Do you think that gluten, lactose, or {insert supposed food intolerance here} is really just a fad?

fb47

I find Keto and IF to be a major fad. I find people embark in diets not because they enjoy it, but because "they heard this from <insert_some_doctor's_name>" claim miracle weight loss or heard from people that it works for them instead of doing those diets because they enjoy it. Many of them embark in these fat loss journey with the rejection of the notion of CICO and put too much faith in diets. As for Gluten, I saw the news talk about it and interview people and the answer many were saying in general "We're not gluten intolerant, but we buy these products, because everyone is doing it these days" :roll_eyes: . In general, humans like to mimic other humans, it's nature I guess.

nvmomketo

fb47 wrote: »

I find Keto and IF to be a major fad. I find people embark in diets not because they enjoy it, but because "they heard this from <insert_some_doctor's_name>" claim miracle weight loss or heard from people that it works for them instead of doing those diets because they enjoy it. Many of them embark in these fat loss journey with the rejection of the notion of CICO and put too much faith in diets. As for Gluten, I saw the news talk about it and interview people and the answer many were saying in general "We're not gluten intolerant, but we buy these products, because everyone is doing it these days" :roll_eyes: . In general, humans like to mimic other humans, it's nature I guess.

IF and keto aren't food intolerances, although keto can be used to treat carbohydrate intolerance/insulin resistance. Both are very popular right now though, so I suppose you could call it fad or even a trend.

shaumom

Carry_That_Weight wrote: »

Now, gluten really does seem (to me) to be blown out of proportion. Also, I doubt a lot of the religiously gluten-free crowd would recognize this distinction between allergy and intolerance.

As a small defense of gluten free folks not understanding difference between intolerances and allergies - that's in large part because the experts, aka the doctors, by and large have REALLY screwed it up when it comes to celiac disease and gluten intolerance. And if they can't get it right, how is a layperson supposed to, at least without a huge amount of research?

Because first, you have celiac disease, named during WWII, a time when all the docs knew was that it involved a food and the immune system. So...must be an allergy, right? And that's where the term 'gluten allergy' came from: an incorrect naming of a disease before it was completely understood (There actually IS no such thing as a gluten allergy - gluten is a collective name for more than one protein. So person can be allergic to all the proteins that are included under the gluten umbrella, but it'd be more accurate to say someone had a 'wheat, rye, and barley' allergy).

The problem is, some doctors STILL call celiac disease a gluten allergy today, when telling their patients what they are diagnosed with, so many people start to think that celiac disease is a gluten allergy, when it's not.

And many doctors will use the term 'celiac disease' and 'gluten intolerance' interchangeably, when again, they are not the same thing at all.

And then on top of that, with doctors sometimes calling celiac disease an allergy, and sometimes calling gluten intolerance celiac disease, it's not surprising that it has now become common to hear gluten allergy and gluten intolerance ALSO used interchangeably. Even by some of the doctors.

It's so bad that during one international meeting a few years back, that was discussing the disease, they were trying to standardize what to call celiac disease so that doctors would stop just tossing out whatever term they felt like.

So while I do find it really frustrating when people mix up intolerance and allergy, when it comes to gluten, I think there is a pretty good excuse for the layperson to be confused about the difference.

Carry_That_Weight

shaumom wrote: »

So while I do find it really frustrating when people mix up intolerance and allergy, when it comes to gluten, I think there is a pretty good excuse for the layperson to be confused about the difference.

That's certainly true. I live with a bunch of doctors. I know they can't specialize in everything - but they have no, none, zero training in nutrition, metabolism, etc outside of whatever specific disorders like diabetes they might have covered. And from conversations with them, while some medical schools are starting to incorporate it into their curricula, the vast majority don't. So they're stuck listening to whatever deluge of diet and nutrition information comes their way too, although I'm sure they have a better chemistry/biology background than the average person through which to filter that information.

Ya know, I was going to say more things but I think it basically comes down to science literacy being in a sorry state right now.

stanmann571

In defense of doctors, From the perspective of a patient. There are clinical and treatment differences between an allergy, an aversion, and an intolerance. Most notably that an epi pen won't help you if you've got a life threatening intolerance or aversion. But when it comes to things that are voluntarily put in your mouth, They are in fact the same. Just don't do it.

I have an aversion to NSAIDS. That matters to my allergist and to me. It doesn't matter at all when engaging with my GP for pain management. Aspirin-Nope can't take it, Motrin, Naproxen, etc. Nope.

anglyn1

It's also possible that people know what they have isn't truly an allergy but say allergy to the waiter because when restaurant staff hears allergic they think liability. When they hear intolerance they just think this special snowflake is on a fad diet, she'll never know the difference. I'm not condoning lying about something as serious as a food allergy just saying I know why some people do it.

CBD92

I can't speak for gluten intolerance. I'm on the fence with that one. But lactose intolerance is a very real thing and a lot more people are lactose intolerant than you'd think. Everyone produced lactase (the enzyme responsible for digesting lactose which is milk sugar) when they're babies and they produce a lot of it to help with digesting breast milk. As you get older, you produce less and less of it as the body no longer solely relies on milk. Some people still produce enough to digest lactose without causing any negative symptoms but others don't so it's very hard to digest anything with dairy. Lactose intolerance is very different than a dairy allergy, but still a very real thing and definitely not a fad.

VUA21

99% of the time: yes

There are people who have Celiac disease, who are truly lactose intolerant (I'm one of them, it sucks!!!!), and who have other food allergies/intolerances (nuts & shellfish are the most common).