In my opinion, the potential health complications from a lifetime of eating gluten are no less severe than those from smoking cigarettes.



Just as you can't negate the effects of smoking by taking a supplement or saying your prayers, you won't offset the impact of gluten with corticosteroid shots, NSAIDs, essential oils, fasting, or good intentions.



I can't confidently say that everyone who eats gluten for a lifetime will end up with one of the problems mentioned in this article, any more than a smoker is guaranteed cancer or emphysema.



However, just because some people might make it to the end of a very long life, smoking a cigarette with their final breath, it doesn't mean it's a good idea to bet on a healthy outcome.



The same could be said for eating gluten. The good news is,  when you decide to get rid of gluten completely, there's still a lot of good food you can eat. Nobody "struggles" when they go gluten-free.





Gluten Concerns Centuries Old



Based on the hype, you'd think concerns about gluten were relatively new. However, they were observed long before the age of the internet.



In fact, Aretaeus of Cappadocia, a Greek physician, described and named celiac disease in the first century. He didn't get much attention though. Over the past couple millennia, smallpox, plagues, polio, rickets, and war were of a much more significant health concern than gluten.



Although celiac disease has been observed for almost 2000 years and doctors have recognized it for at least 100 years, it wasn't until 1978 that gluten sensitivity was discussed in medical papers. The first documented cases of gluten sensitivity in children appeared in the early 1980s.



Even then, most doctors shrugged off the connection between food and a patient's health problems.



2011 was a turning point. A group of medical experts convened to discuss this non-celiac gluten sensitivity.



It was also the year Dr. William Davis published his book Wheat Belly Millions of people resonated with the book. They recognized themselves in Dr. Davis' writing, and finally had some answers to how they felt. No longer did they need to feel like their symptoms were "all in their head."



The food industry wasn't as appreciative of his book and did its best to attack and condemn him. Their efforts backfired, though. Each time they tried to discredit his work, it only helped to fuel more book sales and attention. In fact, Wheat Belly is still among my top five most-recommended health and fitness books.



Though Dr. Davis wasn't the first to address concerns about gluten, he was the first medical professional (he's a cardiologist) to put his reputation on the line. To suggest "healthy whole grains" were something other than healthy, sort of bucked the "healthy whole grain" system.



Slowly, others joined in, like Dr. David Perlmutter, publishing Grain Brain a couple of years later. Today, a search for "Gluten Books" on Amazon returns over 9000 results.



As of 2015, a Gallup poll showed that 20% of Americans say they choose a g...