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Wheat Sensitivity

When Kathy Pothier began eating gluten-free in 2012, some friends thought it was an inconvenience. So Pothier -- determined to see if the diet could relieve her painful arthritis symptoms, stiff neck, and headaches -- took her own food when she visited for dinner.

Because the 47-year-old landscaper from Amesbury, MA, doesn't have celiac disease or wheat allergy, her friends dismissed her diet as the latest fad. But Pothier says that going gluten-free gave her relief from her pain. "When I stopped [gluten], it all went away within 3 months," she says.

Emerging research is suggesting that some people without a diagnosis of either celiac disease or wheat allergy may indeed be wheat-sensitive -- and the gluten may not be what’s causing their problems. They may have bloating, pain, gas, and diarrhea that are hallmark symptoms of celiac disease. Or they may also have headaches and inflammatory symptoms like Pothier’s.

“I think there is now enough data to say that there are people out there who do have symptoms that are related to either wheat or gluten who are not [diagnosed with] celiac and not classic wheat allergy," says Joseph Murray, MD, a professor of medicine and gastroenterology at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN.

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Celiac is diagnosed with a blood test or intestinal biopsy; wheat allergies are diagnosed with a skin or blood test. Until about 5 years ago, if people were not diagnosed with either, they were told they had no reason to be on a gluten-free diet, says Alessio Fasano, MD, director of the Center for Celiac Research and Treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Since then, he says, study after study has found evidence that non-celiac gluten sensitivity may, indeed, be real.

"People have dismissed non-celiac gluten sensitivity as a fad," says William F. Balistreri, MD, a doctor at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "But there may well be an immunologic basis" for it, he says.


And the protein gluten may not be the whole story, Murray and others say. Some people could be reacting to other components in the wheat.

"Wheat is a very complicated organism," Murray says. Experts now say there may be several subgroups of people with wheat sensitivity, each reacting to a different part of the wheat.