
The Myth of Big, Bad Gluten - aaronbrethorst
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/opinion/sunday/the-myth-of-big-bad-gluten.html
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smartial_arts
Previous discussion here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9833375](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9833375)

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jpatokal
Re: Karelia, this isn't _quite_ as neat an example as the article makes you
think: the vast majority of the native Finnish/Karelian population either
migrated to Finland or died in Stalin's gulags, and was replaced by immigrants
from elsewhere in the Soviet Union. According to the latest census (2010),
under 10% of the current population identifies as "Karelian" or "Finn".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Karelia#Ethnic_gro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Karelia#Ethnic_groups)

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dvogel
I don't think the article was trying to claim that the population there is
genetically different. I read the Karelia passage as arguing that people all
over the world have developed fantastically aggressive immune systems that
will activate in response to gluten if not given a better target, such as the
fecal born pathogens common in Karelian life.

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zer00eyz
The immune response theory seems to be cropping up in a lot of places, I
didn't expect to see it here as well.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_parasitic_worms_on_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_parasitic_worms_on_the_immune_system#Effects_of_parasitic_worms)
is another good starting point if your interested.

I can't even fathom how you would test some of these ideas. I could understand
an argument that a parasite isn't that much different than chemotherapy (a
poison).

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aaronbrethorst
immune dysfunction, internal inflammation, and allergic responses seem to be
pretty much synonymous from everything I've personally experienced and read. I
pretty much just came down with celiac out of nowhere about 7 years ago. No
rhyme or reason to it, it just happened one day. I can't think of anything
different I'd done in the time leading up to it, outside of working the most
stressful four years of my life at Microsoft. As long as I keep wheat and
other sources of gluten out of my diet, I'm totally fine. But, it does raise
the question: what happened to me?

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nier
If the little amount of negative or positive stress can make your heart beat
faster or blush your face, when you fall in love or said something stupid,
imagine what years of stress can do to your body.

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fauigerzigerk
_> "Here’s the lesson: Adaptation to a new food stuff can occur quickly — in a
few millenniums in this case. So if it happened with milk, why not with
wheat?"_

Maybe because not being able to digest milk affected the procreation rate more
than irritable bowel syndrome.

If my understanding of evolution is correct, the whole idea of adaptation as
used in this article is a bit misleading. We the species don't adapt to
anything unless it kills us before we the individuals can procreate.

The article goes on mixing up benefits and drawbacks to individuals and
benefits and drawbacks to us as a species. Each individual either does or does
not have the genes against specific deadly pathogens. Eating more or less
wheat doesn't change that. So if someone suffers from gluten intolerance,
avoiding it doesn't hurt.

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V-2
On a light-hearted note ;) [https://youtu.be/n5KpeRt-
LmY](https://youtu.be/n5KpeRt-LmY)

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kubiiii
About comparing with the ability to digest lactose, the big difference it is
notably "easier" for evolution to keep in adulthood a gene that exists in 100%
of children than to come up randomly with something that would allow digesting
something new. It would come in handy to digest cellulose, and would have
avoided many famins yet we still can't.

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dynomight
How are we to know the percentage of celiac sufferers in the past compared to
now when the methods we have to diagnose are difficult at best. Also celiac is
'under the radar' of many physicians and many modern cases go undiagnosed
(myself until this year).

The writer made many good points but, in my experience, should probably have
done more research in this area.

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c3534l
tldr; latest fad diet is bullshit

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Qantourisc
Diet fat? Yes. Myth? No, not for some people I'm afraid.

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V-2
_Some_ being the operative word :) Surely there are people unfortunate enough
to genuinely suffer from gluten-intolerance, but this is not what gluten-
blaming fanatics tell you; they think avoiding gluten is some universal, set-
in-stone dietary commandment, and they find hard to imagine there could be any
subtleties to the subject at all. Comes in package with preachy / self-
obsessed attitude

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jevgeni
What?! Subtleties to the subject?! Don't talk crazy, now! /s

