Abstract
People suffering from a food intolerance (FI) tend to initiate restrictive diets such as a gluten-free diet (GFD), to alleviate their symptoms. To learn about how people live with these problems in daily life (independent of their medical diagnoses), 1203 participants answered a previously validated questionnaire and were divided into: G1 (those self-reporting symptoms after gluten consumption) and G2 (those informing no discomfort after gluten consumption). Self-reported clinical characteristics, diagnoses and diets followed were registered. Twenty nine percent referred some FI (8.5% in G1). In G1, self-reported diagnoses were more frequent (p < 0.0001), including a high proportion of eating and mood disorders. Diagnoses were reported to be given by a physician, but GFD was indicated by professional and nonprofessional persons. In G2, despite declaring no symptoms after gluten consumption, 11.1% followed a GFD. The most frequent answer in both groups was that GFD was followed “to care for my health”, suggesting that some celiac patients do not acknowledge it as treatment. Conclusion: close to one third of the population report suffering from some FI. Those perceiving themselves as gluten intolerant report more diseases (p < 0.0001). A GFD is followed by ~11% of those declaring no symptoms after gluten ingestion. This diet is perceived as a healthy eating option.
Highlights
Eating is one of the primary and fundamental activities that human beings do to remain alive.During the last century, eating habits in the population have changed drastically and this coincides with relevant changes in the patterns of disease being observed [1,2]
In this study, using a real-life approach, we show that close to one third (29%) of the adult population interviewed declared to suffer from Food intolerance (FI) and modified their diet to alleviate their symptoms
The available evidence shows that this high percentage of positive cases decreases to 1–2% when diagnosed by a double-blind placebo-controlled food challenge [14], these results are relevant to understanding what people think about their health, what they believe and how they modify their daily life
Summary
Eating is one of the primary and fundamental activities that human beings do to remain alive.During the last century, eating habits in the population have changed drastically and this coincides with relevant changes in the patterns of disease being observed [1,2]. Some being related to what and in what quantity people choose to eat and how foods are processed. Food intolerance (FI) is defined as an adverse reaction to food with or without immune participation. It has broad gastrointestinal and extraintestinal clinical manifestations and its frequency seems to be increasing [2,3,4], in occasions being described in up to 20% of the population [3,5]. A gluten-free diet (GFD) is one of the diets patients currently choose, following their perceptions and often without being diagnosed with gluten-related conditions [8,9].
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