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Home > Revolution Health Radio > RHR: Could Gluten-Free Diets Be Harmful?
Podcast: Revolution Health Radio
Episode:

RHR: Could Gluten-Free Diets Be Harmful?
Category: Health
Duration: 00:21:25
Publish Date: 2017-04-20 18:06:33
Description:

revolution health radio

In this episode, we discuss:
  • Correlation does not equal causation
  • The problem with confounding factors
  • Rice flour lacks fermentable fiber
  • Fiber intake on Paleo-type diets
  • How the media is guilty of oversimplification
  • Why rice flour can also lead to higher arsenic levels
  • Reducing intake of refined flours of any kind is key
[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thehealthyskeptic/RHR_Could_Gluten-Free_Diets_Be_Harmful.mp3" title="RHR: Could Gluten-Free Diets Be Harmful?" artist="Chris Kresser" ] Chris Kresser: Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. This week we have a question from Pam. Actually, several people sent this question in, but I just chose Pam's version of it and I think it will address everybody's question on this topic. Let's give it a listen. Pam: Hi, Chris. My name is Pam Grover. I'm a functional medicine doctor in Rochester, New York. I'm calling to ask a question that was posed by my patient a few days ago. She was doing some research and found an article written on the University of Wisconsin website that stated patients who followed a gluten-free diet could possibly be causing low good bacteria and putting themselves at risk for nutrient deficiencies. I myself have found that patients who follow gluten-free diets have a lot of benefit from that. And with the right nutritional guidance, they do not get nutritional deficiencies and also they can maintain good levels of lactobacilli. However you have always been a great resource of knowledge for the rest of us and I thought I would pose the question to you so you can shed some more light on the situation. Chris: Okay. Thanks again, Pam, for sending that question in as well as everybody else who sent similar questions. This is really a great example of the inherent problems with nutrition research because the study suffers from many of the problems that we see in this type of research, including confounding factors and healthy user bias. We've talked about “healthy user bias” many times before. For example, if a study finds that people who eat more red meat have higher rates of cancer or heart disease, does that mean that red meat is actually causing that increased risk of cancer or heart disease? If you've been reading my blog or listening to my podcast for any length of time, you know that the answer to that question is no, or at least we can't be sure that the answer to that question is yes. That's a more accurate way of putting it. We would need more information to be able to draw a causal link between those two factors.

Correlation does not equal causation

Unfortunately, when you see media reports of studies like this, the headlines and even the articles themselves ...
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