With all the news about gluten and gluten-free diets, you may be wondering if gluten intolerance might be behind your weight gain.
The answer is that, yes, if your body can’t process gluten, you may have many problems with weight gain, among others. However, weight gain isn’t as common as weight loss.
With gluten intolerance, your body has trouble absorbing the protein gluten found in wheat, barley, and rye. And as you continue to eat these foods, you may start to have a wide array of digestive problems – weight gain being one of them.
Gluten intolerance can also cause gas, cramping, bloating, diarrhea, and constipation. The symptoms you experience will be individual, so one of the best ways to discover whether or not you’re tolerant to gluten is to eliminate gluten from your diet and see if the symptoms subside.
Many people find that a gluten-free diet can promote weight loss and better digestive health. The main reason for this is that foods that are high in gluten also tend to be high in refined sugars, fats, and artificial ingredients.
However, if you continue to eat gluten and you have an intolerance, you could actually end up having problems with too much weight loss. This isn’t the kind that helps you shape up for summer – it’s the kind that sends you to the hospital and makes you very ill.
Gluten intolerance can make it impossible for your body to absorb nutrients from your food. Vitamin deficiencies can arise if your body isn’t able to absorb them from the food you eat. You might also develop inflammation in your gut and elsewhere in your body, which can lead to problems with autoimmune diseases.
Yes, gluten intolerance can also exacerbate problems such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, and other auto-immune disorders because it causes inflammation in your body. It can even cause a severe allergic reaction called celiac disease.
While weight loss is the more common than weight gain with gluten intolerance, if you’re overweight and switch to a gluten-free diet you’ll likely lose weight. You’ll definitely receive relief from digestive problems that are ailing you.
When you remove gluten from your diet, you’ll likely replace it with healthy fruits, vegetables, proteins, and other whole grains that are gluten-free. When you do this, you’ll likely lower your caloric intake and naturally have weight loss.
Many people find that a gluten-free diet helps with weight loss and also improves overall health. If you’ve wondered can a gluten intolerance lead to weight gain, you may want to try eating gluten-free to get the results you desire.
