31: How to Know if You Have Gluten Sensitivity

Gluten is a hot topic in the health world. There are those who staunchly believe that only those with celiac disease should avoid it, while others claim that even a small amount can be harmful.In this episode, Dr. Tom O’Bryan sheds some light on this topic. Dr. O’Bryan is one of the leading experts on celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity as well as a functional medicine practitioner specializing in chronic illness. I’m on the road this week, so this interview is conducted by Olivia from Wellness-Media.com and is a playback (with permissions) of this interview from last year’s Wellness Family Summit.We Talk About:Is gluten really that bad or can people who don’t have celiac disease safely eat it?Long term effects of gluten consumptionWhat intestinal permeability is and how it relates to gluten sensitivityHow gluten (and other foods) can enter the bloodstream and cause autoimmune problemsHow celiac disease (an autoimmune disease) relates to autoimmune problemsHow your intestines are like a carpetWhy gluten sensitivity can lead to osteoporosisThe difference between gluten sensitivity and celiac diseaseHow non-celiac gluten sensitivity can affect your childrenWhat are FODMAPs and how to know if you have trouble with themThe biggest flaw in most studiesRelated Resources:Article: Gluten is Not a Food GroupArticle: How Grains are Killing You SlowlyDr. Tom’s website: TheDr.comRead TranscriptOliva: So, Dr. Tom, thanks so much for taking the time to be here with us today. We’re so happy to have you.Dr. Tom: Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to be with you. Thank you.Olivia: Good. You are just so knowledgeable about gluten sensitivity, which is a topic that I know many of our viewers are highly interested in. So let’s jump right in. Gluten sensitivity has definitely gotten more mainstream attention lately, but there is still a lot of skepticism and many articles talking about why it can be problematic to avoid gluten and why gluten isn’t that bad. So would you mind talking about your research in this area? Is gluten something that we do need to worry about, or is it okay for most people who don’t have celiac disease?Dr. Tom: Okay, that’s a good way to get right into it. One of the interviewees on The Gluten Summit was Dr. Alessio Fasano, the Chair of Pediatric Gastroenterology at Mass General, Harvard. Dr. Fasano is the world’s leader in looking at gluten and its effect on the gut and the development of something called pathogenic intestinal permeability; leaky gut is the slang term for it. What Dr. Fasano tells us is that no human can digest gluten. No human.I have to back up. Gluten is not bad for you; bad gluten is bad for you. There’s gluten in rice and there’s gluten in corn, there’s gluten in quinoa; gluten is an umbrella term for families of proteins, and it’s the toxic family of proteins in wheat, rye and barley, those glutens are not good for us as humans. The other glutens are fine. So it’s the wrong word to use really in gluten sensitivity. It’s kind of like someone handing you a piece of paper and sa