Celebrities ranging from Oprah Winfrey to Miley Cyrus and of course, diagnosed celiac Elisabeth Hasselbeck maintain that they've lost weight gluten-free.
4 Reasons People Lose Weight When They Go Gluten Free | Fooducate
Based on those testimonials, plenty of people have adopted a gluten-free diet as a way to shed pounds. But does it really work? If you ask the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics formerly known as the American Dietetic Association , the answer is a firm "no"—according to the group, there's no proven use for the gluten-free diet beyond celiac disease , and "there is nothing special about a gluten-free diet that can help a person lose weight.
Despite that firm "no," there actually haven't been any studies considering whether people who eat gluten-free lose weight more readily than people who follow a different diet, although an academy representative speculated that people may lose weight when they eat gluten-free because they can't find as much food they can eat. However, there is , in fact, some evidence that eating gluten-free can help you lose weight, whether or not you actually have celiac disease. If you do have celiac, several medical studies note that celiacs who are overweight when they're diagnosed tend to lose weight when they go gluten-free.
But if you don't have the condition, gluten-free weight loss may still work for you. Cardiologist Dr. William Davis, the author of Wheat Belly, tells me he sees the same weight loss sparked by the gluten-free diet in people who don't have celiac disease: patients lose weight routinely—usually around 15 to 20 pounds in the first month—when they drop wheat from their diets. Is there something in wheat or gluten foods that causes people to overeat? There's no evidence one way or the other in medical studies. However, Dr. Davis says it's true based on his own unpublished research and experiences within his medical practice: people consume more calories overall when they eat wheat and tend to lose weight —sometimes lots of weight—when they drop wheat from their diets.
Studies have shown pretty conclusively that the gluten-free diet helps obese people who have celiac disease lose weight. Out of the entire group, 91 patients gained weight after starting the gluten-free diet—an average of about But another 25 patients lost an average of Another study that looked at people found weight tends to normalize on a gluten-free diet—in other words, if you're overweight, you'll tend to lose weight, while if you're underweight, you'll tend to gain some weight once you go gluten-free.
And a third study measured the number of calories consumed by people with celiac disease who followed the gluten-free diet compared to celiacs who cheated on the gluten-free diet and found those who cheated consumed an average of calories more each day than those who ate gluten-free.
That's about the equivalent of one extra Panera Bread cinnamon crunch bagel on a daily basis. Studies showing the gluten-free diet can lead to weight loss in some people with celiac disease don't apply to people without the condition, of course. Davis believes that eliminating wheat from your diet will lead to weight loss even if you don't have celiac disease—he says he's seen it happen in several thousand patients whom he has treated for cardiovascular disease.
He claims that many protein and starch compounds in wheat—not just the gluten protein—are harmful, and he routinely counsels his patients to drop all wheat products from their diets he emphasizes wheat—the most ubiquitous gluten grain—far more than barley or rye, which appear in relatively few food products. According to Dr.
5 Strategies for Gluten-Free Weight Loss Success
Davis, eating wheat stimulates your body to produce very high levels of insulin, the hormone that moves sugar from your bloodstream into your body's cells. High insulin levels cause your body to accumulate fat around your abdomen. When your body has lots of insulin circulating, it also can lead to feelings of low blood sugar, which makes you hungry.
You grab a quick snack frequently easily-digested carbohydrates like some crackers or a muffin and the cycle starts all over again. Davis believes that taking the wheat out of your diet can calm the cycle involving high insulin and low blood sugar , and almost always leads to the person consuming fewer calories, which in turn results in weight loss. Davis in an interview. Some of that is edema [i. It seems to be a selective loss in the abdomen, and there's a marked reduction in waist size.
Davis says that patients who lose the most weight are the ones who do not replace gluten-containing foods with lots of gluten-free food products, which tend to be high in calories and low in nutrients. Instead, the people who lose the most weight drop most or all grain-based products even gluten-free-labeled products plus sugar-based processed foods, he says. In his experience, those people also do the best from a heart disease risk point of view which is Dr. Davis' main focus. There's actually an interesting medical study that backs up Dr.
Davis' point of view on this. The study, published in in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry , found that mice following a high-fat gluten-free diet gained less weight and developed less fatty tissue than mice eating a glutenous high-fat diet. Minger, who is well-known in low-carb diet circles for her analysis of the China Study, took a look at what the data show about body mass index and wheat intake. If you're not familiar with the China Study, written by T. Colin Campbell, it's a book based on Campbell's long-term epidemiological study of diet and disease in people who live in 65 rural counties in China.
Keep in mind that the jury's still out on the Paleo diet—some experts warn that you'll be passing up valuable vitamins, fiber, and other nutrients if you skimp on foods like fruit, beans, and whole grain rice. Lots of people think they're gluten-free when they're really not gluten hides in many places you wouldn't suspect , and in some people, anecdotal evidence indicates even small amounts of wheat and gluten appear to curb weight loss when they're consumed on a regular basis.
There's no research on this, but if you're serious about trying to lose weight gluten-free, you may want to consider trying to eliminate all wheat and gluten. Davis warns, you may not completely stop the insulin response that keeps you from dropping the pounds. This could be the most important tip of all. Cutting the wheat and the gluten may help you lose weight more easily, but if you really want to accelerate your efforts, you're going to need to break a sweat.
Exercise can help you build more muscle and lose fat, and muscle burns more calories, helping you lose even more fat. Incorporate some good exercise and a little bit of calorie-counting, and you should be on your way to success. Following a gluten-free diet can be challenging. We're here to help.
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Diabetes Spectr. Marcason W. Is there evidence to support the claim that a gluten-free diet should be used for weight loss? J Am Diet Assoc. Marcason, W. Journal of the American Dietetic Association. Table of Contents View All. Does It Work?
Avoid Processed Foods. Be Truly Gluten-Free. Don't Forget Exercise. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Sign Up. What are your concerns? Article Sources.
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Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Davis, William. Wheat Belly.