Last week we looked at the changes to the everyday loaf of bread. Today we are going to look in more depth at gluten. I explained the difference between wheat intolerance and gluten intolerance last week.

Gluten is an elastic protein and one of four contained in wheat. The other three are albumin, globulin and gliadin. Gluten is produced when water is added to flour. In the body it is broken down into chains of amino acids known as peptides.

It has always been assumed that these chains pass through our digestive system, unless you are a coeliac sufferer (intolerant to gluten), in which case your immune system ‘sees’ them as invading microbes and therefore mounts an inflammatory response.

New research has discovered that gluten peptides don’t travel harmlessly through the digestive system. Instead they survive the digestive process and pass through the gut walls into the bloodstream, causing potential biological harm.

This is something of a scientific first, as all previous studies have used pure gluten for their tests. However, in this case, researchers at the University of Milan used actual bread and pasta bought from the local supermarket (this seems to have been the obvious way to test gluten, if they wish to obtain a reaction to what we all eat on a daily basis).

The researchers discovered that the digestion of gluten resulted in exorphins (molecular fragments of wheat proteins or peptides), which have been found in the spinal fluid of people with schizophrenia and autism and are believed to worsen the symptoms of these neurological conditions.

They are also found to have opioid-like effects on the brain, making us feel drowsy. This is one of the typical symptoms mentioned by people who are gluten-intolerant (Food Res. Int., 2015).

Our inability to process gluten proteins safely could have something to do with the manufacturing process, as suggested by another study on this condition. While pure gluten (which regularly seems to have been used in previous studies) appears to be digested properly, the wheat gluten protein in bread is “virtually undigested… probably because of the gluten starch complex formation during baking” (Mol. Nutr. Food Res., 2015).

Irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, could be looked on as gluten intolerance by another name. This is a difficult one to call, as IBS can also be started by candida in the gut due to an over-prescription of medication, such as anti-biotics. Either way, the symptoms are very similar.

Instead of it all being ‘in the head’, gluten intolerance could be just where the sufferers have always said it is – in the gut

The vast majority of people with IBS are also sensitive to gluten, and, by association, to wheat. Researchers who tested 148 IBS sufferers are beginning to doubt it. They split the group in two, giving half a proper gluten-free powder and the rest a placebo, or dummy mix. The results were overwhelming. Those on the gluten-free diet saw their symptoms improve dramatically. So using the IBS label instead of gluten-sensitive could be misleading and could even delay suitable treatment (Nutrients, 2015).

There is an interesting history of coeliac disease and wheat, by association.

• AD 2 – Aretaeus of Cappadocia, a Greek physician, describes a form of diarrhoea in children caused by the malabsorption of certain foods.

• 1888 – Samuel Gee, an English paediatrician, suggests a cure through diet for children suffering from chronic indigestion.

• 1924 – Sidney Haas, an American paediatrician, identifies carbohydrates as the culprit in coeliac disease and treats 10 children with a banana diet.

• 1930s – William Dicke, a Dutch paediatrician, noted that children with coeliac disease improved when they stopped eating wheat.

• 1950s – Margot Shiner, a paediatric gastroenterologist, develops a biopsy test for examining the small intestine in coeliacs.

• 1964 – The anti-gliadin antibody is discovered.

• 1980s – Coeliac disease is linked to other autoimmune diseases, such as thyroid problems and diabetes, as well as Down’s Syndrome.

• 1990s – Coeliac disease’s genetic markers are identified, along with anti-glutaminase antibodies.

What this history shows is that coeliac disease, and wheat intolerance, is not a ‘fad’ or new, imaginary condition. It has been around for generations, but probably ignored or misunderstood.

It is difficult to be sure what is going on. The rate of coeliac disease has increased fourfold in the past 20 years, although it affects only around one per cent of the population, according to official figures. Alessio Fasano, from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, puts it much higher still, as it is recognised that just 24 per cent of cases are ever diagnosed, or even recognised for what they are.

Then there are the gluten-sensitives who complain of discomfort and stomach pains after eating gluten-containing foods. As I mentioned last week, milling methods have changed, the process and baking mix have changed, all to support demand and shelf life. However, our long history of symptoms shows that even before this change there was some evidence of gut problems.

Science seems to be edging closer to the idea that there really is something to gluten intolerance. Instead of it all being ‘in the head’, it really could be just where the sufferers have always said it is – in the gut.

kathryn@maltanet.net