Symptoms of Wheat Intolerance

Wheat or substances that contain the wheat protein called gluten, such as wheat-containing flour, bread, cakes, stuffings, pasta, and so on, appear frequently on the list of substances people cannot tolerate. Gluten is present also in rye, oats, and barley.

Symptoms of wheat intolerance are malabsorption, weight loss, loss of fat in the stools. and often diarrhea and bloating. A chronic skin condition, dermatitis herpetiformis, known as Duhring's disease, may also be associated with sprue or sprue-like changes in the small intestine. The striking point here is that removal of gluten from the diet leads to prompt restoration of health and the disappearance of wheat intolerance symptoms.

The diagnosis rests not only on the good effect of withdrawing gluten from the diet, but on the fact that biopsies of the small intestinal lining reveal marked abnormalities that return to normal as the individual's health improves. In a few cases, people with sprue need to remove lactose from their diets as well. Very rarely, even removal of these two major offenders is not enough, and other substances such as chicken and eggs must be eliminated from the diet as well.

We still don't know whether the symptoms of wheat intolerance is purely an allergic reaction or is also in part a toxic chemical reaction. Before the discovery in the 1960s of wheat's role in sprue, this disorder was treated with cortisone that suppressed a presumed immunological inflammation in the intestine wall. Unlike sprue, mild wheat intolerance does not inflame the cell lining of the intestine, but it does cause intestinal symptoms such as bloating, gas, distention, and even diarrhea. There is no laboratory test to prove this condition, only the reactions of the individual to repeated attempts to eat wheat or wheat-containing foodstuffs.