This is part of a series I’ve been creating for Azumio. Azumio is an app company dedicated to improve health and wellness by tracking sleep and steps, monitoring your glucose levels and heart rate, and providing exercise libraries and routines.
More and more people are talking about gluten, celiac disease and ditching gluten, wheat and grains all together with paleo, Whole30 and the newly popular ketogenic diet.
What is Gluten?
Gluten is a protein found in wheat. It’s a key component to giving breads and baked goods an elastic and fluffy quality, which can be difficult to reproduce without it. Besides being found in wheat and wheat products, it’s in a lot of packaged and processed foods that may or may not be obvious when you’re at grocery store or eating out.
Why Can it be an Issue?
Gluten can be cause a wide range of problems for people. People with celiac disease have an autoimmune response to gluten, meaning their immune system sees the proteins that break down from gluten as invaders and attack it. Gluten can also cause inflammation, digestive issues, skin issues, and issues with the flora in your gut.
Avoiding gluten can clear up these issues and help give your digestive system a bit of break and allow it to heal. If you haven’t been diagnosed with a gluten allergy or intolerance but think gluten could be causing problems for you, try removing gluten from your diet for at least a month before slowly reintroducing it. You can work with a nutritionist, naturopath, or other health professional to get more guidance if you need it.
Learn more about which foods have gluten in them at Azumio’s blog.