There’s a new paper out in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology (online; 1) that suggests that non-Celiac gluten sensitivity IS in fact a thing, despite other fairly recent research to the contrary.

I’ll save the contrary research for another post to keep this short, but in this new paper Di Sabatino et al. gave 59 subjects either 4.375 g/day of gluten or rice starch (the placebo) for 1 week, then switched the groups for the next week. 4.375 g of gluten is about the same amount as found in two slices of white bread, so you’d get that much from eating a sandwich.

Well, Di Sabatino et al. found that this approach resulted in measurable, statistically significant changes in overall symptoms (a measure combining all the individual symptoms they measured). Individual symptoms that were worsened by gluten included abdominal bloating, pain, foggy mind, depression, and aphthous stomatitis (canker sores).

Twenty-three out of 28 other symptoms did not worsen with gluten administration.

I’ll save forming a confident opinion for when more new research on the topic comes out, but at least this paper shows that we have not heard the last word on non-Celiac gluten sensitivity.

1 Di Sabatino, A., Volta, U., Salvatore, C., Biancheri, P., Caio, G., De Giorgio, R., Di Stefano, M., Corazza, G.R. (online 2015) Small amounts of gluten in subjects with suspected nonceliac gluten sensitivity: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over trial. doi: 10.1016/j.cgh.2015.01.029