Hello!
I listened with interest to your contribution to Inside Health on Radio 4 yesterday, as what you were saying chimes a lot with the way that I feel about the proliferation of people who think that they have a problem with gluten or wheat.
Because of the massive industry that has built around gluten free products, I think that anyone whose tummy feels uncomfortable, or worse, after eating bread, will presume that the cause of that discomfort / pain/ bloating etc is wheat or gluten.
I have been working in the field of food intolerance for 20 years, using a Dietx machine [the new version of the Vega]. And before you switch off to what I am saying, please be aware that nearly everyone using these machines only does a 2 day course in it’s use, and is then sent away. The results that these people get when testing foods would be no better than tossing a coin.
I have amassed LOADS of experience, and more importantly data, especially in the last four years. Less than 2% of the people that I test are wheat [or gluten] intolerant. In 2011 when I assessed how accurate patients were in the assumptions of which were their problem foods, they were only 17% accurate.
In a survey of 415 adults and 169 children in 2013 /2014, these were the most common food intolerances.
Adults Children
Cows milk products 50% 81%
Tea or coffee 48% less than 1%
Cocoa 47% 47%
Orange 33% 46%
Coffee 32% less than 1%
Cheese 29% 0%
Yeast, yogurt 27% 0%
Tea 21% less than 1%
Some form of alcohol 17% 0%
Sweet artificial flavours 12% 21%
Apple 11% 32%
MSG 10% 4%
E150 – E155 8% 4%
E471 7% 2%
Aspartame 5% 10%
Decaffeinated drinks 5% 0%
E282 5% 5%
Chilli 4% 0%
Sunflower 4% 2%
Malt 2% 0%
Wheat 2% 3%
Raising agents 2% 0%
Every other food less than 1%
Points to note
- Most of the intolerances were to FREQUENTLY used foods , drinks
- People who thought that they had a problem with wheat often had a completely different underlying cause, eg dairy, tea, coffee, which seemed like it set their tummy up to fail when they ate wheat or veg or fizzy drinks or spices.
- And people who were SURE that it was bread, [and therefore presumed wheat] often found that the cause was yeast, sunflower [oil or seeds] or a common preservative in bread E282 or E471.
- When I test people I find that when yeast is a problem, all cheeses and yogurts are too. So I can see that if people get symptoms after eating pasta they think that it is the wheat, whereas I think that it is the cheese that they nearly always add to it.
- Although decaffeinated products only come in at 5%, this accounts for 95% of all the people who regularly drank decaff. A lot of these people had been wheat and gluten free too!
- Many people who come to see me have been wheat / gluten free for a while, and by the time they come to see me they have become intolerant to the sweet artificial flavours in the Free From ranges of biscuits cakes etc. These are also in many sweets, yoghurts, jellies, squashes and fizzy drinks
In a 3 month period in 2012 these were the improvements made using my suggested change of diet for 28 adults and 8 children. [ Only 43% of my patients answered my questionnaire.] recently I have started suggesting to people who get improvement , but are still bloated and windy, to take some probiotics and gastric enzymes. This is helping those people but I do not have definitive figures yet.
Bloating 86%
Abdominal pain 92% [98% in children]
Diarrhoea 98%
Wind 83%
Constipation 89%
Urgency to defecate 99%
Indigestion 100%
Nausea 98%
Vomiting 100%
You are a busy lady, and I won’t take up any more of your time. By the way I love your blog, and your attitudes with regard to PR and pharmaceutical companies. Keep up your good work.
Kind regards
Mary Roe