Gluten-free foods: the healthiest for everyone?

Above: a sign that says “Gluten Free.”

Gluten-free foods are becoming increasingly popular around the college campus that I currently call home, reflecting, I believe, a similar trend at the national level. In fact, it is so popular that I begin to view it as the next fad food for very health conscious college students. We not only need to eat healthier desserts in the form of frozen treats called Tasti-D-Lites (it has become a phenomenon since it moved onto campus a few weeks ago; so many students can be spotted eating these frozen treats), but we now also need to eat the “healthiest” grains. However wheat, like frozen yogurts, no longer makes the top of the list anymore. In the search for the healthiest of everything, gluten-free foods and Tasti-D-Lites come out on top.

But do we really understand what a gluten-free diet means for health when we designated the newly installed gluten-free food section in our Great Hall cafeteria as our favorite place to find healthy food? Did we misunderstand the purpose of eating a gluten-free diet? These questions are addressed in a Health.com article titled “Will a gluten-free diet improve your health?”

The simple answer to the title question in Carina Storrs’ article mentioned above is: not really if you do not have celiac disease and you are not gluten-intolerant. In fact, eliminating gluten-containing foods might require you to supplement your diet with other foods and/or vitamin pills to complete a balanced and healthy diet. This is because gluten-free foods often lack iron and some important vitamins such as vitamin B and D, and because fortification of gluten-free foods is also not as common, people with a gluten-free diet need to find other sources of these essential nutrients. Furthermore, many currently available gluten-free foods are manufactured with excessive sugar and fat so they could mimic the taste and texture of food containing gluten, and therefore they could be very unhealthy.

Gluten is a protein found in some grains such as wheat, barley and rye. These grains are often made into bread, pasta, and numerous other grain-derived products. When consumed by people affected by celiac disease, gluten erodes their intestinal walls, leading to mal-absorption. So for these people, a gluten-free diet would definitely improve their health. Those who do not have celiac disease could also feel gastrointestinal discomfort upon gluten consumption if they are gluten intolerant or sensitive. Some symptoms include bloating, gas, diarrhea, and stomachache. For people who suffer from either celiac disease or gluten intolerance, completely forgoing every product made with gluten is the only treatment for their symptoms, therefore eating gluten-free food could benefit their health and well being.

Gluten-free food originated to provide more food options and to treat celiac disease and gluten-intolerance. However, today many health conscious people also eat gluten-free foods because they believe that a gluten-free diet is healthier. Unfortunately, for those not afflicted with either celiac disease or gluten-intolerance, gluten-free foods are not at all healthier than gluten-containing foods. Storrs put this fact clearly when she wrote:

“Even though celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Gwyneth Paltrow have reportedly cut out gluten to ‘detox,’ there’s nothing inherently healthier about a gluten-free diet.” – Carina Storrs

 

Banning Fructose (aka refined sugar and HFCS)

Above: Presentation “Sugar: A Bitter Truth” by Dr. Robert Lustig.

HFCS = high-fructose corn syrup

Several weeks ago, I wrote a post incriminating aspartame as a substance that could possibly cause cancer or other unforeseen health problems in the future. Although it is my personal belief that sometime down the road, problems associated with long term aspartame consumption would surface, my concern over aspartame’s effect on human health is not unfounded. Despite the fact that results from preliminary aspartame research in rodents are still inconclusive , I still firmly believe that aspartame usage could cause damage to health slowly but surely. However, even if aspartame consumption does not demonstrate any health problems in the future, avoiding this substance will at least give me the peace of mind. And perhaps this is why I will also soon begin to regulate my sugar intake. No, I am not referring to reducing sugar intake to the recommended daily level, but actually reducing the consumption of a specific type of carbohydrate: fructose. (Although reducing total sugar intake is also a good idea, it is not the focus of this post).

“Natural sweeteners” include the common refined sugar and the more ubiquitous high fructose corn syrup. If a processed food is not sweetened by an artificial sweetener like aspartame, it is usually sweetened by one of these “natural sweeteners.” However, how “natural” are these sweeteners? And more importantly, does the “naturalness” of these sweeteners guarantee their safety to health? This last question is answered by Gary Taubes on the Health News section of the New York Times via an article titled “Is Sugar Toxic?”.

In “Is Sugar Toxic?”, Taubes, writer and independent investigator in health policy, summarizes a presentation (see video above) given by Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatrician at the University of California San Francisco Medical School. In his presentation, Lustig introduces his hypothesis that sugar, more specifically the fructose that makes up approximately 50 % of refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup, is actually a toxic substance when consume at high qualities and/or chronically. Furthermore, increased and prolonged consumption of fructose could lead to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and even cancer.

(And this is not about the number of calories in the sugar:
“It’s not about the calories,” he says. “It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s [fructose] a poison by itself.” – Dr. Robert Lustig
It needs to be emphasized that Fructose within the sugar is the real culprit.)

Lustig’s hypothesis, at first glance, might seem ludicrous and unbelievable because yes, we all know that overconsumption of sugar contributes to fat accumulation and obesity, but to claim that sugar is toxic might be blowing the sugar consumption problem out of proportion. However, Lustig’s hypothesis is formulated based on decades’ work of many independent scientists whose research were not financially supported by beverage companies, processed food companies, or any other commercial venture that sought to use science to prove the safety of their in fact dangerous products.

While Lustig provides many convincing evidence on the dangers of fructose consumption, one piece of scientific evidence especially helped to convince me of the validity of Lustig’s hypothesis. This simple fact is that fructose is only metabolized by the liver and thus increased consumption of fructose places increased metabolic burden on the liver, which turns fructose into fat when the metabolic machinery of the liver can no longer handle the large influx of fructose. From understanding this piece of information, I am able to understand the deductions that Lustig make on the effect of fructose consumption on health. For example, Lustig shows via data collected from rigorously conducted experiments that consumption of high fructose corn syrup leads to development of fatty liver that impair the metabolic system, namely the insulin and blood sugar control system, of the consumers, thus leading to metabolic syndrome,(a disease of insulin resistance, the precursor to type 2 diabetes), obesity, and finally type 2 diabetes.

In his presentation “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” (see above video), which was summarized by Taubes in his detailed article “Is Sugar Toxic?”, Lustig make many claims. Some of his claims include: 1) fructose consumption, not fat, is the main cause of metabolic diseases, obesity, and diabetes, 2) some cancers are caused by over production of insulin on an insulin resistant body and 3) fructose consumption can even produce fatty livers and metabolic diseases in lean people because “calorie in” no longer equals “calorie burned” in the world of biochemical processes of metabolism. Lustig make many other claims in his presentation, all of which are well supported by scientific evidence. I’m confident that you will be convinced by his eloquent presentation. Just now, he has convinced me of the evils of fructose.

[Fructose] is “the most demonized additive known to man.” –Dr. Robert Lustig
Perhaps I’m not this extreme, but removing as much fructose from my diet as possible might just give me the peace of mind that eliminating aspartame has.