Does A Gluten-Free Diet Help You Lose Weight?

Let me be perfectly clear. I do not eat gluten, dairy and corn because I get sick when I eat gluten, dairy or corn. I try to eat healthy but I do occasionally go on benders where I get gluten-free cookies or dairy-free ice cream or other sugary treats.

So I have never really subscribed to the theory that no one should eat gluten. Yeah, its hard to digest and its not a natural part of the diet of any primates, and I don’t think it should be a big part of a human diet, but do I think that most people need to scan every label for trace gluten? No.

That said, there was a study that seemed to indicate that gluten can play a role in making mice fat. It’s not quite the role that MSG plays, and its one study, and its mice, but if you are struggling with weight that will not come off, then this might be of interest.

You see when they use lab mice they can measure food and calorie intake. The mice cannot run off to the mini-mart and secretly eat a bunch of candy. The mice eat what they are fed and in this case one batch of mice was fed gluten and fatty food and one batch was just fed fatty food, but the calories were the same. The mice who got all of their calories from gluten-free mouse chow were thin and had less insulin resisitance. The mice who ate gluten containing mouse chow got chubby and increased their insulin resistance.

Now before you go out and say that you will now avoid gluten so you can be thin, there are a few things worth noting.

1) Corn may be just as bad as gluten. They have not done a rice or corn vs gluten chow off. The mice got the additional calories from fat.

2) Gluten avoidance needs to be complete or not at all – I wish that you could just go on a bender on Fridays but it appears that having pizza one day a week is not much of an improvement from having pizza all the time. You either do it all the time or you don’t do it at all.

So, I am not sure that I would give up gluten to lose a few cosmetic pounds but if you have struggled with obesity and eliminated MSG, you may want to give it a try. If nothing else, eating gluten free does require a level of mindfulness about eating.