6 ways gluten can secretly ruin your life

Gluten, a group of proteins found in wheat, rye and barley, directly threatens the health of more than 2 million Americans who unknowingly suffer celiac, an autoimmune disease.

For these people, continuing to eat gluten can lead to intolerable symptoms and become life-threatening.

But even if you don’t have celiac disease, gluten can be problematic — even dangerous…

Scientists don’t completely understand why some people seem to react badly to gluten while others apparently tolerate it. And medical researchers are still busy trying to clarify exactly how gluten does its damage in the human body.

But the fact of the matter is some people will go years, even decades, suffering with strange or intolerable symptoms that they can’t pin down, including obvious digestive problems but also symptoms that seem far-removed from diet, like inability to concentrate, frequent headaches and fatigue.

This makes it easy to see why there is a big question mark surrounding gluten, especially when doctors are less likely to advise on anything that they can’t slap a diagnosis on. If you suspect gluten could be at the root of your problems, you may have to do some digging on your own.

Start by weeding through these most common myths that people believe about gluten…