Well the good news is if you're not familiar with gluten you probably don't have a severe food sensitivity to it. You perhaps may know of someone who has problems or you yourself may have gastrointestinal issues that are not severe enough where you have sought a doctor before. I will provide info for you to know what gluten is, what are the symptoms associated with gluten and how to find if you have a sensitivity to it.
Gluten to put it simple is just a protein in wheat, anything that has wheat in it also has gluten in it. A protein is a long chain of amino acids arranged in a certain order and folded a certain way that is only specific to the DNA of that organism. These proteins have many functions and are very abundant and essential for life functions. The way the immune system is made in our body is to find anything the body labels as foreign, even if you know it's not foreign the body does not know this. Once the body sees a foreign objects it starts to attacked it, the body usually looks for proteins while it's on patrol, and gluten just happens to be a protein.
When the body notices a foreign invader (gluten) it tries to eliminate it by causing inflammation. The inflammation process is a recruitment of a whole bunch of chemicals and cells to that area. The cells try to eat and digest the invader and label it as foreign for future memory and the chemicals are markers to call more friends to take care of the job. The inflammation in most cases is usually felt by pain, although noticeable inflammation is not present all the time. So technically, your body can be inflamed and you don't even know it. This chronic, unknown inflammation takes a toll on the body and it's starts to work less than optimal. When people have a severe problem with gluten that is called Celiac disease. According to the Mayo Clinic Celiac disease can cause abdominal pain and diarrhea. Eventually, the decreased absorption of nutrients (malabsorption) that occurs with celiac disease can cause vitamin deficiencies that deprive your brain, peripheral nervous system, bones, liver and other organs of vital nourishment.
If you have Celiac disease you usually know it based on the symptoms or if you have these symptoms learned how to manage it. The other problems are the unnoticed effects of having a food allergy to gluten which as I stated above can cause chronic inflammation which in turn causes havoc on the body. Some of the symptoms of chronic inflammation are fatigue, muscle soreness, being lethargic, sleeping problems, and digestive issues. If you have these symptoms it could be a good idea to get a food sensitivity test, this test can tell you if your body has an inflammation response to certain foods.
If you do have a problem with gluten and it needs to be eliminated from your diet it's not a huge deal. It does mean you should not eat traditional pastas, pizzas, cookies, and other wheat products. Since Celiac disease has been to the forefront a little more they are starting to make foods that are gluten free to make your life without gluten an easier one. If you have questions about how to get food sensitivity test visit our website by clicking on food sensitivity test link.
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