BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept

Subject: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Noreen
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 09:49 AM

I recently took part in a study at the University of Worcester which is part of tonight's Trust Me I'm a Doctor programme.

The study is about non-coeliac gluten sensitivity/intolerance, and has produced some interesting results.
As a result I am remaining gluten-free, as I feel so much better for it.

I'm probably only in the group shots, but it'll be very interesting to watch anyway :)

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 11:02 AM

I guess I'm still an unbeliever. I think that for the most part, gluten intolerance is an imagined condition. I don't think I would be in any better health if I were to swear off gluten. Maybe it's real, but why is gluten intolerance such a new thing, when people have been eating wheat products for all time?
Joe

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 11:17 AM

It's not new, it just isn't always easy to diagnose.

My wife is a dietitian and has gluten intolerance herself. She didn't diagnose her own case until she was in her mid-40s, and she frequently met with residents of nursing homes in their 80s who looked like concentration camp victims with malnutrition and who had endured a lifetime of colic and diarrhoea before finally getting an explanation.

Until very recently, the approved diagnostic procedure for gluten intolerance involved making yourself seriously ill and then getting a gut biopsy. Unsurprisingly, people who managed to self-diagnose would just skip that. In the UK the only advantage to having a diagnosis was that you can get some gluten-free foods on the NHS; in the US, you don't even have that incentive.

I don't have gluten intolerance but I have a severe allergic reaction to some forms of some strains of wheat (durum wheat is no problem, bread wheat usually is). Sets me off in violent fits of sneezing.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Will Fly
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 11:32 AM

One of the questions that has yet to be answered is why, in this day and age, are there so many food intolerances and allergies when, in previous years (so it would seem) they were rare? I don't recall such things when I was young - or even in my thirties and forties.

There may be many answers because these things in most cases are not imaginary. My eldest grandchild - now aged 9 - was eating a chocolate brownie in a café about 3 or 4 years ago and suddenly became extremely ill - vomiting, headache, temperature. Off he went to hospital to discover that he has a nut allergy - walnuts in particular - and he'd had an anaphylactic shock. Not an imaginary shock.

So, might some answers be:

1. This things have always been with us but were, in the past, unrecognised.

2. Modern food production methods, with chemical pesticides and additives, create modern allergies.

3. Genetic changes in foodstuffs and us, over years, produce intolerances to certain food.

I don't know the answer - but I do know that my wife had a slight irritable bowel which was very annoying. A nutritionist then discussed foods with her - particularly ones which ferment and cause bloating - and, since avoiding these, she's been much better.

I do not think these conditions are imagined, except perhaps here and there.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Will Fly
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 11:37 AM

I've just come across this interesting page which may help to explain the modern rise in allergies:

Allergies

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 12:01 PM

I'm sure that the current obsession with lettuce, rocket and similar has something to do with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 12:03 PM

Gluten intolerance is not an allergy, and there is no evidence that its incidence has changed. True allergies are a different story: some have increased, some haven't.

I have a mainstream medical textbook from the 1940s which suggests that the overall incidence of adverse reactions to one food or another is around 40% of the population, but most of those cases are either unknown to the sufferers themselves or to their doctors. So it's neither a new problem nor a newly recognized one. It just got pushed out of sight by medical curricula that devoted more time to new ideas in drug-based medicine and innovative surgery. There are only so many hours in a degree course. For an example of what happens, look at the different editions of Bryony Thomas's textbook on dietetics (the standard one used by professionals in the UK). The early editions had a large proportion of the text devoted to special dietary requirements to suit metabolic idiosyncrasies, including things like coeliac disease and G6PD deficiency. The current one has none of that. If you don't have an absolutely normal metabolism and immune system, a UK dietitian will have had nothing in their training to help you.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 01:17 PM

but why is gluten intolerance such a new thing

Why do some loonies think vaccination causes autism?

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 01:41 PM

It was not a loony belief. There were good reasons to suspect it, comparable to the reasons Snow had for removing the pump handle, and those suspicions were not motivated by fringe beliefs. Seems the suspicion was largely misplaced but that does not make it irrational.

