'Gluten-free' foods may be contaminated

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'Gluten-free' foods may be contaminated

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38278668/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with celiac disease and others who avoid

gluten should beware that foods that are supposed to be naturally gluten-free

are often contaminated, warns a new study.

Gluten is a kind of protein found in wheat, barley, and rye. In people with

celiac disease - a condition that affects up to about 1 percent of the U.S.

population - gluten triggers an immune reaction that causes damage to the small

intestine and keeps the body from absorbing nutrients.

Grains such as oats, millet, and rice don't have this protein. But in a new

survey of grains, seeds, and flours that should be gluten-free, researchers

found that some of these products had picked up traces of gluten - probably from

being grown or processed near grains that do naturally contain gluten.

" There was some general assumption (among people with celiac disease) that those

naturally gluten-free grains and flours weren't contaminated, " Tricia ,

a nutrition consultant on celiac disease and the lead author on the study, told

Reuters Health.

and her colleagues analyzed 22 naturally gluten-free grains, seeds, and

flours off supermarket shelves, only looking at products that weren't

specifically advertised as being gluten-free. They tested the amount of gluten

in those products against a proposed Food and Drug Administration limit for any

product labeled gluten-free, 20 parts contaminant per million parts product.

Seven of the 22 products wouldn't pass the FDA's gluten-free test - and one

product, a type of soy flour, had a gluten content of almost 3,000 parts per

million, the authors found. Other products from the sample that weren't truly

gluten-free included millet flour and grain, buckwheat flour, and sorghum flour.

The study was too small to give consumers a good idea of how common it is for

these products to be contaminated or what products should make people with

celiac disease especially wary, said.

But " it is a red flag, " Kupper, the executive director of the Gluten

Intolerance Group of North America, who was not involved with the research, told

Reuters Health.

Even companies that do explicitly label their products as gluten-free, she said,

might not always test products they assume won't contain any gluten. The study

" is a wake-up call to the food industry, " said Kupper. Companies " need to make

sure (their products) are truly gluten-free. "

Without an FDA regulation in place, there is still no hard-and-fast government

definition of what gluten-free means, said.

That makes it harder to keep companies that might skimp on their testing

accountable.

" It's hoped but certainly not assumed that manufacturers who are putting the

(gluten-free) label on their single-ingredient grains and flours are testing

their ingredients, " said. " Do all manufacturers test? Probably not. "

Under the proposed gluten-free labeling rule, the FDA could conduct inspections

of manufacturers that claim their products are gluten-free and analyze those

products.

and Kupper agreed that more research needs to be done to find out the

scope of the contamination problem. In the meantime, said, people with

celiac disease are probably better off purchasing grains, seeds, and flours with

the gluten-free label. The products can't be guaranteed to be completely free of

gluten, but it is more likely that they will have been tested, she said.

SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/zev57m Journal of the American Dietetic

Association, June 2010.