Gluten Intolerance and Depression/anxiety

Sugar is a major culprit when it comes to depression. Before eliminating wheat products, I would eliminate sugar.
Here are a couple of website I found useful:

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/t045000.asp

http://www.healingdaily.com/detoxification-diet/sugar.htm

http://howtothinkthin.com/

I don't eat sugar M-F and it's helped me a lot with my depression issues.

My daughter is GF/CF due to Asperger's syndrom - one of the benefits is she no longer has anxiety - it's amazing, it really is. I also have noticed, less PMS symptoms, I don't feel as moody in general, I used to have joint pain and that's gone as well. I was tested and am negative for Celiac as well as my daughter. There are many, many health benefits to being gluten free to people that don't have Celiac. If you want info on getting started, let me know.

yes, it will help. Diet/food has a direct effect on how we feel. Depression and anxiety are commonly associated with blood sugar problems and a gluten free diet will help with that. But you have to understand what a true gluten free diet is. To truely go gluten free, you have to give up ALL store bought items and start cooking from scratch. Even mustard has gluten in it. Its not just wheat products that you have to give up to be gluten free. If you really want to feel better, then go vegan, or at least vegetarian. Eat only whole grain carbs like brown rice and baked/mashed sweet pototoes and even substitute some of the winter-type squash (acorn, butternut, spaghetti squash) for the carbs in your meals. Please cut out the sugars in your diet (soda pop, candies, etc), I think that will make the most difference to you. Also, avoiding caffiene will help. I personally went vegan and it has helped tremendously. Cutting out ALL dairy products was the best thing that I ever did. I hope this helps you. Also, you can go to the website, askdrweil.com. Dr. Andrew Weil is a doctor who has written a lot of books on how diet affects the health, and he is nationally recognized as an authority on the subject. There are other websites, but I will have to look them up first. Please get back to me if you have more questions about it.

You can get a blood test for celiac but it is not 100% accurate. The only accurate medical test would be a biopsy and that is just too invasive for most people. I would suggest that you eliminate gluten entirely from your diet for 2 to 3 weeks and then reintroduce it.

If you are gluten intollerant, you will feel absolutely crappy for the first couple of days that you are GF because you will be going through withdraw/detox and then you'll feel fabulous. Once you introduce gluten again though, you will feel worse than you did before you reintroduced it because you had cleaned out your system during that 3-weeks and it is now going to be reactive to the slightest bit of wheat protein that is reintroduced after that.

You depression and anxiety may also be linked to yeast overgrowth in our gut (candida) so you may want to investigate that issue as well.

I know this can all be very confusing but the books Ultra Wellness by Dr. Mark Hyman, and another Gut Solutions by I don't know who, are really great resources of information that I highly recommend you check out.

Hope you find the answer you are looking for and are feeling better soon.

Yes, cutting out the wheat and gluten helped my mental as well as my physical health. I've suffered for years from depression and anxiety, and first went gluten free a few years ago after the birth of my son. It was a miracle! The more research I did on the subject, the more I found out why it can affect the brain as well. Any time there is inflammation in the body (and with gluten intolerance, you usually have joint and intestinal inflammation) you can also get inflammation in the brain tissues. They're thinking this is why kids with autism do so well on the gluten free/casein free diets. My son does not have autism, but he is gluten intolerant, and he does so well on a GF diet!

I've taken my diet a bit further and decided to go all Paleo, which is basically the way primitive man ate before the invention of agriculture and farming. All grains, even rice, affects the health negatively. I feel really great now, and you can get more info at www.marksdailyapple.com. I eat great, meats, veggies, fruits, dairy, nuts, berries... try to limit your sugar because that is also a major factor for health issues.

Good luck! I know you'll feel much better going gluten free... plus you'll probably drop at least 15 pounds with no other changes or working out, and THAT will put you in a good mood. ;)

A lot of women quietly suffer from these symptoms and also go undiagnosed with thyroid problems. It is possible that your thyroid is also low causing hypothyroidism. When the hormones are low depression and a whole list of issues are caused by hypothyroidism. The undiagnosed problem is caused by the high and low scale of hormone that is measured by thousands of people so what a good level is for them may not be good for you. It is worth it to check it out.

