[brinker]

The rise of gluten-free dieting as a fad has some interesting effects for people who actually have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity. On the one hand, increased awareness has made gluten-free food more available, on the other, the stigma against people eating gluten-free has risen. So people who have an actual medical reason not to eat gluten get lumped into a fad diet group.

I have a friend with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. In recent years several studies have found a potential connection between Hashimoto's and celiac disease (it is still being actively studied, and the link is not conclusive), and so some doctors are beginning to suggest that people with Hashimoto's remove gluten from their diet. My friend did, and sure enough saw some thyroid improvement afterward. She is now entirely gluten free (and has been for over a year), and is often irritated at people judging or questioning her gluten-free diet because they immediately assume it is nothing more than capitulation to an idiotic fad.

[numo16]

> On the one hand, increased awareness has made gluten-free food more available, on the other, the stigma against people eating gluten-free has risen.

I have a friend who was diagnosed with celiac disease in high school and remember how hard it was for her to find more than a few things she could eat at the time (this was around 2006-2007). Now she has very little issue walking into a store or restaurant and ordering something that won't give her severe pain and require some vicodin for a bit. She's said that she is happy that gluten-free diets became a fad and would rather be lumped into this group of fad dieters, than have hard time surviving on the smaller selection of things that were available for her to eat previously. The only difference now is that she really has to make sure that the people taking her food orders at restaurants really know she is severely allergic (clean cooking surface, check the dressings/glazes/etc... to make sure they are GF, etc...). All in all, a fair trade off for those that didn't choose this diet.

[npsimons]

Came here to make a very similar comment: I have a friend with Celiac's disease. Wish the fad dieters would stop ruining things for people with actual adverse reactions. That, and people shouldn't be so quick to judge.

[pessimizer]

>She is now entirely gluten free (and has been for over a year), and is often irritated at people judging or questioning her gluten-free diet because they immediately assume it is nothing more than capitulation to an idiotic fad.

She shouldn't be, because 99 times out of 100, it is nothing more than that. It's a fine fad, though, because it doesn't harm the sensitive dears who have taken it up, and it brings a massive array of options for people whose diets were extremely limited before.

If somebody can come up with an anti-peanut dust fad, I'd support that too.

[yellowapple]

The issue, though, is when restaurants, grocers, etc. mistake a legitimate medical condition with a trendy fad diet and not take one's gluten-free requirements seriously (e.g. not paying attention to sources of gluten cross-contamination, or not paying attention to which ingredients actually have gluten). They should be erring on the safe side and assuming that all requests for gluten-free are due to a medical condition requiring it, but when the number of gluten-free fad dieters vastly exceeds the number of people who actually need a gluten-free diet, the likelihood of safe-side erring decreases without some other reason (like stronger requirements for "gluten-free" foods, including both ingredient and preparation standards).

[afreak]

Really it's just celiac disease as those who claim a sensitivity to gluten may have some other food-related ailment.

http://guardianlv.com/2014/05/gluten-sensitivity-does-not-ex...

The above link is linked to in the article.

[commandar]

>I have a friend with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. In recent years several studies have found a potential connection between Hashimoto's and celiac disease (it is still being actively studied, and the link is not conclusive), and so some doctors are beginning to suggest that people with Hashimoto's remove gluten from their diet.

Do you have any more info on this? I have a friend with Hashimoto's and I'd be curious to find out if this is an approach widespread enough that she might have heard about it/to point her that way if not.

[trebor]

I know that Dr. Tom O'Bryan[0] has mentioned it, and the talk with Suzy Cohen in the recent Gluten Summit[1] he helped host discussed it. There may have been more mentions in the summit, but it's been a little while since I last listened to it.

[0]: http://thedr.com/ [1]: http://theglutensummit.com/

[stronglikedan]

Tell your friend that there will always be (a) people with legitimate medical issues, (b) people who are fad dieters, and (c) people who judge. She cannot control any of those things, so she should not let those things irritate her. She's improving her life in one way, and letting it stress her in another. Tell her that I said it's okay for her to do whatever she wants for whatever reason she wants to, and it's no on else's business. Also, tell her I said to have a fantastic day!

[elliott34]

I have hashimotos and celiac disease. So there's n=1. The worst part about having celiac disease is that I do not have any symptoms whatsoever but am forced to eat this way so that ten years down the road, maybe kinda sorta, I wont get cancer. Also having to explain it to people sucks. Eating meat rice and potatoes is fine by me, explaining why I don't want a beer sucks.