And suggesting that coeliac disease is a loony fad is just plain disgusting.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Senoufou
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 01:51 PM

Noreen, I'll be watching the programme (it's on in an hour!) I do like the 'Trust Me' series.
As a teacher I had to be very careful watching over my pupils with allergies. We had special training to deal with anaphylactic shock, Epipens etc. And my poor husband suffers the torments of hell with hayfever from early Spring to late summer.
I don't believe any of these things are loony fads. People know when they feel reactions, and one should listen to them. It must be miserable to suffer from an intolerance or an allergy. Coeliac disease can result in severe malnutrition, and nut allergies can actually be fatal if adrenaline isn't administered very quickly.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 02:17 PM

Nut allergies are some way down the scale of lethality. The deadliest is probably anaphylaxis to dairy proteins, but it isn't often diagnosed until long after the funeral - not many people live into adulthood with it, and since dairy proteins are everywhere the cause is very hard to spot, it gets put down as idiopathic asthma until somebody else in the family gets the same thing. Then insect stings (often so catastrophic that an EpiPen will do nothing), and eggs - for a while the commonest diagnosed cause of death from allergy in the UK was children dying in the doctor's surgery from egg in allergy skin tests. (Allergy tests are not very safe - only get them done if you're sure you can make helpful use of the results).

For me, the wheat problem exacerbates pollen allergy. Either can make me sneeze, but pollen exposure after a slice of bread or an oatcake is ghastly. The label for this is "total allergic load" - many people can cope with one allergen at a time but not several at once.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Helen
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 02:23 PM

Hi Noreen,

I watch all of Dr Michael Mosley's shows. He has that rare commodity, common sense when sharing information about health and nutrition.

Will Fly, one theory I have read about and heard on a number of scientific shows is related to the hygiene theory discussed in the link you posted. The theory states that with the rise in Caesarean births, allergies to certain foods have risen as well. The babies born that way are not "inoculated" as they are in the usual birth process by the mother's microbes. Trying not to get too graphic here! Another study I read about said that kids who have pets are a bit more healthy and less prone to allergies. There is a lot of fascinating info out there about the recent interest in promoting beneficial gut bacteria rather than killing off everything, good and bad, and wondering why we get sick.

Where I work in a Unit of approsimately 30 people, three have been diagnosed with gluten intolerance, and a couple more have decided to stop eating gluten and have seen the benefits on their health. Another person has jumped on the bandwagon and says he/she is GI but still eats all the usual foods at our morning teas, so he/she is just an anomaly. One of the Oz scientific shows I watched called Catalyst discussed a study which showed that it may be a different component of wheat which causes problems for some people, so in fact these people are not gluten intolerant, but have a reaction to something else which is in the wheat.

It's fascinating stuff. I'm glad I'm not still a teacher. My hubby works in a school and is not even allowed to take a peanut butter sandwich for his lunch. No peanuts allowed in the school! And to make it worse I have also heard of other nut allergies, even pine nuts.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Senoufou
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 02:59 PM

Jack, that's very interesting. My husband never ate or had contact with bread or wheat products in his early years in W Africa. Here in Norfolk, of course the grain crops in the fields (especially wheat, barley and oilseed rape) cause him untold misery. He'd only eaten rice, onions and tomatoes before his arrival. This was many, many years ago, but he hasn't improved at all with his pollen allergy. He now does eat bread, biscuits, Weetabix etc and I wonder if these are making his reactions worse? I also suspect he has an intolerance to dairy stuff, as those too were unknown to him as a young man. His tribe were originally forest dwellers living on hunted animals, roots and fruits, so it would be interesting to discover if his metabolism has evolved or is still at the forest-gatherer stage!
I seem to remember a while ago some research about intestinal worms helping to prevent allergies and asthma. These are universal in Africa, most children have them. But our Western culture would get rid of them at once. Could this be linked at all I wonder?

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 04:08 PM

Most Africans are lactose-intolerant - the tolerance gene evolved twice, once in Western Asia (hence most Europeans are tolerant) and once among the Fulani of West Africa. If you don't have ancestors from one of those two groups, milk gives you the runs. But lactose intolerance is in no way an allergy.

