Banned
That was their second study. They did a third, larger study with 147 participants. Also, don't apologize for asking about the sample size. You should!

Of those 147, only 40 met the criteria and reported diet and symptoms, still that's plenty large enough for this type of study.
 

Somnid

Member
There's a lot of unexplained intestinal distress much of which likely has to do with the makeup of a bacteria in the intestine as that plays a big role in digestion. We don't know a whole lot about this though and it's certainly not something easily measurable. We do know that fecal insertion can work wonders for some though.
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
Everybody with a brain already knew this was bullshit. I feel bad for people with actual celiac disease and real symptoms having to listen to everyone go on about their mild stomach upset and other psychosomatic stuff being passed off as a genuine intestinal disorder.
 

Moppet13

Member
You can be gluten sensitive without having celiac disease. I know this because I live with a person who fits such description.
I'm assuming you take advantage of your situation and buy nothing but food containing gluten? You'll never have issues with them eating your food.
 

bengraven

Member
Showed this to a good friend with celiac who's been on a gluten free diet since I first met him 5, 6 years ago.

"This sucks, because now when I tell people I'm eating gluten free, they roll their eyes at me like I'm some asshole pretending or on a fad diet. I have to tell them "I do not eat gluten because I have celiac disease" now instead of saying "gluten free" just so people don't treat me like a douchebag".


Edit: he adds: "Once I eat gluten (even a tiny amount) i end up with sharp pain in my Lower GI track within about 30 minutes. That pain will be around for about 6 hours or so and I have to stay very close to the bathroom and I sweat from the pain."

I wonder if you guys with "sensitivities" have that happen.
 

Moppet13

Member
Showed this to a good friend with celiac who's been on a gluten free diet since I first met him 5, 6 years ago.

"This sucks, because now when I tell people I'm eating gluten free, they roll their eyes at me like I'm some asshole pretending or on a fad diet. I have to tell them "I do not eat gluten because I have celiac disease" now instead of saying "gluten free" just so people don't treat me like a douchebag".
You mean they weren't rolling their eyes at him before? Maybe it's just the people I've met but just about everyone I've met who wasn't "gluten free" thought of the diet as a joke.
 

Horseticuffs

Full werewolf off the buckle
I'm so glad to read this, but it won't change all the paranoids out there. In my job I've come across more and more people who claim an intolerance to gluten. It's awful funny how once it becomes trendy it seems everyone has it. Of course, that could also be growing awareness I suppose.

For what it's worth, I lost over a hundred pounds before I started eating meat again. Back when I was a vegetarian my diet was around 65-70% carbs. Some people can just process them more efficiently, I guess.
 

NotBacon

Member
GF doesn't have celiac, but for the longest time she has been gluten-free because every time she has something with gluten she gets cramps and migraines.

*shrug*
 

terrisus

Member
Colorado am cry

YelpMap.png
 
A study, no matter how well done it is, does not completely put the issue to rest by any means necessary. Remember how many things that have been "settled" that have been found to be utterly wrong?

Assuming there is no such thing as gluten sensitivity though, I have no idea what caused some of my issues to disappear---it's not FODMAPs, as many of those are things I eat on a regular basis.
 
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)

Hey, Mr. Scientist. This news came out last May. Really cutting edge here.

Second, many doctors believe that people who have self-diagnosed gluten sensitivity actually have a wheat allergy. But if you remove gluten from your diet, then you obviously aren't ingesting wheat. The diet for these people does not need to be so strict so as to remove all glutens, but the removal of wheat may still be beneficial to a large number of people.

Lastly, celiac disease is still a real thing that affects a lot of people and can cause severe pain and even cancer. Let's not take too much focus away from that by attempting to combat the gluten free diet craze.
 
That still seems like a small sample size as compared to other studies I've read recently about other health issues. What are the benefits to having them be smaller? Isn't it better to have more involved?

Sample sizes for things like medical treatments or examinations have the leeway to be smaller in some cases where the nature of what you're studying is very discrete. For instance, if there was some specific disease that had a very low recovery rate and you invent some pill for it, administer it to 20 people in a double blind trial (10 in control), and you get 100% recovery rate in the 10 an 10% recovery rate in control, it is very much statistically sound to conclude that the pill works. This occurs really for two reasons. the first is, random drugs aren't going to produce a quasi state of "kind-of" cured generally. (exception might be cancer drugs)

Something like an investigation of whether or not gluten in diet versus gluten not in diet affects something could also draw very sound conclusions even with a "low" sample size depending on how frequently the result is positive or negative with respect to the hypothesis.
 
I don't know too much about studies, but isn't 37 an extremely small sample size?

It depends heavily on the study, what they're studying, the subjects, the variables, all sorts of things.

A lot of work goes into making sure a lot of this stuff is sound (most of the time, you'll get those grad students desperate to get out, or a prof stuck in a publish or die situation, but that's what peer review is for) mathematically and statistically.

10,000 plants can actually be not enough and 100 people could be too many, it depends on a lot of things.

It's a good thing to question overall, but I'm just reassuring it's not a made up number or just whoever they could find. The number is what it is for a reason.
 

Risible

Member
Showed this to a good friend with celiac who's been on a gluten free diet since I first met him 5, 6 years ago.

"This sucks, because now when I tell people I'm eating gluten free, they roll their eyes at me like I'm some asshole pretending or on a fad diet. I have to tell them "I do not eat gluten because I have celiac disease" now instead of saying "gluten free" just so people don't treat me like a douchebag".


Edit: he adds: "Once I eat gluten (even a tiny amount) i end up with sharp pain in my Lower GI track within about 30 minutes. That pain will be around for about 6 hours or so and I have to stay very close to the bathroom and I sweat from the pain."

