If you listened to my podcast with Dr. Peter Osborne from the other week you’ll know that I was taking a genetic test to find whether or not I was gluten sensitive.
Well the results came back the other day and I am.
Dr. Osborne stated that about 30% of the population are gluten sensitive. That’s almost one in three people.
I also had my girlfriend tested. She has been diagnosed with a fairly rare auto-immune disorder called Sjogren’s Syndrome. Since there is a big correlation between auto-immunity problems and gluten sensitivity I was willing to bet she’d come back positive. And she did.
For myself I wasn’t sure either way. I thought maybe, but maybe not.
I’m quite healthy by most measures, although I haven’t seen a doctor in years I do a variety of tests, like this one, to seek to improve my health. Check out these articles about my previous blood tests, omega fatty acids and hair mineral analysis for more details.
But I do not have the best digestion in the world. This was one of the reasons I did a parasite cleanse awhile back. Although I had some interesting experiences with that, it didn’t seem to help much with the few symptoms I noticed that led me to think that parasites could be my problem.
Gluten causes gut permeability in people that are sensitive to it. Recent research shows that it causes brain damage too (brain permeability)!
Thus my digestive problems, while not major, have been present so I thought that gluten might be an issue for me.
Doing the test was the only way to know for sure. And now its confirmed.
I have another hypothesis too, having to do with hardgainers. I’ve always been a skinny guy. I’m still fairly thin despite my strength as I’m the classic ectomorph. I have no data on this one way or another but I’d be willing to bet that there is some correlation between gluten sensitivity and being a hard gainer.
There are people that train and eat tons of food that don’t put on muscle easily. This is likely because the food is not being properly assimilated in the body, one cause of which can be gluten and the gut being permeable. While other people put on muscle easily if you can’t properly digest your food its going to cause problems and make it difficult to do, on top of causing health issues now or down the road.
While all my past attempts at gaining weight failed I recently got up to 200 lbs for a very short time, up from my regular 185. But this was quite the process and was done with willpower, as my digestive symptoms increased during that time. I had some grains and bread while feasting although that wasn’t my main focus. Within some time of getting the scale up to 200 lbs. I went back to the 185 range.
Being gluten sensitive is good to know. Now it’s a matter of shifting my diet away from all grains.
Synchronistically, a telesummit on gluten is just about to start featuring 30 experts on various topics. I’m signed up and ready to learn.
Also if you want to get yourself tested for gluten sensitivity, via your genes which is more accurate than your blood, then go here.
Since this is going to be important for my health and training in the future, I’ll be updating you on my gluten-free journey from time to time.