Food companies are always trying to take advantage of the latest dietary trend or health craze. But the story of how we got to a place where celiac disease is suddenly mainstream, prevalence rates are rising, perfectly healthy people are opting to eat gluten-free, and General Mills is coveting these customers is an especially interesting story.
The New York Times reported that Alessio Fasano, MD, “now estimates that 18 million Americans have some degree of gluten sensitivity. And experts have been surprised, in general, by the rising prevalence of celiac disease overall.”
“‘It’s not just that we’re better at finding it,’ says Dr. Joseph A. Murray, a gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. ‘It truly has become more common.'”
After “comparing blood samples from the 1950s to the 1990s, Murray found that young people today are nearly five times as likely to have celiac disease, for reasons he and others researchers cannot explain.
And it’s on the rise not only in the US, but also in other places where the disease was once considered rare, like Mexico and India.”
You can read the entire story here.