Analysis: The ‘nocebo effect’ in IBS: Why gluten might not be the real problem
One-third of patients with irritable bowel syndrome also have disordered eating habits and perceptions about food that may cause symptoms in and of themselves. (Shutterstock)
Many people find that wheat or gluten cause them to react in some way: Some people have a wheat allergy, some have the autoimmune condition celiac disease, but the majority find they have some sort of intolerance or sensitivity to wheat and gluten.
This is challenging to diagnose because there still aren’t any reliable biomarkers to confirm gluten or wheat sensitivity, and clinicians typically rely on patient self-reports.
In irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), patients experience gastrointestinal symptoms without any visible damage to the digestive tract. Many patients with IBS believe that specific foods, like gluten or wheat, trigger their symptoms, prompting them to exclude these foods from their diets without consulting a dietitian or their doctor.
Unsurprisingly, about a third of IBS patients develop disordered eating habits and perceptions about food that may cause symptoms in and of themselves, such as orthorexia, or an unhealthy preoccupation with healthy eating. This may cause a “nocebo effect,” where patients experience symptoms due to their beliefs and expectations about a substance they assume is causing their issues but is actually inert — a “nocebo.”
All republished articles must be attributed in the following way and contain links to
both the site and original article: “This article was first published on Brighter World. Read the original article.”