Key Takeaways
- Going gluten-free is often just the first step. You may also need to repair damage and look for cross-reactive foods.
- Many gluten-free products contain cross-reactive ingredients like yeast, rice, corn, potato starch, and tapioca.
- Testing through Cyrex Labs gives an answer much faster than eliminating foods one at a time.
You tried a gluten-free diet and still felt horrible. Dr. Parsons understands firsthand: she's gluten-free herself and has had to go down this road personally. In this video, she explains a hidden layer that may be keeping you sick, and why testing is the fastest way to find it.
Going Gluten-Free Is Often Just the First Step
For many people, Dr. Parsons says, it's not enough to just remove gluten. You also have to repair the damage, and you may need to look at another layer: gluten cross-reactive foods.
Why Some Foods Act Like Gluten
Certain foods don't contain gluten, but their amino acid sequences are similar enough that a confused immune system reacts as if you'd eaten gluten.
Where These Foods Hide in a Gluten-Free Diet
Many cross-reactive foods are staples of gluten-free products, which is why switching to gluten-free versions doesn't always help. Dr. Parsons gives examples:
- Instant coffee, which can trigger a cross-reactive response
- Dairy, including the whey many people use in protein shakes, and milk chocolate
- Gluten-free sourdough bread that contains yeast
- Oats, millet, rice, and corn in gluten-free grains and baked goods
- Potato starch and tapioca, common in chips, crackers, and gluten-free, dairy-free cheeses
- Soy, one of the top allergens in the United States
- Raw eggs (cooked eggs may be fine, since cooking changes the protein)
For the full list of cross-reactive foods, see Still Gluten-Free But Still Sick? Cross-Reactive Foods You're Missing.
Why Testing Beats Trial and Error
You could try eliminating each of these foods one at a time for the right length of time and then reintroducing it. But Dr. Parsons points out that this process would take a very long time. Instead, she uses a test from Cyrex Labs that checks for reactions to all of these foods, so you get certainty and can get on a true healing path sooner.
If you've tried a gluten-free diet without much change, The Natural Path Health Center in Fresno can help you sort through it. Learn more about how we help with gluten sensitivity.
Read the full video transcript
Attention, all of you who have tried a gluten-free diet and still felt horrible. I might help you connect the dots, because you might fall into the category of someone suffering with gluten-associated cross-reactive foods and sensitivities. I'm Dr. Mikell Suzanne Parsons, founder of the Natural Path Health Center, and I am a gluten-free person, and I've had to go down this road myself. For many people, it's not just pulling out those gluten-based foods. You also have to repair the damage, but you also may need to look at another layer. There are certain foods that do not contain gluten, but your body acts as if you've been eating it. What? That's because the amino acid sequencing that makes up these foods is just similar enough to make your confused immune system think that you're actually eating gluten. Now, this first row (rye, barley, spelt, Polish wheat) are gluten-containing foods. But this next one, instant coffee, right? Instant coffee can have a cross-reactive response. So if you are an instant coffee drinker, you might want to pull that out and see if you do better. Now, there's gliadin. Gliadin is one of many, many different proteins found in wheat, barley, and rye. But these are foods where the immune system gets confused and thinks you've eaten gluten. A lot of them are dairy-based: cow's milk, alpha-casein, beta-casein, casomorphin, whey (a lot of you like whey shakes), and milk chocolate, because of the dairy in the chocolate, not because of the chocolate itself. Yeast, which is in a lot of gluten-free things. Oats, millet, rice, and corn. When you're going from gluten to gluten-free foods, these are common grains that are in all of those products. So you might be off the wheat bread and now you're on to a gluten-free sourdough bread, but it's got yeast in it. Or maybe there are some oats and millet, and you're still feeling yucky. This could be why. Now, when we switch to a gluten-free diet, we often overconsume, because we don't want to feel deprived, and there are plenty of yummy things available, especially if you go to the bakery Indulge. But buckwheat, sorghum, hemp, sesame, amaranth, quinoa, tapioca, teff, and potato are also in a lot of those gluten-free products, and they can act as if you've had gluten. Potato, as in potato starch, is in a lot of those foods, and so is tapioca. Tapioca is in a lot of chips and crackers and gluten-free, dairy-free cheeses. So if you went off the gluten, started eating some of these things, and still felt bad, there's the reason why. And common antigenic foods would be soy. Soy is one of the top five allergens in the United States, so a lot of you already have issues with soy. And egg white and egg yolk that are raw. The cooking process changes the protein makeup. So you might not want to do raw eggs, which I don't really recommend you do anyway, but cooked, you might be fine. So if you are in that category where you tried a gluten-free diet and it didn't make much of a change, you may want to consider coming in so I can help you weed through this, because there is a test from Cyrex Labs that looks for all of this. So you can just know. It would take you forever to try to eliminate each one of these foods for the appropriate time and then reintroduce it. You can do that, but it's going to take you a long time, and you want certainty. And we are in a society where we don't like to wait. So why wait? Come in. Let's run the test. Let's have certainty, so we can get your body truly on a healing path and you can enjoy your life. Talk to you soon.
Dr. Mikell Suzanne Parsons, DC, CCN, DACBN, DACNB
Dr. Mikell Suzanne Parsons, DC, CCN, DACBN, DACNB is a Doctor of Chiropractic, certified clinical nutritionist, and brain wellness expert with 34+ years serving Fresno families at The Natural Path Health Center.
Learn More About Dr. Parsons
