Chapter 19

Ten Benefits of Being Gluten-Free

In This Chapter

Healing for people with coeliac disease

Improving fertility

Knowing what you’re eating

H ow about these for benefits: No more diarrhoea, no more headaches, no more fatigue, no more bloating? (You can read more about how these conditions may benefit from a gluten-free diet in Chapter 2.) If you have some form of gluten (or wheat) intolerance, we don’t need to tell you how horrible it is to feel yucky most of the time — and the key to not feeling yucky is being gluten-free. For you, the benefits are obvious.

You Know How to Improve Your Health

How many people do you know who suffer from a chronic disease for which no satisfactory cure or even treatment exists? Or struggle with ill-health but never really find out what’s wrong or how to remedy it? You, unlike those people, have the key to better health — a gluten-free diet.

Most people who shouldn’t eat gluten aren’t so lucky. They don’t know they have an intolerance to gluten, so they have no clue what’s making them feel so bad. They try cutting out dairy or other potential allergens and their surgeons try cutting out their gallbladders or various other innards, but nothing helps. If you’ve been diagnosed with coeliac disease or a wheat/gluten intolerance, you know exactly what’s making you sick — gluten, wheat or other grains — and you can eliminate them from your diet, enjoying fully restored health.

Your Health Improves Straightaway

If you have coeliac disease, gluten damages your intestinal tract. The minute you stop eating gluten, your body starts healing, you begin to absorb nutrients again and, before you know it, you’re feeling so great that you can’t even remember how bad you used to feel. Whether you’ve been sick for years, days, or never even seemed to feel any effects from gluten, your body can begin healing immediately and that means your symptoms should start to disappear. If you aren’t a coeliac, but gluten is causing other health problems, you may find these improve quite rapidly. You may also find that some other associated health problems disappear after a few weeks or months without gluten.

You Don’t Need Medication or Surgery to Get Better

Unlike most people with a chronic disease, you don’t have to take long-term medications with nasty side effects, regularly endure unpleasant medical procedures or undergo surgery to get better.

The Diet Can Be Extra Healthy

On a gluten-free diet you may be eating fewer commercially prepared products and more fresh food. That means fewer food additives and more of the real stuff your body loves and needs. You may even be preparing more of your own food and able to make good choices about fat, sugar or fibre content, rather than eating what manufacturers want you to eat.

You Learn to Appreciate Life a Little More

People who coast through life without any serious problems can easily take the good things in life for granted, get really upset over trivial issues and become a little ‘precious’. But when you are diagnosed with an illness like coeliac disease, and you adjust to your new lifestyle, you realise that many others in the world are far worse off than you. You become a bit more understanding and supportive of people with problems because you know what it’s like to miss out on something, or be treated as ‘different’. More than that, you learn to truly appreciate all the good things in your life. You’re a stronger and better person for that!

Your Diabetic Child Will Do Better

Controlling blood-glucose levels in children with diabetes is essential. If a child with diabetes also has coeliac disease she won’t be absorbing food properly because of damage to the small bowel. As a result, her blood-glucose levels will fluctuate wildly. Once diagnosed and on a gluten-free diet, food will be absorbed normally and blood-glucose levels will stabilise. This will lead to improved general health and assist with growth.

You May Add Years to Your Life

People with undiagnosed coeliac disease often struggle for many years with medical problems and over time their health steadily deteriorates, leaving them more vulnerable to life-threatening illnesses. Your gluten-free diet keeps you far healthier and may add years to your life.

When Margaret was diagnosed, she was in such bad shape that the gastroenterologist told her she wouldn’t have lasted another ten years. That was more than 30 years ago and she’s planning on lasting many more.

Fertility Problems May Diminish

Undiagnosed coeliac disease increases the likelihood of infertility in men and women, as well as difficult pregnancies. Recent studies show that men with undiagnosed or untreated coeliac disease have reduced sex hormones and a lower sperm count. Women with undiagnosed coeliac disease also tend to have fertility problems and complicated pregnancies, with one study reporting smaller babies and less favourable outcomes to pregnancies.

Thousands of Australians of child-bearing age are unaware they have coeliac disease. Once diagnosed and following a gluten-free diet, their fertility improves significantly.

And if all that’s not a big enough benefit for you, how about the Italian research showing that sexual satisfaction increased once an individual went on a gluten-free diet?!

Your Weight Can Be Easier to Manage

If you go gluten-free the nutritious way (refer to Chapter 6), you’ll be eating high-protein, low-glycaemic-index foods. Eating these types of foods stabilises the ‘I’m hungry’ and ‘I’m full’ hormones, so you don’t always feel hungry; it also causes your body to use the stored fat (read ‘love handles’ or ‘muffin tops’) as energy. By following a naturally gluten-free diet, you’ll help your body function the way it’s supposed to and decrease your hunger pangs, which may make it easier to manage your weight. Sometimes when people go gluten-free, they seek out manufactured products like biscuits, cakes, pizza bases, breads, rolls and pastas. These foods are fine in moderation, but they’re not going to do you any favours when you’re trying to squeeze into your skinny jeans.

It’s a matter of balance, really. Missing out at happy hour or special morning and afternoon teas can make you feel sad and deprived and if that happens a lot, that’s not good either. Look after your mental health as well as your weight.

You’re More Aware of Nutrition

Now that you’re gluten-free, you can become far more knowledgeable about nutrition than most people. For one thing, you read labels. You know that processed foods usually have multisyllabic ingredients (with lots of xs and ys in them) that seem better suited to a pesticide than your plate. You, unlike the common Joe, know that malt usually comes from barley, maltodextrin doesn’t contain malt and glucose isn’t the same as gluten (if you’re thinking, ‘It isn’t?’ please read Chapter 4). Hopefully, you’ve even experienced the joys of quinoa, millet and other alternative grains that many people have never heard of, and you know that some of them are nutritional powerhouses compared to the better-known cereal grains.