Page 62 - BBC - The Scientific Guide to a Healthier You

DIET

5 had NCGS. In other words, 86 per cent of It won’t be easy because so many foods have
this group of patients who thought they had gluten in them. You will also need to stick to
some form of gluten-related problem really a strict gluten-free diet for at least a month to
didn’t. Or at least cutting out gluten from their see if your symptoms improve. Then, to make
diet made no difference. doubly sure, you should gradually reintroduce

The team concluded: “Self-perceived Gluten gluten and see what happens.
gluten-related symptoms are rarely indicative is made up of hundreds of Foods that you will need to avoid on a
different proteins, the
of the presence of NCGS”. most important being gluten-free diet include anything with wheat,
If you have lots of gut symptoms and think gliadin and glutenin. It is rye, barley or spelt. So bread, pasta, cereals,
the gliadin protein that
you might be intolerant to gluten, then you causes the majority of cakes and biscuits are out. You will also need
should get yourself properly tested to exclude problems, leading to to lay off the beer and read labels carefully as
intolerances. Gluten is
coeliac disease and wheat allergy. If the tests found in wheat, barley many processed foods have gluten in them.
come back negative and you still have a nagging and rye, though it is also Frankly, skipping out many of these foodstuffs
present in soy sauce.
feeling you might have NCGS or some other, as Wheat has been an is likely to help you lose weight and make you
yet unnamed, gluten intolerance syndrome, then important part of our feel better anyway. The main disadvantage of
diet since it was first
you might want to give a gluten-free diet a go. cultivated millennia ago. going gluten-free is that unless you are careful
you may lose out on essential nutrients.
You are not going to find many vital nutrients
INSTANT EXPERT in cakes or biscuits, but breads and cereals are
fortified with a range of vitamins and minerals.
WHAT’S COELIAC MOUTH Unless you compensate by eating more fruit and
Ulcers
DISEASE? Enamel erosion vegetables, there is a risk of becoming deficient.
Avoid, like the plague, anything that markets
It is still unclear why some itself as ‘gluten-free’. It will almost certainly be
people develop coeliac
disease, but it appears to be junk. A sad thing about this scare is that worried
associated with certain parents are buying gluten-free children’s food
genetic mutations. The
unpleasant symptoms in the belief it’s better, when it is often packed
illustrated here will clear up JOINTS AND with unhealthy additions, like lots of salt.
once a sufferer adopts a MUSCLES
gluten-free diet. Pain
Swelling
MILKING IT
The other popular food ‘allergy’ to have is
SKIN lactose intolerance. Lactose is a natural sugar
Acne
Eczema STOMACH found largely in milk and other dairy products.
Brittle nails
Pain People who worry about lactose often do so on
Nausea
the grounds that drinking milk is ‘unnatural’.
INTESTINES They claim that we are the only species on
Diarrhoea
Bloating Earth that consumes milk as adults, and this
Constipation
can’t be a good thing.
Instead, we are encouraged to either avoid
milk altogether or try one of the other variants,
such as almond milk (vile) and soya milk (even
IN FEMALES worse). Sadly, the enthusiasm for almond milk
Infertility
Miscarriage has not even been slightly dented by studies
Early menopause suggesting that the water catastrophe playing
out in California is partly down to the enormous

The wall of the small intestine is growth in worldwide demand for almonds.
covered with little, finger-like Unlike gluten intolerance, lactose intolerance
projections called villi. These increase
the intestine’s surface area for more is actually extremely common. When we’re very
efficient absorption of nutrients. The young we get lots of lactose in our diet, either
image on the left shows how the villi
become flattened and inflamed in from breast milk or from cow’s milk.
sufferers of coeliac disease, while the
image on the right illustrates the villi
in a healthy individual.