Good Luck
Kim

I like all of the answers and information that you have already been given here. I have spent years doing research on gluten, food allergies, fibromyalgia, and other neurological related diseases. I have had food allergies my whole life, my mom has food allergies and so does my daughter. I have spent 8 years battling low thyroid and low adrenal output naturally. After my daughter was born 3 years ago, my symptoms increased, my allergies increased, and I was constantly in pain, had several anxiety attacks, several bouts of depression, just over all felt like poop. My Naturopath at the time suggested I try eliminating wheat and wheat gluten from my diet along with getting tested for celiac and getting retested for allergies. I tested negative to Celiac, but agreed to go on a GF diet for 30 days. Within a week I started to feel better and my GI tract felt better. At the end of 30 days I decided to stick with the GF diet.

Over the last 3 years my allergies continued to worsen and my Fibro pain continued to get worse. I switched my from Naturopath to a Integrative Health Specialist (a trained MD also trained in Holistic Medicine) for my Fibromyalgia. After trying a few different things and eliminating a few other things, we finally decided to get another allergy test done. Apparently most doctors only do the basic allergy test (the IgE) which tests only for immediate reactions. The new test I did covered the IgE, the IgA, and the IgG. And basically each ones tests for reactions over a different period of time. Found out that I am actually very allergic to wheat and gluten (mind you I had been 95% GF for over 2 years before taking the test), all dairy, and eggs. Once I removed wheat, dairy and eggs from my diet, I started to feel better.

I still have good and bad days, but I do notice immediately (like within an hour of eating) if I ate something I shouldn't have. The Fibropain comes on and my intestines feel unsettled.

So do I think there is a direct link to what you eat, how your body digests what you eat, and how your body reacts to what you eat...YES!

I really like the information given by Dr. Andrew Weil.
http://www.drweil.com/

First of all, Celiac is more than gluten intolerant. You can be gluten intolerant and not have Celiac. My son is wheat intolerant, there really is no test for it but through elimination we realized that he cannot have wheat. We are mainly GF because any packaged food he eats is GF. (What I need for his lunch box.) He is like a different child when he is off wheat. He is more even tempered, less prone to frustration, fewer mood swings, no constipation, and his attention is better among a few things. Being off gluten has changed our lives. When I have eaten a lot of bread or pasta for several days in a row I notice a difference in my stress levels, anxiety, and mood swings and poor digestion. I am not aware that I am gluten intolerant but if I rotate these food to once every three days I do not have the problems. Gluten affects us all more than we know. Life overall would be better if we went back old school and did not use packaged foods and made everything from scratch. If you can grow it you eat it, not fake it.

Try going GF, what do you have to lose? The depression and anxiety?

Hi Karin,

As many others have commented, gluten (really, the protein component gliadin) intolerance can contribute to a wide variety of symptoms. Some companies are now promoting testing for IgG or IgA to gluten as a sign of intolerance, but this is not well accepted in the medical community as yet -- more research needs to be done. However, IgG and IgA to gliadin have been directly linked to neurological manifestations of wheat intolerance, and a simple blood test is available on the IMMULITE immunoanalyzer. I'm not aware of any other commercial test, and I'm pretty sure that LabCorp and Quest Labs should be able to run this test if ordered by a physician.

Gliadin is actually toxic to about 3% of people of Middle Eastern, Northern European, and Southern European descent. Intolerance to it can take up to 25 years to diagnose, and is frequently missed altogether. It can contribute to a wide range of gastrointestinal, skin, and neurological derangements. My son has been placed on a gluten free diet (amongst a host of other foods) for his Crohn's disease, which has helped him tremendously, including with mood. I've applied the same diet to myself for IBS symptoms and have gotten tremendous relief, and feel I'm more emotionally peaceful, too.

All in all, trying such a diet is not difficult and not harmful. There are many products you can use to substitute for wheat products: rice breads and pasta, for example. It's worthwhile eliminating these from your diet for a least a month, and see if your emotional state improves. If you want to be a bit more scientific about it, look for a Quality of Life questionnaire on the internet. Take it before you start the diet, and then again (without looking at your original evaluation) after a month on a gluten-free diet. You can compare the results to see if there have been measurable improvements in your sense of well-being, and use that to decide if you will continue with the diet or not.

