Gluten-free diets are one of the few that doctors actually prescribe. So why are so many Americans following it? Peter Green, the director of Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University, explains the myths surrounding gluten-free diets.

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Following is the transcript of the video:

I’m Peter Green. I'm the director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University.

We’re not sure why a gluten-free diet has become so popular but of all the diets if you look at the diets such as veganism, organic food, low carb, South Beach Diet, paleo diet, etc they don't have the medical legitimacy that a gluten-free diet has.

A gluten-free diet is prescribed as a treatment for celiac disease.

Also, there’s a lot of mythology that's going on.

There are several books that tout that gluten is the source of all evil, causing autoimmunity, causing dementia and brain issues, and responsible for us being obese, big bellies, wheat bellies, and there's very little scientific evidence to support the benefit of a gluten-free diet in anything except celiac disease.

So, celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that occurs in genetically predisposed individuals that develop this immune response to gluten which is the term for the storage protein of wheat, rye, and barley and it's actually very common.

It occurs in about 1% of the population which makes it one of the most common autoimmune genetically-determined condition but in this country, only about 20% of the individuals with celiac disease are actually diagnosed.

Now, in the time that celiac disease has been noted to increase, a gluten-free diet has become very popular.

More than twice that percentage, like 2-3% of the population are actually avoiding gluten and we not sure why that is.

The people who avoid gluten or PWAGs “people who avoid gluten”, we don’t know why they are doing that, so it's a very trendy diet, it's a popular diet.

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