Going Gluten-Free Could Cause This Health Risk

Kate Remmer

Cutting gluten out of your diet without a medical requirement could be doing a lot more harm than good, according to a recent large-scale study.

Gluten — the proteins found in wheat, rye and barley that give dough its elasticity and chewiness — is harmful to those with celiac disease, where eating gluten leads to damage in the small intestine. Those with gluten intolerance experience symptoms like bloating and abdominal discomfort. An estimated three million Americans suffer from celiac disease, but the number of people whose diets are gluten-free is much higher, tripling between 2009 and 2014, despite the fact that celiac diagnoses have remained stagnant.

Liene Vitamante

People who eliminate or drastically cut down on gluten, even though they don’t need to, face a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to the latest research, which studied the gluten consumption of 199,794 people over the course of 30 years.

“We wanted to determine if gluten consumption will affect health in people with no apparent medical reasons to avoid gluten,” said Geng Zong, an author of the study and a fellow in Harvard’s school of public health. “Gluten-free foods often have less dietary fiber and other micronutrients, making them less nutritious and they also tend to cost more.”

At the end of 30 years (in 2013), scientists found that participants with the highest gluten intake (up to 12 grams per day) had a 13 percent lower chance of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those who ate the least gluten (below four grams a day). Those who ate less gluten also had lower levels of cereal fiber, which is known to protect against type 2 diabetes.

Although further research is needed, “people without celiac disease may reconsider limiting their gluten intake for chronic disease prevention, especially for diabetes,” Zong said.