I want to tell you the truth about gluten. I’m moved to write about this today because I’m working with this issue with one of my clients. I’d suspected that she had an issue with gluten from our first session, and then I got this text message from her earlier this week:
“It’s def gluten. I accidentally had flour tortillas this morning after 4 days straight gluten free and my stomach is killing me now. Ugh.”
And then a moment later,
“Well, at least we know!”
These two messages reveal the common feelings that come up when people discover that there’s a food they love that doesn’t love them back. Uncovering a food intolerance can feel simultaneously overwhelming and freeing. It’s not easy to make yourself different than others by avoiding common foods. It’s also really liberating to eliminate symptoms that have bothered you for much of your life simply by changing your diet.
The truth about gluten is that it’s neither evil nor universally indigestible. Plenty of people can eat it with no troubles at all. A teacher of mine estimates that the blissfully gluten-tolerant may make up as much as 50% of the population. Gluten is not the only major food allergen that we should consider. The other biggies are dairy, egg, soy, corn, nuts and citrus. Of course there are people who have idiosyncratic reactions to just about anything you can imagine, but the common allergens are common because they’re foods that we’re exposed to often. This isn’t some kind of cruel joke nor is it a conspiracy on the part of the diet police. It’s basic immunology. Your body is much more likely to create an immune response to a protein that it encounters all the time.
Your digestive tract is lined with immune tissue. It’s called the GALT, which stands for Gut-Associated Lymphatic Tissue. Your gut is lined with GALT because your body knows how important it is to defend against potential germs that you might scarf down with your sandwich. The GALT is smart. It’s job is to learn to recognize things that your immune system needs to attack and neutralize before they can make you sick. And it’s got the memory of an elephant. Once it decides that a protein is on it’s bad list, it’s going to keep mounting an immune response to that protein for the rest of your life.
What we call “gluten intolerance” is really an immunological reaction to one of the molecules that makes up the gluten protein. This immunological reaction happens throughout the body, not only in the digestive tract itself. This is why it’s possible for food intolerances to have far-reaching effects on our health, effects that extend far beyond the gut and include skin health, muscule & joint health, mental health, and the function of the immune system itself.
It’s simple and inexpensive to determine if you’ve got an intolerance to gluten—but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. The blood tests that are currently available are very expensive and aren’t very reliable.
The way to find out how your body reacts to gluten is to use the gold standard test. It’s called “withdrawal and re-challenge” and it’s as elegant in its design as it is inexpensive to administer. All you have to do is keep track of your symptoms for a week while eating your normal diet, remove gluten from your diet COMPLETELY for two weeks, and then re-introduce it for two more weeks. You must keep meticulous symptom diaries throughout the entire experiment in order for this to be of any use to you. We just can’t remember how bad (or good) we felt two weeks ago. (Try it yourself. How was your digestion last Thursday? How would you rate your energy level on a scale of 1-10 last Friday morning? Even if you can come up with an answer, chances are good that it’s not the same answer you would have given if you’d answered on the same day.)
While the withdrawal and re-challenge test is simple, inexpensive and accurate, it’s not always easy to do on your own. Getting gluten, dairy, soy, or any of the other allergens out of your life (even just
for two weeks) takes a concerted effort, and can bring up all kinds of emotional issues, physical withdrawal symptoms, and mood disturbances. Getting some support from a practitioner, family member, or friend is a vital ingredient in making in through the test.
Have you ever wondered if you might have a food intolerance? If so, I want you to stop letting yourself wonder—it’s time to take action.
1. Eat your normal diet for two weeks and record your symptoms every day. Include more general things like energy level, sleep, feelings of overwhelm, brain fog, anxiety, etc as well as symptoms associated with digestion, skin health, and any illnesses for which you have been diagnosed.
2. Remove the suspected allergen from your diet COMPLETELY for two weeks. Record your symptoms.
3. Add the allergen back in. Record your symptoms.
When you’ve completed the test, look back at your records. The results are usually very clear. Either the allergen will make a marked difference in your symptoms and energy level, or it won’t. Once you’ve got this knowledge, you can adjust your diet for lasting changes, or let yourself off-the-hook of wondering whether or not you need to go gluten free.
