Learning to accurately define gluten is an important step in mastering the gluten free lifestyle. When you first try to tackle gluten intolerance, you must first learn to answer, what is gluten?
Note: If you’re already pretty sure you or your loved one suffers from gluten intolerance, I strongly recommend: The Complete Gluten Free Survival Kit
Despite what you may have read on many misinformed, vague or just plain inaccurate websites out there, gluten is not a protein itself and it is possible to have a poor response to consuming gluten and yet still test negative for celiac disease. Gluten is rather a protein composite — that is, it is made up of many different proteins — and non-celiac gluten sensitivity is even more common than celiac disease.
Celiac disease symptoms occur as a result of the proteins gliadin and glutenin in gluten. And gluten allergy symptoms may occur as a result of either consuming wheat or consuming any food containing even a trace of a gluten-containing grain.
Understanding these things helps you to better identify and isolate the foods containing gluten and to better adapt an effective and healthful gluten free diet. These are all important steps towards treating your gluten intolerance and developing a more healthy and happy life for you and your loved ones.
So read on to develop a clear, accurate and comprehensive understanding for what exactly gluten is.
Read What Is Gluten?
Note: If you’re already pretty sure you or your loved one suffers from gluten intolerance, I strongly recommend: The Complete Gluten Free Survival Kit
First you must separate gluten intolerance into three distinct categories: Celiac Disease, Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity and a Wheat Allergy. You must also understand what is gluten.

Celiac disease symptoms occur when the proteins in gluten (glutenin and gliadin) trigger your immune system to overeact with strong and unusual anitbodies. Over time, such antibodies wear down the little hairs called villi which line the walls of your intestine (a process called villous atrophy). These finger-like tiny hairs grab and absorb nutrients as foods pass through your lower digestive tract. As celiac disease symptoms slowly destroy these villi, you become less and less able to process any nutrition from your food. This sets off a domino-effect of increasingly serious health problems.
To better understand exactly what constitutes gluten and why it is such a unique substance, I recommend reading my comprehensive gluten guide: What Is Gluten?
In a vast majority of cases, gluten intolerance symptoms will be systemic and will be a result of consuming gluten over a period of time. But symptoms of wheat intolerance will instead manifest themselves more like you perceive a typical allergy: quickly and with single exposure.
For example, if you eat a large, dense piece of gluten-rich bread and have immediate reactions, you are more likely experiencing wheat intolerance symptoms or a wheat allergy rather than symptoms of gluten intolerance which specifically represent celiac disease symptoms.
Read Gluten Intolerance Symptoms
As you begin to research gluten allergy symptoms in adults, you will discover how the two primary difficulties of identifying and defining gluten allergy symptoms in adults are not symptoms at all but the nebulous nature of the term gluten allergy symptoms and the complicated nature of all its related conditions, especially for adult onset celiac disease or gluten sensitivity. Additionally, it can be a bit difficult isolating adult symptoms from gluten allergy symptoms in children.
Note: If you’re already pretty sure you or your loved one suffers from gluten intolerance, I strongly recommend: The Complete Gluten Free Survival Kit
The most common celiac disease symptoms in adults can sometimes not be present. Instead, the following non-digestive symptoms can occur, which people often don’t immediately associate with celiac disease. These can occur in people suffering from a gluten sensitivity or from clinical celiac disease.
Read Gluten Allergy Symptoms In Adults
When you consider gluten intolerance statistics, you may be startled to recognize how many more people around you probably suffer from some degree of gluten intolerance. Part of the problem is a lack of awareness and part of the problem may be the changing nature of the grains grown and processed in modern cultures. But part of the problem is also that celiac disease symptoms can include both silent and atypical symptoms. This means sufferers may experience symptoms most don’t associate with celiac disease or they may not experience any evident symptoms at all. Understanding more about what is gluten and how it can impact health is becoming more and more important.
Note: If you’re already pretty sure you or your loved one suffers from gluten intolerance, I strongly recommend: The Complete Gluten Free Survival Kit
To further complicate the matter, now researchers are realizing that there may be a gluten sensitivity that is not just a degree of celiac disease but rather a completely different medical manifestation. And gluten allergy symptoms further obfuscate the matter by blurring the lines between gluten intolerance and a wheat allergy.
Read on to learn current specific statistics associated with the gluten phenomenon and what it means for those people who are diagnosed with celiac disease.
Read Gluten Intolerance Statistics
Note: Want to embark on your gluten-free journey with greater confidence and clarity? I strongly recommend: The Gluten-Free Survival Kit.
As you venture into the world of food allergies and specialized diets, you may find it daunting to research and learn everything you need to know to secure your health or the health of someone close to you. You may find researching and learning about a wheat allergy especially difficult because of all the confusing or simply misinformed websites on today’s cluttered Internet.
To learn the difference between a wheat allergy and a gluten intolerance, you have to not only see a list of symptoms, but you have to understand the context and mechanism of those symptoms as well. I will try to do this for you in my comprehensive wheat allergy guide.
Remember, whether you have a wheat allergy or you are suffering from celiac disease symptoms, it is important you have your condition, or your loved one’s condition, properly and accurately diagnosed so you may soon embark on your new, better and healthier life free of the consequences of your allergic reaction or your autoimmune disease.
Read on to discover the fundamental difference between a wheat allergy and a gluten intolerance, understand how the awkward term gluten allergy symptoms works into this discussion, and learn exactly how a wheat allergy happens and what wheat allergy symptoms occur as a result.
Read Wheat Allergy
Nearly 1 in every 250 people in the United States suffer from celiac disease symptoms. Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder which impacts the small intestines and can eventually lead to the inability to absorb essential nutrients. In some cases celiac disease can be life threatening. Particularly troubling are silent celiac disease symptoms, where celiac disease is present but with none of the common symptoms associated with celiac disease.
A simple list of gluten intolerance symptoms could include over 200 different documented symptoms, many of which can be associated with dozens of other conditions or diseases.
For such individuals no longer exhibiting any kind of distinct gluten allergy symptoms, it is vital they maintain a strict gluten-free diet to avoid the long-term and often insidious consequences of celiac sprue disease.
Read Silent Celiac Disease Symptoms
In most cases gluten intolerance can be managed by removing gluten from your child’s diet. Your child will no longer be able to eat bread products, any type of rye, any form of wheat, most pastas, or barley. Spelt must also be avoided. Remember that just because something features a wheat-free label does not make it gluten-free. You may often need to contact manufacturers directly to make certain some products don’t somehow feature gluten in some subtle manner.
Gluten allergy symptoms are not easy to diagnose or treat so you must be thorough and vigilant.
Sadly, many parents are not even aware that their child has gluten intolerance until the symptoms become more noticeable and not as bearable. If gluten intolerance in children is left untreated, it can turn serious and cause more stressful symptoms upon their adolescence and into their adulthood.
Read Gluten Intolerance In Children