I wonder if you guys with "sensitivities" have that happen.

Well, to be fair, not all celiacs are symptomatic. I was only diagnosed because I had very low iron which is common in women but not men. They only determined it by doing an intestinal biopsy. I wasn't aware in the slightest until the bloodwork triggered them searching for the cause.

I'm with him, though, I do the same thing now. I say I have celiac disease rather than just say I can't eat gluten because I'm afraid people will feed me stuff with gluten hidden in it because they think it's all in my head.
 
Hey, Mr. Scientist. This news came out last May. Really cutting edge here.

Second, many doctors believe that people who have self-diagnosed gluten sensitivity actually have a wheat allergy. But if you remove gluten from your diet, then you obviously aren't ingesting wheat. The diet for these people does not need to be so strict so as to remove all glutens, but the removal of wheat may still be beneficial to a large number of people.

Lastly, celiac disease is still a real thing that affects a lot of people and can cause severe pain and even cancer. Let's not take too much focus away from that by attempting to combat the gluten free diet craze.

This is some 10/10 level stuff.
 
Hey, Mr. Scientist. This news came out last May. Really cutting edge here.

Second, many doctors believe that people who have self-diagnosed gluten sensitivity actually have a wheat allergy. But if you remove gluten from your diet, then you obviously aren't ingesting wheat. The diet for these people does not need to be so strict so as to remove all glutens, but the removal of wheat may still be beneficial to a large number of people.

Lastly, celiac disease is still a real thing that affects a lot of people and can cause severe pain and even cancer. Let's not take too much focus away from that by attempting to combat the gluten free diet craze.

SPEAK IN A LANGUAGE WE CAN UNDERSTAND, MR. SCIENTIST!

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Moppet13

Member
Well, to be fair, not all celiacs are symptomatic. I was only diagnosed because I had very low iron which is common in women but not men. They only determined it by doing an intestinal biopsy. I wasn't aware in the slightest until the bloodwork triggered them searching for the cause.

I'm with him, though, I do the same thing now. I say I have celiac disease rather than just say I can't eat gluten because I'm afraid people will feed me stuff with gluten hidden in it because they think it's all in my head.
My experience in food service has taught me unless you say specifically that you're a celiac, there's a large chance your food will have gluten in it.
 
Science is usually pretty effective at changing people's minds. Especially when it come to diets.
I was thoroughly convinced you were sarcastic and it made me sad to be automatically cynical about the level of scientific bullshit you'd see in any given aisle of Whole Foods.
 
I'm on a FODMAP diet. Honestly as someone who suffers from IBS I'm skeptical of all gastroenterology findings. Too much reliance on diagnosis by the process of elimination.

Ah, IBS. The "we don't know what the fuck's wrong with you" diagnosis. I have it too and the doc's can't figure out what's causing my issues so they just gave me the IBS label.
 
I recently got an endoscopy and it came up negative for celiac. Which, to be honest, is what I was terrified of. I'd rather have a legitimate diagnosed medical condition than just "sensitivity."

I haven't gotten my biopsy results yet, so that's still up in the air I guess.
 

marrec

Banned
I want the next Fad Diet to by Egg Sensitivity so that people start marketing things as "egg free!".

How can we make this happen think-tank?
 

ampere

Member
I did the diet it for 5 years after searching long and hard for the reason why I felt sick all the time. Blood tests and biopsy (though after I had stopped eating gluten) came back negative, but I was convinced there was still something to it. The doctors said "well if you feel better, just don't eat it." I ended up still having the same stomach issues as before, but instead of saying "oh maybe it wasn't gluten" I just removed more types of foods. It seems like dairy was the primary thing I have digestive issues with, since trialing re-adding gluten to my diet early last year did not cause the stomach issues I had previously attributed to it. I finally decided to test eating gluten again when there were a barrage of scientific studies saying non-Celiac sensitivity probably didn't exist. I think it initially helped me so much because I ate a lot of pizza and mac and cheese, which are high dairy and generally not easy to digest at all. Why didn't I realize my stomach issues were due to stress and poor diet? Wish I could say, guess I was just not thinking clearly about it.

Gave me a lot of dietary paranoia and stress following that diet... I definitely feel for Celiacs who have to do it, but I am glad to not be doing it anymore. Made me more of a social recluse as I had nervousness about going out and not being able to eat/drink things. My anxiety got worse. Guess I am a bit of a hypochondriac and I have jumped to a lot of conclusions regarding conditions I might have. I have diagnosed GERD/IBS and probably some dairy sensitivity.
 

nelchaar

Member
uh, why share a blog spam link?

link to the journal article, this isn't reddit

Blog spam link? If you think the Business Insider columns that break down hard science into articles that can be consumed by the general public as spam, you need to reassess your judgement. Not everyone knows how to read a journal article. Furthermore, not everyone has access to journal articles via subscriptions or their institutions.
 

commedieu

Banned
I have a friend who would be most displeased if I shared this with her. Probably better to leave it be, she seems happy and she's being doing the gluten-free thing for like a decade.

I think the thing is foods people avoid, due to gluten, are generally better for them. "nah i can't have those chips, oo look, a carrot." (Has never actually been said to me, but I imagine thats the exchange). I think gluten is heavy with the world of processed foods too. Just the mindset of being on top of what you can/can't eat, produces a good diet and probably balance.

With that said,

I like to see the world burn. Post it on facebook. It will get around to her without you having to lift a finger. MWUAHUhauahw...

Nah, good on you for not being an ass.
 

Damaniel

Banned
I'm *shocked* that non-celiacs aren't really gluten sensitive. No, really I am
(no, not really)
.

The only good thing to come out of the whole 'gluten free' craze is that actual celiacs have a much wider variety of foods to choose from.
 
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