I'm Peter Green I'm the director of the
celiac disease Center at Columbia
University we're not sure why a
gluten-free diet has become so popular
but of all the diets if you look at the
diet such as veganism organic food
low-carb South Beach diet paleo diet etc
they don't have the medical legitimacy
that a gluten-free diet has a
gluten-free diet is prescribed as a
treatment for celiac disease also
there's a lot of Mythology that's going
on there are several books that tell
that gluten is the source of all evil
causing autoimmunity causing dementia
and brain issues and responsible for us
being obese big belly's wheat berries
and there's very little scientific
evidence to support the benefit of a
gluten-free diet in anything except
celiac disease so celiac disease is an
autoimmune disease that occurs in
genetically predisposed individuals that
develop this immune response to gluten
which is a term for the storage protein
of wheat rye and barley and it's
actually very common it occurs in about
1% of the population which makes it one
of the most common autoimmune
genetically determined conditions but in
this country only about 20% of the
individuals with celiac disease are
actually diagnosed now in the time that
celiac disease has been noted to
increase for gluten-free diet has become
very popular more than twice that
percentage like 2 to 3 percent of the
population are actually avoiding gluten
the people who avoid gluten or pee wax
people who avoid gluten we don't know
why they are doing that so it's a very
trendy dose of popular diet
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