Gluten Intolerance

Since I’ve been talking about food intolerance in my recent articles, let’s look at one of the most trending intolerances — gluten. Gluten sensitivity has been a hot topic in the past decade and like many new “diets,” a large portion of the public easily follow suit especially when they hear of celebrities going on a particular diet. That is usually how fad diets come about, but the modern diets we see trending these days are not necessarily just fad diets. Fad diets could be medically prescribed diets that are taken out of context because of exploitation by the industry and misrepresentation by the media.

The gluten-free diet, among several others, is an example of a medically appropriate diet that gained a fad diet label because of its misuse. It is recommended for people with proven gluten sensitivity as properly evaluated by a medical doctor or nutritionist-dietitian.

Celiac Disease is probably the only gluten sensitivity you know about, which subjects a person to go on a gluten-free diet, but there are actually several forms of gluten sensitivity—wheat allergy and the more recently coined non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS). Celiac Disease is a genetic, autoimmune disease triggered by gluten and is known to only affect 1% of the population across the globe. However, more recent studies are showing that gluten sensitivity is a growing condition even in Asia and non-celiac gluten sensitivity is a more common form, affecting at least 50%