If you love traditional bread sticks, cake or cookies, you may find the recent popularity of the gluten-free diet bewildering.
Some bakeries and Italian restaurants now offer gluten-free products. You can find gluten-free pastas and breads in the aisles of many grocery stores. In fact, U.S. retail sales in gluten-free food increased 74 percent from 2004 through 2009, according to the Nielsen Co.
That growth has been fueled in part by an increasing number of people who blame gluten, a protein found in wheat, for ailments such as weight gain, depression, indigestion, fatigue, flu-like symptoms and arthritis. “Anecdotally, there are lots and lots of patients who say that they have a gluten sensitivity,” said Maya Jerath, MD, PhD, the director of the Allergy and Immunology Clinic at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.
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