On the road to gluten intolerance?

Do you have an infant and wonder about the official speculative and controversial advice to give gluten (wheat-based food) to infants early, under “protection of nursing”? Forget this piece of advice.

I’m sure it’s well-meaning advice (whether or not it has been influenced by formula-manufacturers) but new science shows with certainty that this is wrong. This past fall I wrote about two new high-quality studies that show that early gluten introduction on the contrary INCREASES the risk for early gluten intolerance.

The other day, yet another study came out that blew another hole in the official dietary guidelines. However, this is just a statistical observational study. Children in various countries don’t develop less gluten intolerance if they are introduced to gluten earlier.

On the contrary, Swedish children, who on average are given gluten earlier than children in other countries, are significantly MORE gluten intolerant compared to American children, who are given gluten later than all other. This new statistics further supports last fall’s high-quality studies.

Do you want to avoid that your child becomes gluten intolerant, or at least postpone potential future intolerance? The best science we have then points in this direction: The later you have gluten and the less you have, the better it is.

Time for an Update?

So when will the agencies that issue dietary guidelines update themselves and stop giving advice on early gluten-introduction? Who knows. Judging from their record on the issue of natural saturated fat they can be at least a decade behind the science.

Perhaps todays infants will see updated official advice when they have their own children? Continue Reading →

Future Gluten Intolerants?

This is a question that I frequently get and that many parents of infants struggle with: Is it important for infants to eat gluten, ie bread and hot cereal, early in life?

Even today the official guidelines encourage parents to introduce foods with wheat early to reduce the risk of gluten intolerance. This is what the Swedish guidelines for infants include:

If the infant is given small amounts of gluten while still nursing, the risk that the child will be gluten intolerant is reduced. At no later than six months, and no earlier than four months, you should start giving the infant some gluten-containing foods… For example, you can let the infant have a bite of white bread or crackers or a small spoon of hot cereal or wheat-based formula a couple of times a week… After six months gradually increase the amount. 

This assertive advice is unfortunately based only on uncertain statistics from questionnaire studies, i.e. observational studies. Such statistics prove nothing. The guideline-issuing authorities have a troublesome ability to sound certain without enough supporting evidence.

So is the advice above good or bad? Nobody knew before, but now this has finally been tested seriously.

The other week two critical studies were published in the New England Journal of Medicine – the world’s most respected medical science journal. For the first time studies were designed to test whether the advice works. Continue Reading →