Is there any scientific evidence supporting the claim that gluten-free products can improve overall health?

Question

Leslie Bonci, RD, CSSD · Answer

Let's talk about gluten-free products and is there scientific evidence to indicate that if you can choose these foods that you're going to improve your health? The answer is a big N-O. Now that being said, there are people that have celiac disease. There are people that have gluten intolerant and for those individuals, they should not be consuming gluten-containing food. But for everybody else, if you take the gluten out, does that improve your health? It does not. Does it improve your athletic performance? It does not. Does it put a dent in your wallet? Indeed, it does. And there have been some studies that have looked at this, that taking the gluten out is not just you remove the gluten. You also take the plant nutrients that are in gluten-containing foods, the fiber that is in those foods, the vitamins and minerals that are in those foods, and the gluten-free replacements are not necessarily one and the same. They are lower in terms of their overall nutritional value. Now not talking about things that are gluten-free because they are that way, for instance, corn and potatoes. Those are great foods. Rice is great food. But some of those other things like a gluten-free cookie, a gluten-free cake, a gluten-free pretzel, all those types of things, it's out there on the market, but just because you can buy it, does it mean you should try it and will it improve your health? No.

Lauren Link, MS, RD, CSSD · Answer

In the absence of celiac disease, there is really nothing to support going gluten-free from a health perspective. Now with that said, some people are sensitive to gluten without having an actual celiac diagnosis and we often find that that's actually not gluten when we get down to the root of it. That could be FODMAP related. Gluten is the protein in wheat, barley, and rye, whereas FODMAPs are certain types of sugars that don't always agree with some people and there's a lot of overlap in some of those sugars from FODMAPs in foods that contain gluten. All that said, again in a nutshell, no. If you don't have to limit gluten or exclude gluten because of a diagnosis like celiac, then I do not recommend you go gluten-free. Sometimes if you've heard people say like, well I went gluten-free and I felt great, I felt way better, I would encourage you to think about all the other factors. So oftentimes people might go gluten-free and then they also happen to be eating healthier, so they're thinking about their diet a little bit more. Maybe they cut out a bunch of fast food that had gluten in it, but the fact that it had gluten is not why they're feeling better, it's that it was greasy, high-fat, fast food. Sometimes going gluten-free just kind of naturally again encourages people to eat more fruits and vegetables for instance. So it's important to think about the large scale of things. It's not necessarily gluten that's making anybody feel bad or have health issues, unless again you have celiac. Sometimes if people cut it out, it's actually the reason they feel better is because they're cutting out some of those unhealthier foods. High-fat, fast food like I mentioned, pastries and donuts and cookies and things like that that of course we can enjoy, but that we don't want to necessarily be eating all the time, right? So sometimes that's what leads to feeling better, but I would not recommend you go gluten-free without a reason and that reason should be a diagnosis of celiac disease or a documented intolerance.

Keith Ayoob, EdD, RDN, FAND · Answer

Is there any scientific evidence supporting the claim that gluten-free products can improve overall health? In a word, no, because this is something that gets battered about from time to time. But there is no scientific evidence that just going on a gluten-free diet is somehow going to improve your health, unless you have a specific condition such as gluten intolerance, gluten sensitivity, or celiac disease. In those cases, you do need to avoid gluten, but for the average person, no, no basis whatsoever. No scientific evidence for that. On top of that, it's a little concerning because there are a number of whole grains, for example, that are really nutritious foods that have gluten. If you omit those, you force yourself to get those kind of nutrients and fiber, et cetera, the antioxidants in those whole grains somewhere else in your diet, and that's harder to do. So yeah, no, people, and I have heard this from when celebrities talk about what they're doing to improve their health, oh, by trying to avoid gluten, I'm thinking, where did you get your information? Okay, gluten's fine. Preferably, gluten from whole grains, whenever you can. Whenever you have the option, choose whole grains instead of refined grain. And don't worry about gluten. Unless you have a gluten sensitivity or celiac disease.

Dr. Felicia Stoler, DCN, MS, RDN, FACSM, FAND · Answer

Is there any scientific evidence supporting the claim that gluten-free products can improve overall health? Well, I didn't realize that there were any claims that state that it can improve overall health. What I do know is that there are a lot of people that are carbohydrate phobic that don't want to eat carbohydrates and they feel like it creates problems for them. There are also people that have things like celiac disease where they actually cannot consume gluten products. So for them, it is important that they don't consume them because then they have digestive health issues. Some individuals with IBS also cannot consume gluten-containing products. But again, if you ask anybody with celiac disease if they'd like to eat gluten, they would. And in fact, I'd like to also point out that in Asian cultures, gluten and added gluten to foods is actually part of their diets, a big part of their diet. So when we want to cherry pick science about what's considered healthy, I just ask that you be open-minded to understand that in the United States, we are very much a food elitist when it comes to picking and choosing foods that we want to demonize. So gluten should not be bearing the weight of not being part of a healthy diet because actually gluten can be part of a very healthy diet.

JJ Virgin, CNS · Answer

So can gluten-free help your health? Well, it really depends if you have a problem with gluten. Although I'd say there's two issues with gluten. Number one issue with gluten is the glyphosates that are in the crops and that definitely can disrupt your gut microbiome and lead to a host of other problems. You know, because your body is a history book in a chemistry lab, you store toxins and you can create all kind of endocrine hormone disruptors because of it, so that's number one. Number two is gluten itself. Gluten itself, especially in the United States where it's been hybridized to be dwarfy to concentrate the gluten, triggers the release of something in your gut called zonulin, which increases permeability. And that can be problematic and lead to food intolerance, which leads to inflammation, which leads to a host of problems. So I personally think we do better without gluten. If you are eating gluten, then you're gonna wanna do things like sourdough where you're fermenting it and lowering the gluten load in it. I think for the most of us, you should do a trial of taking all gluten out and it hides in places you'd never expect. Totally gluten-free for a month, see how you feel and then test back and see. Because I find for the majority of us, we feel much better without gluten.

Elizabeth McNear,MS,RD,CSSD · Answer

Is there any scientific evidence supporting the claim that gluten-free products can improve overall health? And the short answer is no. Unless you are diagnosed as having an issue with gluten, so that would be celiac or gluten intolerant, there's no evidence showing that it's beneficial to cut gluten out of your diet. Oftentimes there are marketing or fad diet claims that gluten is bad for us and causes bloating and other issues, but often that's not the case for most individuals. Cutting those types of foods out cuts out other things from the diet, and that's why we see changes in the way that we feel. So for example, some people might cut out a lot of baked goods, so like cookies, cakes, donuts, those types of things when they're cutting out gluten, and they're feeling better because they're cutting out all of these high-fat, high-sugar foods, not because they're cutting out gluten. There really isn't any scientific evidence supporting the fact that you can improve your health by cutting out gluten, unless you have some type of diagnosis that you do need to cut it out, and that would be like celiac or a true gluten sensitivity.

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"Is there any scientific evidence supporting the claim that gluten-free products can improve overall health?"