If you are new to a gluten-free diet, you may wonder how much gluten is too much gluten, and you may wonder what to do if you accidentally consume gluten because you couldn’t control the preparation environment or because you just didn’t know something was made with gluten.
While the Codex Alimentarius and the FDA define gluten-free as less than 20 ppm (parts per million), this doesn’t help the layman user trying to understand how much gluten will hurt him or her or a loved one. According to recent studies, it takes remarkably little gluten to do measurable damage.
So first I will try to teach how important it is that you avoid gluten at every turn, and then I will try to help you heal yourself in those inevitable (but hopefully rare) moments where you accidentally do eat a bit of gluten.
Read on to learn how little daily gluten it takes to do damage if you have celiac disease and to discover some reasonable steps you can take to help yourself heal after gluten exposure.
Read How Much Gluten Is Too Much?
With this article on Gluten Allergy Symptoms, I will attempt to clarify something I feel confuses many people researching Celiac Disease (or Celiac Sprue Disease) and gluten intolerance.
Before you can understand the problems with gluten, you must be able to answer the question, what is gluten? For that reason, you might start by reading the home page of this site. For a more comprehensive understanding of the unique substance known as gluten, try my guide focusing on this subject: What Is Gluten?
To be honest, the term gluten allergy symptoms itself creates confusion and I’m not fond of it. I titled this article this confusing term on purpose to draw those using it so I might educate them on why it isn’t the best term for this condition. And yet even as I wrote it, I have come to the conclusion that it may still have a purpose if we can get the health community to use it in a specific way and in a consistent manner.
The first aspect you must understand is that clinical Celiac Disease and even Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity (NCGS) is fundamentally different than an allergy in the traditional sense. Celiac disease is not a food allergy; it is an autoimmune disease. I explain this to some degree with the main article of this site, but because I receive an overwhelming number of emails targeting the phrase gluten allergy symptoms, I thought I better address the term more directly in its own article.
Read Gluten Allergy Symptoms
First you must separate gluten intolerance into three distinct categories: Celiac Disease, Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity and a Wheat Allergy. It is also important to get a better understanding of gluten and how it can cause a negative chain reaction in your body.
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 celiac disease symptoms occur as a result of consuming gluten, people often perceive celiac disease symptoms as signs of a digestive disorder. But they occur primarily as the result of an autoimmune disease, and often the most insidious and serious celiac disease symptoms aren’t as tangible and immediate as various intestinal discomforts. Celiac disease may also manifest itself very differently in different people, so it can be difficult to isolate any quick checklist of celiac symptoms and expect patients to accurately identify their own celiac disease symptoms.
Before you can properly understand or eliminate celiac disease symptoms, you need to understand what gluten is.
Please note that a gluten-free diet is not a fad diet or a way to lose weight. I can’t believe I’m seeing some people treat it as such. A gluten-free lifestyle is a necessary prescription for people suffering from gluten intolerance or manifesting gluten allergy symptoms.
Celiac disease is commonly referred to as having gluten intolerance. Gluten is mostly found in grains such as barley, rye, spelt and especially wheat products. Celiac disease has the most direct impact on your small intestine, however over time your entire body can be affected. Your immune system has a reaction to the gluten in the small intestine that causes severe damage. This damage keeps your small intestine from absorbing nutrients that your body needs, and thus manifests the many celiac disease symptoms.
Read Celiac Disease Symptoms
An allergy to wheat and a wheat gluten intolerance are not the same thing. A person who is gluten intolerant can also suffer from a wheat allergy, but they don’t always suffer such an allergy along with their intolerance. Wheat allergy sufferers don’t necessarily have gluten intolerance either.
If a person consumes something with wheat and has an instant negative response, then that person probably has a wheat allergy but does not necessarily have gluten intolerance. gluten intolerance symptoms include strong cramping in the abdomen and severe constipation, although the symptoms can vary, as there are actually different kinds of gluten intolerance, which is why it is imperative to see a doctor for a proper diagnosis. Gluten intolerance often is much more difficult to identify than a wheat allergy and is only made more confusing with terms like gluten allergy symptoms.
Read Wheat Gluten Intolerance
