When I wrote Celiac: The Trendy Disease For Rich White People, it made a lot of people mad. Not actual celiac patients, they knew where I was coming from, but rather the fad diet contingent who put up websites linking to articles claiming wheat causes vaccines and what-not.
When even sites like The Daily Beast, who are almost Dr. Oz-ish in their willingness to embrace pseudoscience, note that the gluten-free thing is not helping a whole lot of people and harming some, this particular fad diet movement is officially dead.
Rachel Krantz writes: "...some doctors worry that a growing number of people are diagnosing themselves with a gluten allergy in order to have a socially acceptable method to lose weight. Or even worse, to mask an eating disorder."
and
"But researchers estimate that some 80 percent of Americans currently going gluten-free do not have celiac disease."
And their friends know it, and people in society know it, and as I noted, that puts real celiac patients at risk, because the public will assume it is a diet fad and perhaps not obey the obvious food issues it brings. Actual celiac patients are not a $4 billion a year industry but fad diets are.
Now maybe those people can go back to the martini diet or the paleo diet or maybe latch onto whatever trend is next.
When Going Gluten-Free Is Dangerous by Rachel Krantz, The Daily Beast
