It's enough to upset your stomach - the alternative facts about gluten

Durban project manager Craig Ruthnam has a body like a Greek god's, with a six-pack to die for.

The 35-year-old used to be 30kg overweight and couldn't get life insurance because of his high cholesterol.

What saved him, he says, was cutting gluten and lactose out of his diet. Since reading up about the impact of a "free-from" lifestyle and cutting the foods out of his diet, he has never felt better.

"I no longer have irritable bowel syndrome and my digestive system got better. I gave up gluten first and then did a lot of reading and realised lactose had an adverse effect on the metabolism, so I gave that up too," he said.

He's in good company. Celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Novak Djokovic and Victoria Beckham follow a gluten- and dairy-free diet.

But local and international experts don't always agree.

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According to Dr Giles Yeo, a Cambridge University microbiologist, there is no scientific evidence to substantiate the claims about what "free-from" food products or clean living diets can do.

In Clean Eating - The Dirty Truth, a BBC documentary, Yeo investigated eating fads and whether gluten and lactose are the new bad boys of the food world. His findings? Although only 1% of any population has coeliac disease (true gluten intolerance), thousands are following a "clean eating" route.

Gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye, is blamed for upset stomachs, weight gain, fatigue and a host of other conditions. Coeliac disease is an autoimmune disorder with genetic links that can lead to malnutrition, among other things.

Yeo said there was no scientific evidence that "clean eating" wasbetter than a balanced diet.

Allergist and immunologist Dr Adrian Morris said the spike in apparent intolerance to various foods was little more than a fad.

"According to international statistics, 6% of children have food allergies and 2% of adults, but 35% of people think they have allergies.

"There seems to be a growing epidemic of intolerance. It's not possible, because they are generally genetic. Coeliac is not a contagious disease. People are too keen to hop onto the diagnosis by Dr Google bandwagon."

There is a medical test to check for coeliac but no scientific way to test for mild degrees of gluten intolerance. Some people may feel better if they reduce the amount they consume, but there is no need to cut it out altogether.

Some foods contain "fermentable carbohydrates" that can cause bloating. "These also occur in foods that also contain gluten and lactose and in food like onions, beans, apples and some fruit juices."

But no matter what the doctors say, the trend is growing in South Africa, as evidenced by the rows of "free-from" products filling supermarket shelves.

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According to a study by international market research firm MarketsandMarkets, the global value of gluten-free foods was R61-billion in 2015. It predicts this will double by 2020.

Lactose-free milk, yoghurt, cheese and ice cream is available - at a price - at most local supermarkets. Morris said an inability to absorb the sugars in milk was genetically linked. And lactose cannot cause rashes and sinus problems.

But why are so many people cutting out gluten? Gauteng gastroenterologist Peter Barrow, a specialist in coeliac, said South Africa was behind the curve.

"As a genetic condition it is prevalent in those with Dutch and Indian ancestry but doctors do not check for it as a matter of course. It is not as uncommon as we may think."

Still, he said, only one in 20 patients had coeliac. The rest usually have irritable bowel syndrome, the world's second-leading cause of absenteeism after the cold. "People get confused between IBS and food intolerances."

Cutting out wheat and dairy could reduce bloating by up to 70%, he said, but that didn't mean you had a gluten intolerance. "It means you are hypersensitive to certain triggers. Gluten is a good staple carb. It won't make you sick if you completely avoid it but it is not necessarily healthier."