To Gluten or NOT to Gluten?
by Henri Roca, MD, Clinical Functional Medicine Specialist
If we travel down into our gut as if we were particles of food, we’d see that there are a few significant variables that determine how our gut responds to food and what gets absorbed. If our gut is working well, it doesn’t transmit all food/nutrient particles into our bloodstream. Our guts edit our nutrition information. ( I take a breath at this moment to reflect on how amazing and mysterious life is. And I am humbled by it).
Our food is nutritional information that we feed to our cells. That information may come in the form of energy (calories), micronutrients that speak to our cellular DNA and turn processes on or off, vitamins and minerals that make our biological reactions more or less easy, and macronutrients that serve as building blocks for molecules within our system.
In the gut, size matters and charge matters and conformation matters. The molecules of our nutrition information have to be just the right size to unlock the cellular door to get in. Gluten is generally way too big. And guts that have low levels of pancreatic enzymes or which get chunks of poorly chewed food or get flooded with an overabundance of a particular food type like gluten (think eating gluten containing products at every meal and throughout the day), can get overwhelmed.
Overwhelmed guts can get leaky. We usually think of leaky and inflamed guts existing because of non-steroidal pain medications or antibiotics or low fiber or lack of exercise or stress. But guts that are bombarded by the same thing day after day and meal after meal can also break down.
Let’s also remember that the wheat we grow today, from which gluten comes, isn’t our parents’ or grandparents’ wheat. The wheat of today is specifically cross fertilized to produce variants that have way more gluten in each grain. (Wheat is not genetically modified. Wheat is just old-fashioned selectively reproduced). But wheat is also very fertilized and loaded with insecticides and fungicides. And the processed gluten from this wheat will contain some of those toxins. Wheat is a grass and grasses bioaccumulate toxins.
Once the large gluten molecules shimmy their way into our bloodstream, our immune systems mark them as foreign and start the attack. Sometimes the immune molecules look so much like other body parts that they start to attack those areas creating autoimmunity. The Thyroid and our joints are favorite places for the immune system’s gluten warriors to mistakenly attack.
As more people discover that their allergies, asthma, autoimmune diseases and neurodevelopmental disorders are exacerbated by food allergies and intolerances, these people learn that removing allergenic foods, such as gluten, from their diets makes them feel better.
Removing gluten from your diet can relieve a lot of symptoms for which you might typically take an over-the-counter medication. These symptoms include bloating, headaches, constipation, diarrhea, inability to focus, fatigue and joint pain. And if you can’t remove gluten from your diet, try to eat gluten-containing foods only once a day or maybe two or three times a week.
The best way to know if gluten is affecting you is to be a food detective. Eliminate all forms of it (including wheat, rye, barley, soy sauce and non-gluten-free oats) from your diet for at least three months, and then add each back in. Beware of hidden sources of gluten, such as those found in salad dressings, soups, puddings, processed meats and ice cream.
Keep a food journal and keep an eye out for any unusual symptoms. They might not just be a coincidence, and they might take two or three days to reappear, so be patient.
Working Gluten-Free Foods Back Into Your Diet
I don’t recommend that you replace all of your gluten-filled foods with their gluten-free counterparts. Doing so will get you a lot of gluten-free junk food. Typically, these pancakes, cookies, waffles, breads, etc. are loaded with corn and potato starch as dough softeners, and adding more of these high-glycemic starches to your diet can adversely affect your blood sugar. And before you know it, being gluten-free and carb rich could gain you unwanted pounds and even diabetes.
Instead, I recommend adding in gluten-free ancient grains into your diet: brown rice, wild rice, buckwheat, millet, amaranth, quinoa, teff, and sorghum are great starting points. If you’re baking, my favorite grain-based gluten-free flour is sorghum, or you could try non-grain flours made from coconuts or nuts.
Here are some easy gluten-free recipes:
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