Best of luck to you -- I hope this or something else will be of help to you.

i don't know about the diet..but was just diagnosed with hypothyroid..and so i may need to eat more gluten free..ugh! but here's what i do for depression..i work out..i go to the gym 2 days a week ..when my son is at school..i do weights for about an hour maybe more ..then i do spin for 30 to 40 minutes..and i feel fabulous..its harder for hypothyroid people to workout b/c we're tired..which leads to depression but..if i get my butt to the gym or if i go for a long walk or run i feel great..the human body is not meant to just sit around..so exercise helps elevate mood..i'm in great shape from all this..you'd never know i was almost 46 and hypothyroid..
i suggest you start taking classes at a gym..its best to do weights and then cardio..
weight training also burns calories all day and night long after...and cardio is a mood enhancer ..
if you're feeling low..start with walking..find a cute place to walk..i like Elysian Park or Griffith Park..we now google hikes and go to lots of different hikes with waterfalls at the end of them..
we take our 4 year old son and little chihuahua to most..
I get low and my boyfriend tells me to go exercise..he can tell when its catching up to me..
and we all know dark chocolate is good for mood enhancing..be good to yourself...hope the diet works..but if you don't already exercise ..throw some exercising in.. :)

xo

D.

I am not a medical expert, so I would suggest that you still contact your physician on the final word concerning this subject; however, I can tell you what I have noticed from personal experience.

I have a friend who has a husband with both wheat allergy AND gluten intolerance (Celiac's). They have three children who all have Celiac's, but the children do not have the allergy to wheat - just the gluten.

They entire household is gluten-free. ALL food and food products that are brought into their home are gluten-free. As a result, when the family eats at home together, my friend eats gluten-free with her husband and children.

My friend does NOT have any dietary issues that prevent her from being able to consume wheat and/or gluten. When she goes for long periods of time eating a totally gluten-free diet, she becomes increasingly depressed, anxious, nervous, irritable, and agitated. Therefore, to combat the negative effects of the totally gluten-free diet, she MUST leave her home, and go out and eat some wheat/gluten containing foods. She does this about once a week, and the results are amazing.

Just my observations, and my two cents worth on the subject. I hope this helps you.

I went GF and CF (casein free) and no longer have PMS which caused terrible anxiety. I originally went on for ADHD and it helps that too. GO figure!

Karin,

There is "The Center for Advanced Medicine" in Encinitas that would be an excellent choice for looking at the issues you are describing ###-###-####. I would recommend first setting an appointment with Dr. Dave Nelson to have a biomeridian test done to tell you exactly what food sensitivities you really have. It will also give you tons of other information on how your body is working. He can use a procedure call NAET (which I have read plenty on how some MD's think it is nuts) and eliminate food sensitivities as well as balance your serotonin, dopamine etc.. which can help greatly with depression. I have had this done with on of my children among some other things and seen amazing results. Anyhow, there is a whole team of doctors in there and one is an MD. FYI, they do not take insurance but will bill your insurance where they can. Most of this stuff is out of pocket though.

Good Luck,
S.

That is a very difficult question to answer...I'm sure you know the gut-brain connection, and how everything affects everything else...Personally I know for me (and I am sensitive, but not Celiac), that once I cleared up some of my internal gut inflammation, my anxiety DISAPPEARED (this november will by 1 year with out panic attacks!). I know its a part of my depression, but that is now controlled too without meds! And re: the gluten, I steer clear now, but I know I have been exposed when i feel crummy - but then I just take more of my organic omegas and I fell better quickly! I guess to answer your question, try it for 1 week and see how you feel, but you really can't just do one part of the equation and see the best results. You need to supplement for the brain too...

Sounds like a resounding YES to changing your diet and I agree as well. Most women as they approach and go beyond 40 have a really hard time with gluten and should eliminate it from their diet. The wheat has been just destroyed with Genetically Modified, pesticides, that there is really no value in most of it and that it is just an inflammatory now. You will notice aches and pains going away, clearer head in more ways than one, and the bloating no longer there when you have truly removed it. Remember something though, it could take months, several, to remove gluten from the body. Also, for some of the population with something called 'leaky gut', the gluten can actually be changed to an opiate as it leaks into the blood stream and reaches through the blood/brain barrier. This is where you will see drastic changes in kids on the spectrum and behaviors, addictions if you will.

For great information and everything you need to change to a GF diet, go to the ones that have it down, the autism community, www.tacanow.org and then upper left, the GF-CF Diet section. You are going to be blown away by how they put 'wheat protein' into everything as a filler.

I represent a line of skin care products just for this reason, no fillers, No Gluten, no dyes, no petroleum, and the list goes on and on. The autism community and the Celiac community loves Sensaria so let me know if you want more information on what to put on the outside or the inside of your body.

Gluten allergy or sensitivity can cause all kinds of neurological problems including depression and anxiety. I almost went to a neurologist for some anti-seizure meds but going off gluten and then having it cleared got rid of my symptoms in a couple days.