Dr. Oz: What is Gluten?
Dr. Oz is talking about gluten and gluten sensitivity on today’s show. Everyone knows many people are trying to go gluten free and it is beggining to get easier for those people. With nearly 45,000 gluten free products on the market now, Americans are spending over $6 billion on gluten free products each year.
And they might have the right idea. Dr. Oz said eating gluten could cause you to have sever headaches, joint pain, diarrhea, upset stomach and a number of other problems. But first, Dr. Oz wanted everyone to understand what gluten is.
Gluten is a natural protein, explained Dr. Oz. It is a protein that is found in number of products. Dr. Oz explained gluten is what makes bread fluffy, what makes pizza down stretch and what thickens soups and sauces to get to just the right consistency. But it can also be found in a lot of products you would not expect, like beer, salad dressing and even ketchup.
Gluten Expert Dr. Neal Barnard: 50 Gluten-Related Conditions
Dr. Oz called on the help of Dr. Neal Barnard, one of America’s leading advocates for health, to help explain why gluten can be so bad for your health. Dr. Barnard said gluten should be a big concern to everyone, because gluten could be related to upwards of 50 different health conditions. He referred to the protein as the the chameleon protein, because there is no way to test for the effects it has and when gluten is affecting the body, there are no tests to reveal it is the gluten and not something else.
Dr. Oz invited Dr. Neal Bernard on to the show to talk about gluten sensitivity and the difficulties of diagnosing the disorder.
Dr Oz: Gluten Symptoms & Chameleon Protein
Dr. Barnard said disease such as depression and osteoporosis, among many other, could be directly attributed to gluten. And when the person suffering gets the gluten out of their diet, the symptoms disappear. Dr. Barnard said the reason so many more people are being affected by the gluten is for one of two reason.
- Dr. Barnard said there are a lot more kinds of hybrid wheat than there use to be. He said there are nearly 25,000 different kinds of wheat.
- Dr. Barnard said people used to make bread in there home, which took quite some time, from the bread going from a ball of dough to a loaf of bread. It gave the gluten time to break now. But now bread it made in factories and factories want to cut labor time, so they make the bread quicker, giving the gluten less time to break down.
Dr. Barnard said that gluten sensitivity, the name of the disorder, is not at all related to genes. But we are born with genes that allow or do not allow our bodies to accept the gluten in an efficient and healthy way. For a person with a gluten sensitivity, said Dr. Barnard, the body will attack the part of the part of the body the gluten is in and hurt other parts of the body.
Dr. Oz: Gluten Intestinal Damage
Dr. Oz showed the audience a demonstration of what could happen if you have a gluten sensitivity. He poured a liquid over a strange powder, making the liquid bubble. It looked kind of like what you would think acid would do to something, or at least what it does to things in the movies. He told the audience, this could be your stomach.
Dr. Os referred to it as a raging inferno of gluten in your stomach.
Dr. Oz: Gluten Sensitivity Diagnostics
Dr. Barnard pointed out about one percent of the population suffered from Celiac disease, which causes the body to fight off gluten protein anytime it enters the body, casing diarrhea and fatigue.
He also explained about 1 in 10 people have a gluten sensitivity, but it is difficult to diagnose because no test can diagnose it and many times it goes misdiagnosed.
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