It can't hurt for your hubby to try total exclusion of wheat and related grains for a while. Usually you'll know if it'll help in a week or two, though it can take as long as a month to see positive results.

The worms thing is well past speculation now and into the realm of things you can get a research grant for. There is some recent work on the mechanism: it seems to be indirect, with the worms (or absence thereof) causing a drastic change in the gut flora - the gut bacteria are what really control the allergic response.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 04:18 PM

It was not a loony belief

OK, Jack - it was - and still is - bullshit. That hasn't stopped the loonies from STILL believing it.

Is that better?

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Noreen
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 04:53 PM

Joe, the point of this controlled study was to see whether non-coeliac gluten intolerance is "a thing", or an imagined condition (as you think).

You won't be able to see the programme, but the results show significant correlation between eating gluten and symptoms.
That doesn't mean by any means that everyone would benefit from removing gluten from their diet, and no-one is suggesting you should- if you have no intolerance there would be no point at all in you going to the inconvenience of changing your diet.

I am most surprised that I find myself in this group of gluten intolerant people- up to a couple of years ago I could (and did!) eat anything and everything.
The improvement I feel in my general wellbeing (lack of joint pain, no bloating) since removing gluten from my diet, means I'll stick to it- as will the vast majority of those who took part in the study.

Will you not be convinced by a scientific study?

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Noreen
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 05:02 PM

There is a lot of scientific discussion currently about gut flora (an excellent summary programme recently on Radio 4) and how changes in the balance of different bugs in our intestines affect many aspects of our health.
This could well be connected with modern food intolerances- our traditional gut flora being killed off/unbalanced by antibiotics, processed and sterile foodstuffs.

Fascinating subject.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 05:24 PM

Well I watched the programme. The major weaknesses of such enterprises are the tiny samples of people involved and the necessary briefness and superficiality of the methodology. Very little real science came out of the programme, though the section on depression was nicely done and the work on pigments and eyesight was definitely enough to provoke further study. As for gluten, all I can say is that a few weeks ago I had to cook a pasta dish for the twelve ladies of Mrs Steve's dancing class. One of the ladies was gluten-free so I had to buy a bag of free-from pasta and make a separate batch for her. As any pasta chef will tell you, you have to taste the pasta constantly to get it to the perfect al dente condition. Well I can tell you that gluten-free pasta tastes nothing at all like the real McCoy. I can't believe that the volunteers who had had gluten-free pasta sneaked into their diet didn't spot it.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 07:36 PM

Well I can tell you that gluten-free pasta tastes nothing at all like the real McCoy.

You can get varieties that do taste the same but they need to be cooked just right.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 07:55 PM

I warn you, Jack, that I am quite possibly the greatest aficionado of pasta outside of Italy. I'm exaggerating like buggery, of course, but there was no way I could get that free-from stuff to end up like genuine pasta, and I did do a trial run with it before the final deployment. The pasta I was using in my pasta al forno con pomodori e mozzarella (with chilli added to challenge the ladies - they loved it) was orecchiette from Puglia, but I could only get either spaghetti (totally wrong for the dish) or fusilli free-from. So the fusilli it was, and the gluten-free lady was most appreciative. To me, it was rubbery spirals with an oddly watery taste at best, even when perfectly al dente. I once tried alcohol-free lager too. Bollocks to that.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Noreen
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 08:18 PM

Very little real science was reported in the programme, Steve Shaw, but we were actually given the full results.
The sample of 60 while small was large enough and the symptom correlation was statistically significant- the results were good enough to be published.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 08:44 PM

Since you know Italian wheat products: is there any other 100% durum wheat bread available in the UK apart from the expensive Waitrose one that comes in five inconveniently long rather dry slices in a sealed plastic bag? That stuff is the only wheat bread I know of that doesn't make me sneeze. (Durum wheat is quite remote genetically from bread and biscuit wheat).

