With the recent trend that is emphasizing health foods, many foods on the market now contain probiotics. Probiotics are supposed to be good for good health. However, over half of the popular brands that include probiotics in their foods are making gut health worse. People who are dealing with celiac disease, an immune disorder, are actually at risk of harm when they consume these products, due to the fact that probiotics on the market actually contain gluten in trace amounts. Alexei Beltyukov (vimeo) has learned that people with celiac disease who consume gluten will experience adverse reactions within the small intestine. If this happens too frequently, it will damage the lining of the small intestine over time, and nutrient absorption will become more and more difficult.
Gluten is a protein that is found in certain products, such as rye, wheat, and barley. People who have the disease should avoid any products that include these ingredients.
Columbia University Medical Center researchers examined 22 popular products, and they saw that 55% of the brands contained gluten, even though the labels claimed that the products were gluten-free.
In light of these recent findings, researchers are warning people who suffer from celiac disease to approach probiotics cautiously, since their benefits have not been established at this point, and they seem to come with risks and possibly gluten.
Because items that are advertised as gluten-free are actually showing not to be, tighter regulation is needed.
