How to Lead a Gluten-Free Life

June 14, 2009

This post was contributed by Kathleen Baker, who writes about a masters in healthcare online

Gluten sensitivity diseases are hardships which can afflict certain individuals around the world due to an underlying health condition that causes them to have adverse reactions to gluten.

While gluten is found in many products, it is important to be aware of the foods you can and cannot eat when you discover you have this type of medical condition.

If you continue to consume gluten, you can develop a myriad of diseases, even resulting in Coeliac disease (affecting the small intestine).  Therefore, once you develop a lifestyle free of gluten and its adverse side effects, it will become much easier to relax when eating wheat products.

Gluten sensitivity has been found to be the cause of many illnesses relating to wheat aversions, causing scientists to question whether or not wheat is safe to eat.

The fact that many young animals cannot eat the seed-storage proteins in various wheat plants without getting an intestinal disease should make it a wary choice for most humans, given the increasing amount of research on the subject.  The increase in gluten sensitivity has a lot to do with our modernization of society; the aging population, as well as the many technological advances in food production have helped to contribute to the increased number of adults with this condition.

There have additionally been further reports that have indicated that gluten has a direct effect on the cells that line the small intestine, even destroying particular junctions that can cause food proteins to leak into the body.

Due to the wide number of wheat products, it becomes difficult to determine what rubric pathogenic glutens would fall into.

Wheat allergies fall into a wide spectrum of oats and other related grains in which you can be allergic to one but not the other; gluten is no exception to this allergic confusion.

For the different types of sensitivity and diseases, there are various types of wheat which you should avoid.

For example, gluten-sensitive enteropathy proteins from rye and barley can lead to disease.  Other pathogenic glutens can be found in Spelt, Kamut, and Triticale (all types of wheat).  More and more recent studies have been published revealing the toxic levels of many sources of oats (85 out or 109) to be unacceptable.  Therefore, when you need to substitute a different kind of grain in your diet for oats, many have found that acceptable sources can be maize, potatoes, rice, and taioca.

Many beans and other starches are gluten-free and help to ensure that you avoid this protein.  However, when you choose to take gluten completely out of your diet, you need to be wary of many packaged foods which could have additives that contain gluten, as well as over-the-counter prescriptions.  It becomes additionally hard to determine the amount of gluten in your diet when you consider the fact that many food processing plants dust their conveyor belts with gluten to prevent the food from sticking to the belt.  However, completely removing all flours and grains from your diet is the safest way to lead a gluten-free life.

Studies are still being conducted in recent years to prove the positive side effects of leading a gluten-free life (some suggesting a decrease in the prevalence of autism), but as of yet there have been few definitive results.

Nonetheless, a gluten-free lifestyle has thus far been found to be vastly beneficial to sufferers of celiac disease, which is helpful in deterring deeper complications.

This post was contributed by Kathleen Baker, who writes about a masters in healthcare online. She welcomes your feedback at KathleenBaker3212 at gmail.com

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