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 08:45 PM

Well sixty is a very low number, and the study was brief and lacking depth. Did they know which pasta they were eating? Serious question, that one! There seemed to be no physiological impact from eating gluten. Best you can say is that further work is needed.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 09:05 PM

Are you talking about the Panna Pugliese, Jack, made with golden durum? They've recently renamed it Farina Pugliese but it's the same stuff. We spent a week in Lecce, Puglia, in June and were served that same very stretchy bread at at least one restaurant. The Waitrose version, which really does come from Puglia, is intended to be toasted and it makes for the best bruschetta you can make, preferably with a very simple tomato/olive oil/basil topping (chuck some chopped olives and chilli in there if you like, with just a splash of real balsamic vinegar, not the two-quid stuff). I cheat and give the bread a very light brushing with an olive oil/garlic mix before toasting. As I reside in Cornwall where people eat only chips, pasties and babies, I haven't the means to research other sources of such good stuff. Cut it in half, toast it and top it, Jack!

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Sep 16 - 09:17 PM

By the way, Tesco sell a superb 100% durum wheat pasta from Gragnano, Bay of Naples, the true home of pasta. It's called Gigli, it's bronze die, it costs £1.70 a bag and it cooks in seven minutes to al dente. It's great with any sauce, though we like it with tuna, garlic, capers and creme fraiche with lashings of fresh parsley. Parmesan optional. A meal in ten minutes.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 01:17 AM

Hi, Noreen,
I know some people who have a medical diagnosis of gluten intolerance, and I tend to believe that their intolerance is real. However, most of the people I know who claim gluten intolerance are self-diagnosed. And most of the self - diagnosed people, are people who seem to be overly fussy about a lot of things. So, I dunno. Sometimes it's fussiness, and sometimes it's real. The people with real intolerance seem to dislike that intolerance, and the fuzzy ones seemed to revel in it.
But maybe I'm wrong.
Joe

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 06:54 AM

Medical diagnosis of gluten intolerance is pretty rare, because as I mentioned above, the diagnostic procedure is very unpleasant - mostly it's diagnosed by the symptom pattern. If you think only people with a formal histological diagnosis have a "right" to the label you're dismissing a hell of a lot of people with real illness and with more common sense than the average about what the medical profession can't do for them. What exactly is the point of getting a formal diagnosis that only tells you what you already know and doesn't get you any better treatment?

You get somewhat similar issues with Lyme disease. A lot more people have it than have been diagnosed, because the diagnostic methods are pretty rubbish (not harmful like those for gluten intolerance, but they have a large proportion of false negatives). So people guess. Some of them guess wrong. The results are not good whichever way they're wrong (you either miss out on the most effective treatments or waste money on less effective ones), but it's hard to see an easy fix.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Howard Jones
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 08:15 AM

Gluten-free has become a fashion. some people don't even seem to have self-diagnosed, they just have a vague idea it is somehow "healthy". This must be very annoying for people who are gluten-intolerant, although the upside is that gluten-free products are now more widely available.

A coeliac friend has started a business in Stockport making gluten-free cakes:

Offbeat Cakes

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 09:07 AM

If you want a good laugh, Google "how to become gluten-intolerant" and watch the YouTube. You'll definitely like that one, Joe. Others posting here may demur, so accept a health warning before you click...

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 09:20 AM

Absolutely bloody brilliant, Steve. Got it in one!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Noreen
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 09:31 AM

Back to the programme-
no, Steve Shaw, we didn't know what pasta we were eating- it was a blind trial, as explained in the programme.
However because of the symptoms one of the pastas gave me, I was pretty sure I knew- and the same for some of the others.

This in no way negates the results, which as I say gave a statistically significant correlation between symptoms recorded and presence of gluten in the diet. You don't seem to accept (or you didn't hear?) this as genuine evidence; blood test results are not the only proof of a genuine condition.

This was a properly controlled study run by the University of Worcester, and the results will be peer reviewed and published.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 09:51 AM

It isn't a question of accepting the results. I have a scientific background and the short-term nature of the study, the somewhat superficial methodology and the small sample size (all necessary for its televisual appeal, I acknowledge) led me to conclude that more work needs to be done. Yes there was *some* good, sound methodology. Statistical significance relies on reliable data in the first place, and I did raise, from my own experience of (too much) pasta-eating, that it was likely that some people would have been able to tell the difference. Just a handful of such, in that small sample of people, would have negated the conclusions of the study completely. I accept the results for what they're worth but I wouldn't stake my life on them. The null hypothesis has yet to be dismissed.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 12:30 PM

symptoms recorded and presence of gluten in the diet.

