Is a gluten-free diet really healthier? Nutritionist: These people should avoid gluten foods

The "gluten-free diet" is popular in Europe and the United States. Many Hollywood actresses are also fans, including Gwyneth Paltrow and Lady Gaga, who use the gluten-free diet to lose weight. But what exactly is gluten? Is it really healthier to eat gluten-free? Nutritionists say that eating large amounts of gluten may damage intestinal health. In clinics, they have even encountered many children with autism, growth retardation, and hyperactivity. Once gluten intake is controlled, it will help improve children's concentration and reaction ability.

Gluten is a special protein found in grains such as barley, wheat, and rye.

In recent years, the topic of "gluten-free diet" has been widely discussed. What is gluten? Nutritionist Zhuang Xinxin pointed out that gluten is a special protein found in grains such as barley, wheat, and rye. It can increase the toughness and stickiness of food and give it a rich taste. In fact, foods containing gluten are almost everywhere in our daily lives, from sandwiches, bread, and steamed buns for breakfast to pasta, dumplings, pizza, biscuits, and cakes for lunch and dinner, including seasonings such as soy sauce, shacha sauce, and bean paste, and even fermented wines and beverages such as beer, whiskey, and rye juice all contain gluten mines.

Nutritionist Zhuang Xinxin said that many people who come to the clinic will ask: "Why can't I eat gluten?" This is because gluten protein cannot be completely broken down into small molecular amino acids in the human intestine like other proteins, but will retain small fragments of "peptides" composed of several amino acids. These peptides will cause allergic reactions in some people, and induce chronic inflammation and immune responses in the body, causing the body to begin to experience various symptoms. However, due to the variety of clinical symptoms, they are easily overlooked, and people will not associate it with the problem caused by gluten allergy.

Gluten is lurking in our lives! Need for vigilance

When the intestines are in a state of chronic inflammation for a long time, people are likely to experience symptoms of gastrointestinal discomfort, such as bloating, diarrhea, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, etc. At the same time, the gut-brain axis will also affect the brain system, easily inducing symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, brain fog, worry, anxiety, and even systemic problems such as eczema, joint pain, and insomnia.

Nutritionist: These people should avoid gluten foods

If people want to know whether they are allergic to gluten, it is recommended that they take these two tests: "224-item acute and chronic allergen analysis" and "Intestinal Function Health Assessment (Intestinal Health Kit)" to understand their allergens through stool and blood tests. But it is not only people who are allergic to gluten who need to avoid gluten intake. It is also recommended that the general public eat less gluten foods because flour can easily shock blood sugar and increase the risk of various diseases.

In addition, patients with autoimmune diseases and children should also avoid gluten because their immunity is not yet fully developed and eating gluten will damage their intestinal health. In the past, we encountered many children with autism, growth retardation, and hyperactivity in the integrative medicine clinic. Once they began to control their gluten intake, they found that their concentration and reaction ability had obvious improvements.

When choosing staple foods, you can prioritize “original foods”

In fact, people should develop good habits in choosing food ingredients. When buying things, they can look at the ingredients. Wheat products such as wheat, barley, rye, rye, flour, etc. are gluten foods. Also, be aware that buckwheat and oats are easily contaminated by gluten and should be avoided. Even though many products out there are labeled "gluten-free", gluten-free foods may become high in oil and low in fiber after further processing, so it is better to choose original foods.

If you want to control your gluten intake, it is recommended that you start with "staple foods" because you will have more opportunities to come into contact with gluten. You can choose more ten-grain rice, sweet potatoes, potatoes, pumpkin, vermicelli, quinoa, etc.

Allergies caused by gluten can be improved by giving up gluten

If you want to improve the allergy caused by gluten alone, most clinical experience shows that adults will see significant improvement after completely quitting gluten for at least 3 weeks; and it will take about 3 months for the intestinal function to fully recover. Finally, a reminder: if you want to maintain the health of your intestines and brain, you might as well try starting by not eating foods containing gluten and replacing wheat products with root vegetables. Perhaps your health will improve.