Gluten and the gluten-free diet seem to be in the news quite a bit lately. Have you heard the latest news about the gluten-free diet? South Beach Diet creator, Dr. Arthur Agatston, has a new book and version of The South Beach Diet: “The South Beach Diet Gluten Solution”. The book calls for removing gluten from your diet and then gradually re-introducing it to determine your level of gluten sensitivity. There are many people out there who don’t have Celiac Disease, but are sensitive to gluten, so for these people this may be a great solution.
While I haven’t read the book, I did read the article on CNN, and there are a couple of things I wish were more clearly discussed:
- First, I think it is important to rule out Celiac Disease before trying this method. Going gluten-free before any testing for Celiac Disease can often skew the results. Agatston does mention this towards the end of the article, but I really hope that he spells it out a little more clearly in his book, as I saw nothing about it on the book page.
- Second, this statement: “#4 Living gluten-free can make you fat.” It’s misleading, in my opinion. Yes, he says “can”, but when you read through the paragraph, it goes on to say “If you find that you can’t eat just a few gluten-free crackers, for example, without going back for half the box, this product spells trouble.” This is the case with any cracker or food that ones eats too much of – not just the gluten-free version. I am honestly very tired of hearing the gluten-free diet makes or can make you fat. Newsflash: Too much food can make you fat if you aren’t burning off the calories.
There will be more from Dr. Agatston on “Sanjay Gupta MD” at 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday and 7:30 a.m. ET Sunday on CNN.
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