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It's identity politics. People want something to make them feel special. With the decline of actual strife (sectarian, racial, gender) in society, people need t

It's identity politics. People want something to make them feel special. With the decline of actual strife (sectarian, racial, gender) in society, people need to feel like they are oppressed by something. Gluten and the food industry conveniently fit the bill for many.

mattmanser 12y ago
I think it's far more likely that they feel that something is wrong with them and they're desperately trying to find what it is, and just keep latching on to the next fad. Whether or not it's all in the mind is kinda moot, as it still makes them feel bad. By doing something, anything, they feel a bit better.
- bluecalm 12y ago
  What a closed-minded attitude! Fad, identity, feel special... what about: they experiment with things and many of them have found that gluten-free makes them feel better. Why are you dismissing the most natural explanation of all while patronizing them in the process ?
  - cfontes 12y ago
    Them do it! I am not against it. Just citing some facts I observed. Medical tests will tell you if you have Celiac disease or not. If you don't and want to keep doing it, fine! I will not talk with you about it and will run from that topic in order to not offend you, but my opinion still is that this is some mind game people are playing with themselves (unconsiously) Anyway, I am happy you are happy.
    - bluecalm 12y ago
      It's quite possible that many people do better on glute-free diet despite all the test coming negative. That might be because: -tests doesn't cater for everything; maybe there is some mechanism in which gluten harms those people which isn't detected by tests -maybe removing food with gluten from the diet removes something else which was harmful (one hypothesis is that maybe it's this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FODMAP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FODMAP) Your attitude is amazingly closed minded. There is nothing wrong with being skeptical but suggesting all those people just want to feel special (or similar psychoanalytical mumbo-jumbo) is just made-up nonsense. There is 0 evidence that they do it to want to feel special or what not but there is a lot of evidence that they in fact feel better (their feedback).
      - tjradcliffe 12y ago
        It might also be because many people are bad observers of their own situation, subject to confirmation bias, and do nothing to rule out placebo effects. Given what we know about people, this hypothesis is a priori far more plausible than gluten acting in some mysterious way that can't be identified, and somewhat more plausible than gluten being associated with other things that people are sensitive to. The suggestion that gluten is bad in ways that can't be detected is made less plausible by generic blind testing. Put people self-identified gluten-sensitive people on blinded diets with and without gluten and see if there is a difference. This has been done, and the test is negative. This is a black-box test that is completely independent of the mechanism of action. Look: http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/05/gluten_sensitivity_may_not_exist.html http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/05/gluten_sensitiv... As that same study shows, the suggestion that gluten is associated with something else bad is not totally implausible, but anyone aware of the difficulty of teasing out confounding factors in nutritional research will tend to strongly discount any form of anecdotal self-report as unreliable, because self-report about a subject where people are known to very easily fool themselves simply does not increase the posterior plausibility of the hypothesis very much. The potential for confirmation and reporting bias is far too high. This is not close-mindedness, but rather a realistic assessment of the situation based on the long history of dietary fads, all of which were strongly supported by self-report, and later turned out to be ineffective, sometimes dangerous, nonsense.
    - cfontes 12y ago
      Again. You are making up words. I never said all of the people. I also said, that I felt that. The same way people feel better and we have no proof of it yet. And I actually agree with you about some unknown side effects, but several of those people I've known have been shifting or adding the lasted new diseases/allergy and currently it looks like it's Celiac disease that is the trend.
    - nikki93 12y ago
      Why does the truth of your judgement matter as long as it is life-promoting? My opinion is that this whole idea of wanting to find what's 'actually true' and putting it on a pedestal like this is some mind game people are playing with themselves (unconsciously).
  - mattmanser 12y ago
    I'm actually all the way through close-minded and out the other side. As cfontes above pointed out, in 6 months time they'll have given up the gluten diet and be doing the next fad. Lactose intolerence. Paleo. Multivitamins. Organic. It goes on and on. The perpetual fadders. The same person will go through all these things. And then change their mind without any comment. But going through the motions still makes them feel better, so I'm saying, even though it's not pharmacologically effective, psychologically it is a kind of cure and you shouldn't just dismiss it. It helps them, so why criticize it? Unless it's dangerous of course. You can believe in the actual science, but believe in the cure at the same time. It's the best of both worlds. And I'm actually saying this from experience, I'm going through it at the moment. In reality I'm simply suffering from anxiety. But my brain keeps irrationally latching on to things, it wants something to point at and be scared of. I have had to stop googling any sensations I feel as my brain will just latch on to anything I read. At the beginning it was actually very scary and disorientating. Now I'm getting over the anxiety and understand it, I can laugh at it and it's becoming less frequent. But it still happens. Someone mentioned vitamin D deficiency here a few days ago. And now of course I have that. But my scientific brain can understand that it's the anxiety again, and I don't. But I do. In a week or two, rationality will win, simply by waiting for that anxiety to disappear. Being actually able to do something, like cut gluten out, is in itself actually quite calming.

