Gluten Intolerance May Not Exist

[OttoVonBismarck]

I have a friend/coworker that I have known for ~15 years or something who definitely has some sort of gluten allergy/intolerance.  Among some other things she had very bad sleeping problems, if she had to drive for more than 40 minutes she would often have to pull over and take a nap mid-trip, one time she got home from work and fell asleep in her car in the driveway and slept there for 3 hours.  She finally narrowed the problem down to gluten, and since she removed it from her diet completely a few years ago all of her problems have disappeared.

Nothing about what you just said was scientific at all. She may have indeed had some weird problem related to gluten, or maybe not. As the article points out a gluten-free diet typically removes other things that are more likely than gluten to be the culprit in these cases.

It's also entirely possible your friend had some psychological problem and the change in diet resulted in a psychological improvement. Sleep disorders like you describe often have an underlying psychological cause.

[Ed Anger]

I'm becoming Languish intolerant.

[PDH]

I'm becoming Languish intolerant.

Languish has always given me gas.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Are you telling me that Jenny McCarthy's son's autism wasn't caused by gluten intolerance? That's unpossible!

That was caused by vaccinations.

[Admiral Yi]

That was caused by excessive topless eye crossing.

[garbon]

[CountDeMoney]

Well, celiac disease would still exist.

Probably the result of vaccinations.

[celedhring]

I was completely unaware of this gluten hysteria, I guess sometimes it pays to live in a backwaterish country. The US is almost always the patient zero for this kind of stuff.

[The Larch]

I was completely unaware of this gluten hysteria, I guess sometimes it pays to live in a backwaterish country. The US is almost always the patient zero for this kind of stuff.

You mean besides celiacs, right? If you buy stuff at Mercadona everything is gluten free there. 

[celedhring]

Yeah, I have a couple celiac friends. I mean it crossing over to non-celiac people.

[Razgovory]

I'm only vaguely aware what Gluten is.  It's a protein chain found in bread isn't it?  I'm unsure why this is suddenly a scary thing.

[alfred russel]

Not surprising.  Right after the obsession with peanut allergies seemed to die down, suddenly we were hearing all this gluten shit.  I wonder what the next food mass hysteria will be?

What has always gotten me about the gluten stuff is that those of us of European descent had ancestors that basically lived off of bread. Peanuts; that is one thing. Gluten doesn't seem so likely.