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Gluten intolerance may really be immune dysfunction

nytimes.com

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Re: Gluten intolerance may really be immune dysfunction

#21

Post by MegaDeKay »

hudj1jcnapru38 wrote: post #9
tiatia wrote: post #3

“If eating wheat was so bad for us, it’s hard to imagine that populations that ate it would have tolerated it for 10,000 years,” Sarah A. Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania who studies lactase persistence, told me. Sarah, turn on your brain. What about Game Theory? What if wheat is addictive and mankind did not enslave Wheat but wheat (and possible other crops) "enslaved" mankind? There is evide…

> Are the gluten haters correct that modern wheat varietals contain more gluten than past cultivars, making them more toxic? Unlikely, according to recent analysis by Donald D. Kasarda, a scientist with the United States Department of Agriculture. He analyzed records of protein content in wheat harvests going back nearly a century. It hasn’t changed.

Another study, this one from Canada supports this. "University of Saskatchewan researchers Ravi Chibbar and Pierre Hucl grew 37 varieties of wheat that date back to the 1860s and analyzed the nutrient composition in each sample. They found that the concentration of proteins, including gluten, is remarkably similar to that grown more than 150 years ago—dispelling the myth of “Frankenwheat,” the genetic modification of the grain’s protein structure by the agriculture industry in recent years."

http://words.usask.ca/news/2015/06/03/wheat-research-yields-...

Re: Gluten intolerance may really be immune dysfunction

#22

Post by gregwebs »

Why is an opinion piece about a nutrition topic with 1 citation worthy of discussion on Hacker News?

Here is an article with citations and discussion of modern research and patient experience that comes to a different conclusion: http://chriskresser.com/3-reasons-gluten-intolerance-may-be-...

I won't bother submitting it to Hacker News since it doesn't have the official NYTimes scientific stamp of approval.

Re: Gluten intolerance may really be immune dysfunction

#23

Post by Scramblejams »

My wife doesn't have celiac disease. Her knee suffered some damage some years ago. If she adds gluten to her diet, it swells up like crazy and hurts. If she removes gluten from her diet, within two days it shrinks back down and looks like a normal knee again and feels (mostly) fine. I won't pretend to understand how gluten affects everyone's body, but I know something about what it does to hers.

It's odd to use the word "myth" in the title, but then leave the door open in the penultimate paragraph to immune system issues being wrapped up in all of this because I think it's entirely possible that for some people (like my wife), the immune system is counterproductively stimulated by gluten.

Having said that, I think a lot of this current GF stuff is simply a fad. But fad or not I'm grateful for it because it gives my wife, who really does have a problem with gluten, many more options when shopping than she had just ten years ago.

Re: Gluten intolerance may really be immune dysfunction

#24

Post by Spooky23 »

learnstats2 wrote: post #14
ajross wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um... The whole point here is that unscientific nonsense needs to be killed. And specifically that non-Celiac gluten sensitivity has no real evidence for it. So your response is to trot out an equally unfounded (AFAIK) hippie-inspired pseudo-theory. Seriously?

Why is it so urgent to kill this? It does nobody harm if some people choose to avoid gluten, and greatly benefits coeliac sufferers who have increasing good nutrition options.

Because ass hattery like this actually drives people's behaviors. Missing in the hysteria about gluten, corn syrup and carb consumption is the witch hunts in the 90s for fat and chlorestrol.

Kids loading up on sugar filled, "whole grain" frosted flakes today were eating eggs 30 years ago.

Re: Gluten intolerance may really be immune dysfunction

#25

Post by nroach »

learnstats2 wrote: post #14
ajross wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um... The whole point here is that unscientific nonsense needs to be killed. And specifically that non-Celiac gluten sensitivity has no real evidence for it. So your response is to trot out an equally unfounded (AFAIK) hippie-inspired pseudo-theory. Seriously?

Why is it so urgent to kill this? It does nobody harm if some people choose to avoid gluten, and greatly benefits coeliac sufferers who have increasing good nutrition options.

anecdote: my wife has had exema her entire life. after a particularly bad episode, we eventually we tried an elimination diet methodically eliminating one food category at a time. it took about 2 months to rotate through all the possible suspects but in the end, eliminating wheat completely cleared the problem. then, one morning we had meatless sausage and she had a bad reoccurrence. first ingredient on the sausage? wheat gluten. (this was before allergy labelling in the US, and we just didn't think it would contain wheat).

On the other hand, we've had other family members try avoiding gluten because they perceived it was 'bad', without a causal linkage to any symptoms.

So, is non-celiac gluten intolerance rare? Probably. Do most people avoid it for the wrong reason? Probably. But to make the blanket statement that intolerance doesn't exist is misinformed and denigrates the very real problem that a small subset of the population does have.

Re: Gluten intolerance may really be immune dysfunction

#26

Post by mattmanser »

gregwebs wrote: post #22

Why is an opinion piece about a nutrition topic with 1 citation worthy of discussion on Hacker News? Here is an article with citations and discussion of modern research and patient experience that comes to a different conclusion: http://chriskresser.com/3-reasons-gluten-intolerance-may-be-... I won't bother submitting it to Hacker News since it doesn't have the official NYTimes scientific stamp of approval.

Chris Kresser, M.S., L.Ac is a globally recognized leader in the fields of ancestral health, Paleo nutrition, and functional and integrative medicine

Yeah...

Really scientific, unbiased, peer reviewed, modern research. Not a snake oil salesman at all.

Also any article in the format "X reasons [thing] is more harmful than [other thing]" can generally be laughed at.

Re: Gluten intolerance may really be immune dysfunction

#28

Post by evmar »

The editorializing of the headline here is changing the argument. The article (titled "The Myth of Big, Bad Gluten") is arguing that gluten may not itself be bad, but rather the body's reaction. This new title implies gluten intolerance is a myth, which is contradicted by stuff like http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21224837 .

Re: Gluten intolerance may really be immune dysfunction

#29

Post by aurora72 »

gregwebs wrote: post #22

Why is an opinion piece about a nutrition topic with 1 citation worthy of discussion on Hacker News? Here is an article with citations and discussion of modern research and patient experience that comes to a different conclusion: http://chriskresser.com/3-reasons-gluten-intolerance-may-be-... I won't bother submitting it to Hacker News since it doesn't have the official NYTimes scientific stamp of approval.

IMHO that nytimes article seems to dream of a world in which we could enjoy breads and all other wheat products with no health concerns. A nice dream but it annot be applied to real world.

Re: Gluten intolerance may really be immune dysfunction

#30

Post by maxerickson »

nextstep wrote: post #12

Here is an alternative theory that tries to explain why people in the United States don't tolerate wheat very well: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/real-reason-for-toxic...

Be sure to dig up the USDA source document and observe on page 3 that glyphosate is not applied to a majority of wheat acres:

http://www.nass.usda.gov/Surveys/Guide_to_NASS_Surveys/Chemi...

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