mattmanser 12y ago

I think it's far more likely that they feel that something is wrong with them and they're desperately trying to find what it is, and just keep latching on to the next fad. Whether or not it's all in the mind is kinda moot, as it still makes them feel bad. By doing something, anything, they feel a bit better.

bluecalm 12y ago
What a closed-minded attitude! Fad, identity, feel special... what about: they experiment with things and many of them have found that gluten-free makes them feel better. Why are you dismissing the most natural explanation of all while patronizing them in the process ?
- cfontes 12y ago
  Them do it! I am not against it. Just citing some facts I observed. Medical tests will tell you if you have Celiac disease or not. If you don't and want to keep doing it, fine! I will not talk with you about it and will run from that topic in order to not offend you, but my opinion still is that this is some mind game people are playing with themselves (unconsiously) Anyway, I am happy you are happy.
  - bluecalm 12y ago
    It's quite possible that many people do better on glute-free diet despite all the test coming negative. That might be because: -tests doesn't cater for everything; maybe there is some mechanism in which gluten harms those people which isn't detected by tests -maybe removing food with gluten from the diet removes something else which was harmful (one hypothesis is that maybe it's this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FODMAP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FODMAP) Your attitude is amazingly closed minded. There is nothing wrong with being skeptical but suggesting all those people just want to feel special (or similar psychoanalytical mumbo-jumbo) is just made-up nonsense. There is 0 evidence that they do it to want to feel special or what not but there is a lot of evidence that they in fact feel better (their feedback).
    - tjradcliffe 12y ago
      It might also be because many people are bad observers of their own situation, subject to confirmation bias, and do nothing to rule out placebo effects. Given what we know about people, this hypothesis is a priori far more plausible than gluten acting in some mysterious way that can't be identified, and somewhat more plausible than gluten being associated with other things that people are sensitive to. The suggestion that gluten is bad in ways that can't be detected is made less plausible by generic blind testing. Put people self-identified gluten-sensitive people on blinded diets with and without gluten and see if there is a difference. This has been done, and the test is negative. This is a black-box test that is completely independent of the mechanism of action. Look: http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/05/gluten_sensitivity_may_not_exist.html http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/05/gluten_sensitiv... As that same study shows, the suggestion that gluten is associated with something else bad is not totally implausible, but anyone aware of the difficulty of teasing out confounding factors in nutritional research will tend to strongly discount any form of anecdotal self-report as unreliable, because self-report about a subject where people are known to very easily fool themselves simply does not increase the posterior plausibility of the hypothesis very much. The potential for confirmation and reporting bias is far too high. This is not close-mindedness, but rather a realistic assessment of the situation based on the long history of dietary fads, all of which were strongly supported by self-report, and later turned out to be ineffective, sometimes dangerous, nonsense.
  - cfontes 12y ago
    Again. You are making up words. I never said all of the people. I also said, that I felt that. The same way people feel better and we have no proof of it yet. And I actually agree with you about some unknown side effects, but several of those people I've known have been shifting or adding the lasted new diseases/allergy and currently it looks like it's Celiac disease that is the trend.
  - nikki93 12y ago
    Why does the truth of your judgement matter as long as it is life-promoting? My opinion is that this whole idea of wanting to find what's 'actually true' and putting it on a pedestal like this is some mind game people are playing with themselves (unconsciously).
- mattmanser 12y ago
  I'm actually all the way through close-minded and out the other side. As cfontes above pointed out, in 6 months time they'll have given up the gluten diet and be doing the next fad. Lactose intolerence. Paleo. Multivitamins. Organic. It goes on and on. The perpetual fadders. The same person will go through all these things. And then change their mind without any comment. But going through the motions still makes them feel better, so I'm saying, even though it's not pharmacologically effective, psychologically it is a kind of cure and you shouldn't just dismiss it. It helps them, so why criticize it? Unless it's dangerous of course. You can believe in the actual science, but believe in the cure at the same time. It's the best of both worlds. And I'm actually saying this from experience, I'm going through it at the moment. In reality I'm simply suffering from anxiety. But my brain keeps irrationally latching on to things, it wants something to point at and be scared of. I have had to stop googling any sensations I feel as my brain will just latch on to anything I read. At the beginning it was actually very scary and disorientating. Now I'm getting over the anxiety and understand it, I can laugh at it and it's becoming less frequent. But it still happens. Someone mentioned vitamin D deficiency here a few days ago. And now of course I have that. But my scientific brain can understand that it's the anxiety again, and I don't. But I do. In a week or two, rationality will win, simply by waiting for that anxiety to disappear. Being actually able to do something, like cut gluten out, is in itself actually quite calming.