Have you ever heard someone say, I usually can't tolerate wheat, but I felt totally fine eating the bread in Germany or the pasta in Italy?

Maybe you've even said that yourself.

Well, in this episode, we're exploring whether there really is something special about European wheat and what we might be able to borrow from our European neighbors to improve

our experience of wheat products here at home.

Hello and welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast, a show where we take a closer look at nutrition memes and

trends so that you can make more informed choices about what you eat. I'm your host, Monica

Rineagle. And today, I want to talk about the widespread perception that wheat products in Europe

or elsewhere are somehow healthier or less likely to trigger sensitivities than wheat products in Europe or elsewhere are somehow healthier or less likely to trigger sensitivities

than wheat products here in the United States. And I bet at some point you've heard someone say

American wheat makes me sick, but when I eat the pasta in Italy or the baguettes in France,

I feel totally fine. And maybe you've even experienced this

yourself. So let's take a closer look at what might be going on here. First, probably

useful to get a sense of how common wheat-related sensitivities actually are. True celiac disease.

This is an autoimmune disorder triggered by gluten is relatively rare. It affects roughly 1% of the population in both the U.S. and Europe. However,

non-celiac gluten sensitivity or wheat sensitivity, where people who do not have celiac disease,

nonetheless report symptoms that seem to be triggered by wheat, that's a lot more common.

Surveys show that about 10 to 15% of U.S. adults report non-celiac gluten or wheat sensitivity, whereas only about 5 to 10% of Europeans do.

However, when researchers conduct controlled clinical trials where participants don't know

whether they're actually consuming gluten or a placebo, the prevalence of true gluten sensitivity drops dramatically to

somewhere between 1 and 3%.

So what this suggests is that many people who believe that they are sensitive to gluten

might actually be reacting to something else in wheat, such as certain starches or fermentable carbohydrates.

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