Wheat, Gluten and You - Are we eating the same grain? (Part 2)

By now, most of us heard about gluten-free foods and diet. Gluten-free labeling is found in many foods products, especially supermarkets, grocery and organic food outlets. It is becoming more noticeable and popular, especially amongst celiac patients. The question is, what's the story behind gluten-free products? 

Many years back, no one seen or heard of gluten-free foods or diet. But why is it booming and more people are aware of the devastating affects of wheat and gluten to the body and health. How much does the public know about the gluten-free labeling and minimum amount of gluten needed to trigger the immune response of an individual. How serious is it? 

WHO has an agency called CODEX. It set a definition of 20 parts per million (or less) for gluten-free products. What does this mean? Any food product which contains 19 parts per million of gluten,is qualified and can be label as gluten-free. Even though the specific food product is labeled gluten-free, but in fact, it still contain gluten, but extremely low amount. The '20 parts per million' definition is setup based on studies which relate to Celiac disease. Most of these reseach are based on 10 years ago, and not recent findings. It is a warning label for Celiac patients. In the U.S, if food products is found to contain 20 parts per million of gluten, it cannot be labeled as gluten-free according to FDA. For example, oats products could be in the category of 'low gluten' if it contains 21-100 parts per million. 

Now, in the world of immunologists, it is known to many scientists and doctors that how memory B cells response to the pathogenic invasion in the immune system. Let's take vaccination as example. When an individual is injected with a particular vaccine (let's say flu jab), the immune system immediately recognize a pathogen is detected inside the body. Think of the immune system as a 'Defense Forces', ranging from army and police forces, the job is to protect the host from foreign invasion which may cause damage or even death. When any pathogen (or flu vaccine) is found in the body, the 'Defense Forces' may call out one of the assembly line to attack the live virus from the vaccine. It could be 'marine corp, swat, air force, police force, etc. If one of these defense line is called, your immune system will assemble 'missiles' to shoot at the flu virus. It will keep producing the 'missiles' until all virus are destroyed or killed. Then, the assembly line is switched off, but is vigilant for the rest of your life, because if that same flu virus comes back again, or if you are exposed to it, the 'missiles' will be switched on, but at a much faster rate, rather then assembling it all over again. Wonder why you are required to have certain vaccination shot weeks and even months earlier before you travel to a 'red zone' country? It is because it would take a long time for your immune system to build an assembly line of 'missiles' to fight off the specific live virus in the vaccine. But, a booster vaccine shot is needed only couple of weeks or perhaps only days before a travel to another country such as Africa(which has weird disease or outbreak). These assembly line of 'missiles' is called Memory B cells.  

How would this be related to gluten ingestion? If I eat a piece of bread, how would it affect my immune system? Studies have shown that by ingesting a micro ultra low level of gluten (e.g, a bite of a white bread), it is enough to activate your memory B cells, which is assembled during your first encounter of eating wheat or gluten-coated food. In this case, can you have 19 parts per million, even though the food product is labeled as gluten-free? The answer is NO. Either you get pregnant, or not. No such thing is 'get a little bit pregnant'. 

In reality, not many people know about how the immune system would react to re-introduction of gluten, after a long lay off from eating this particular food substance.  If one had conducted a functional lab tests and found that the antibodies to gluten have cleared from your bloodstream, and if that person think of breaking that gluten-free diet after months of restriction, it would be a bad idea. Conventional doctors or dietitians would tell you it's fine if you have few servings of bread or cookies once in a while, but long list of new medical literatures tell us otherwise.

The thing is, most conventional doctors, dietitians and nutritionists have a huge gap with majority of clinical nutritionists, naturopathic doctors, and functional medicinal practitioners. In terms of realizing the latest discovery and scientific literature about diet, nutrition, toxicity, and of course, the whole topic about just beyond calories and chasing the symptoms. Both professionals are in different 'clustered' world, the assessment, testing, diagnosis and treatment as well as protocols are almost entirely different. 

Stay tuned for more ugly truths about wheat, gluten, and how it can destroy almost every part of your body in next post.