With celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Victoria Beckham going on gluten-free diets these days, it’s tough not to get caught up in the excitement. Could giving up pasta or bread be the solution to your health problems? A commentary published in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests otherwise.
A gluten-free diet is important for those who have celiac disease—an autoimmune condition brought about by gluten. Those who don’t have it and still follow a gluten-free diet apparently have a condition called nonceliac gluten sensitivity. With 18 million Americans supposedly suffering from it, it’s not difficult to understand why more and more people are trying the diet out. Still, celiac researchers Dr. Antonio Di Sabatino and Dr. Gino Roberto Corazza of Italy’s University of Pavia believe that there is no concrete medical proof of the statistic, and neither is there universal agreement on how to cure it.
Unfortunately, there is no concrete way to tell whether or not you have nonceliac gluten sensitivity. Researchers can only say that there is no need to cut gluten completely out of your life until a general consensus among medical experts surfaces. Nevertheless, choosing the right foods to eat is part of the key to good health, so make sure that you still monitor the nutritional value of the food you put on the dinner table.
For more on diets and healthy eating, check these out on FN:
- 4 Tips on Coping with High Cholesterol
- New Study: Eat Nuts, Soy, Margarine, and Oats to Lower Cholesterol
- Smart Snacking: 12 Healthy Merienda Munchies
- 4 Basic Tips for Healthy Eating
- Smart Swaps: 10 Healthy Alternatives to Less Healthy Food
- 10 Easy Ways to Give Your Diet a Makeover
- 12 Tips for Keeping Your Family Healthy
- Healthy Options: 10 Substitutes for High-Carb Foods
- Tipid Tips: How to Eat Healthy on a Budget
- Tipid Tips: 5 Low-Cost Healthy Foods
- 15 Healthy Foods That Help Reduce Stress
(Photo by Guillaume Paumier via Flickr Creative Commons)
