Is Gluten-Free Diet A Healthy Choice? Find Out Here!

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Gluten-free diets became popular and are now adopted by an increasing number of health-conscious consumers. Many believed that this is a healthier way to eat.

Gluten-free diet is recommended for people who have celiac disease. Celiac disease is a condition where ingesting gluten could result to damaged small intestines. However, people with no medical conditions of this sort have also turned to a gluten-free diet as a lifestyle choice. However, gluten-free diet is not really the "healthy" choice.

According to Telegraph, a major study conducted by Harvard University suggested that ingesting mall amounts of protein or avoiding it in general, increases the danger of having diabetes by as much as 13 percent.

The study says that a diet that is low in gluten may increase the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. The Harvard team examined 30 years of medical data from around 200,000 patients and just under 16,000 cases of diabetes were confirmed.

Type 2 diabetes occurs when the pancreas doesn't produce enough insulin, or the body's cells does not react to insulin. It is mostly associated with obesity, rather than a potential lack of micronutrients, or presence of unhealthy ingredients to replace gluten.

Avoiding gluten is not just giving up traditional pasta, cereals, pizza, bread and beer. Gluten can also be found in many other products such as, frozen vegetables in sauces, soy sauce, some foods made with "natural flavorings," vitamin and mineral supplements, some medications, and even toothpaste. This makes following a gluten-free diet extremely challenging.

There is a small percentage of the population have problems with gluten due to their Celiac disease. But celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Kourtney Kardashian and Jessica Alba have made the diet a lifestyle and weight loss choice as reported by Huffington Post.The researchers suggest that further research needs to be done to know whether it is the gluten that is playing the role in preventing the disease.