Did they test for the presence of any one of a milllion or more other substances in the diet that could have been responsible for the symptoms?

And was the inverse of the "placebo effect" factored in?

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 01:49 PM

There are some other substances commonly found with gluten that can also cause problems. But coeliac disease has been recognized and studied for decades. "Skepticism" about it is just fucking stupid, vicious and wilfully ignorant.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Kampervan
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 02:39 PM

If you get stomach bloating and discomfort every time you eat gluten, and if those problems go away when you stop eating gluten, then you really don't care what anyone says about 'scientific method', statistical significance' or faddy food fashions.

It's not an allergy, it's not coeliac disease, who cares what it is.

You just stop eating gluten and get on with a much nicer life. It's easy to do, especially if you prepare most of your food yourself, so you just do it.


Wheat allergy and coeliac disease are both very different and very real and require medical intervention, and I wouldn't equate this intolerance with either of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 04:42 PM

Certified Coeliac disease is one thing, Jack - however getting on board with the loonies is, indeed, just "fucking stupid'.

Kinda like the anti-vaccination crowd.

If you get stomach bloating and discomfort every time you eat gluten

And how, Kamp, do you know that the agent involved is inded Rootin' Tootin' Glutin?

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 04:55 PM

Greg beat me to it there, Jack.

It pays not to judge. There will be people who have pestered their docs who are just hypochondriacs. There will be people who have suffered in silence who are genuine. There will be people who have self-diagnosed who are are genuine and others who are wackos. Hard to tell who's who, at least at first. No-nonsense blokes such as me good self have got to resist our instinctive impatience with the people we see as possible food-fadders, the vegans and the veggies, especially the pontificators and evangelists. Anyone who has been properly tested and diagnosed coeliac is genuine. Now where's my bloody steak knife...

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Kampervan
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 05:01 PM

Greg Don't know, don't care. Eat gluten - bloating/pain. Don't eat gluten - no bloating/pain. Why should I worry, I'm happy not eating gluten.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 05:34 PM

Agreed. People who decide what they're better off not eating because of empirical evidence are using scientific methodology: people who insist they must be deluded because they haven't seen a doctor are credulous fools with a mediaeval attitude to authority.

The "skeptic" movement is mostly made up of people who make even less effort to investigate the facts than they people they demonize.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 07:09 PM

Absolutely. If believing in a fairytale makes ya feel better, go for it.

No harm, no foul.

Just don't maintain that it has any basis in fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 08:07 PM

If you're a non-sufferer from such tribulations, such as me, you tend to see the glutenophobes, the sworn veggies, the dairy non-tolerators and the vegan brigade in a slightly dim light. It's absolutely not fair, but you can't help yourself. You tend to be looking for their other traits that fit the pattern. They're quite likely allergic to cats and so a visit to your house entails chucking out the moggies and spring-cleaning before they arrive. They suffered terrible asthma as a child, so you have to lay in a special kind of milk. All tea must be peppermint and all coffee decaffeinated. They may well be carrying a bottle of very expensive water, preferably one with a nipple-like contraption that you suck in order to extract the fluid within. Tomatoes are verboten. Blue cheese will poison them. They will almost certainly have a tragic family history filled with trauma and deadly, unusual afflictions. The talk will be about their latest of very many bouts of radical surgery. It goes without saying (though they'll say it anyway) that they have IBS. They are quite likely on the verge of ME, or at least know someone who's got it. They will regale you with the miraculous benefits of arnica and tell you that the amazing NSAID that's the only thing that's kept you alive and moving for the last 25 years is slowly killing you. They will express severe surprise that you haven't wasted hundreds of pounds visiting acupuncturists.

Well not all this rolled up into a single person, of course. And it's not fair. Though I do know this woman in north Devon...

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Jeri
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 08:46 PM

So you're just talking about one specific individual? Your experience isn't mine, nor is it that (that I'm aware of) of anyone I know.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: peregrina
Date: 09 Sep 16 - 10:14 PM

Modern wheat durum wheat has a far far higher percentage of gluten than the wheat of
earlier centuries--it's a major change.

And modern bread made by the fast factory Chorley Wood process
is also very very different from the bread of a century ago. The high-speed rise
and various additives mean that the wheat is far less broken down by fermentation
than in traditional processes.

If you are skeptical about non-coeliac gluten sensitivity, consider the interesting example of
people who report that slow-fermented sourdough bread agrees with them much better than other types. In slow-fermented breads with wild yeast, the gluten has been much more broken down by the action of the yeast than in fast-process bread.

The changes in wheat and bread due to modern production and selection are huge.

The intestinal microbiome also varies hugely between individuals...

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Sep 16 - 04:58 AM

Modern bread made in factories (as peregrina says, by the dreaded Chorley Wood process) is disgusting and more like cake than bread.
I used to make all my own bread, and the process takes a long time, with kneading, rising and proving. I used to add bits of this and that to vary the flavour (cracked wheat, bran flakes, wheatgerm, almond flour, raisins, crushed walnuts, whatever took my fancy at the time.) I had cupboards full of these ingredients, and bought stone-ground flour from local Norfolk outlets, plus fresh yeast. The time involved only meant putting the tins in a warm place (airing cupboard) and waiting (eating chocolate and doing the crossword) and the gorgeous smell in the house was mouth-watering. Sadly, I'm a bit too doddery to do this nowadays, and we buy our bread from health-food shops. It still tastes like bread though.
I remember clearly a Domestic Science lesson at school, where we had to take a good handful of white flour and rinse it under the tap while squeezing. This rinsed all the starch away and left a glutenous sticky mess. That, we were told was gluten! And am I right in thinking that so-called 'strong flour' which I used for my bread-making,is high in this gluten?

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Noreen
Date: 12 Sep 16 - 07:03 PM

It's on again now.

(Picking up a prescription at GP's surgery today, the pharmacist said: "I saw you on television last week"!)
:)

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Noreen
Date: 12 Sep 16 - 07:41 PM

Further information on the study and its results, from the BBC website:

Should I go gluten free?

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Sep 16 - 08:39 PM

Fine, Jeri, you didn't get the joke. The moment has passed.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Sep 16 - 08:44 PM

As for getting decent bread, I agree that most shop bread is awful, though I don't mind Sainsbury's £1.50 ciabattas or the panna Pugliese from Waitrose. If you use proper organic stoneground flour, white or wholemeal, even better mixed, you can get a very decent loaf from a breadmaking machine. Honest.

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Senoufou
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 04:26 AM

Ooooh Steve, I never thought of using a breadmaking machine! What a brilliant idea! Can you put ingredients into it such as those I mentioned above? (cracked wheat, bran etc) My husband just adores machines of any kind - he might come to love a breadmaking one!
I expect it uses dried yeast? Oh I can't wait to suggest this to him when he wakes up! Thank you for that!

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 05:01 AM

Eliza, I make our bread. I used to squeeze and knead the dough regularly, put it in tins and bake it. Then I bought a breadmaker from Lakeland (their own brand). I use a mixture of spelt flour and French bread flour, which makes a nice, tasty loaf. Spelt is lower in gluten (Mrs. F. prefers that) and French flour has the least level of additives of any bread - in France itself, all additives are banned from their flour.

Perfect, delicious bread every time. We're not huge bread eaters so I cut the load into 4 and freeze 3 chunks for later use.

Chorleywood process? Disgusting!

Subject: RE: BS: Gluten intolerance study:8pm BBC2 8 Sept
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 05:39 AM

I'm not saying that a bread machine makes bread as good as the artisanal sort but it always works pretty well for us. You can put all manner of fruit and nuts and seeds in ours by virtue of its special dispenser, but mostly we make either wholemeal or ciabatta loaves. We have an old Panasonic SD253. We're very happy with it. It takes just a couple of minutes to weigh the ingredients in, then you switch it on and it takes four or five hours to make the loaf. You can use a delay timer and do it overnight or while you're having a day out.