You have read the posts saying gluten is the whole problem, and the posts saying that is not proven. Maybe you tried going gluten free for two weeks, felt about the same, and went back to bread. Two weeks was not long enough. And 80 percent gluten free gives you the same information as not trying at all, which is none.

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Why nobody can hand you a yes or no on gluten

This is a top question I get. It is also the one I put off the longest.

On this podcast/blog I want to give you simple and sustainable solutions. I want to help you identify your root causes and then take action on them. Going gluten free is sustainable, but it is not simple.

Food is also personal. When you start talking about what people eat and what they think they should or should not eat, you get big feelings.

That is not a flaw. Food is a huge part of our lives, and we need to eat to live.

So this is not a post telling you to give up gluten. When it comes to gluten free and Hashimoto’s, the only question that matters is whether gluten is doing anything to you. After you know that, you can make an informed choice on your future dietary guidelines.

What gluten is and where it hides

Gluten is a protein. It is the protein that gives baked goods their texture.

If you have ever eaten gluten-free bread or gluten-free cookies, you know they do not feel the same. They are often drier. More like cardboard.

That is not for lack of trying. That is the lack of gluten, because gluten is what binds and gives elasticity.

Gluten is primarily found in wheat, but it shows up in other grains too. Barley is one.

If you buy Rice Krispies from Kellogg’s, the label lists barley malt. That is gluten, so those are not gluten free. The Aldi version does not have barley malt, so those are. (Current at the time of this podcast. 2024.)

Which means if somebody brings Rice Krispie bars to a potluck, you cannot know. You would have to ask them where they bought the cereal.

I decline them unless somebody tells me specifically that they are gluten free. (I love Rice Krispie bars. I just do not need all that straight sugar and a very high glycemic index.)

Over the years, different grains have been bred and crossbred so they have more gluten in them. That is not necessarily GMO, that is breeding, although there is a GMO component now. Many people experience European gluten differently than American gluten.

What gluten does to your gut wall

Gluten is inflammatory. When you eat it, your body has some inflammation.

Part of this is related to a chemical called zonulin. When you eat gluten, your body releases zonulin, and zonulin tells your gut to open little gaps in the gut wall so things can pass through. This reaction is worse in people with celiac disease, but it happens in everybody.

For a lot of people, this can lead to leaky gut. Leaky gut is just the popular way to say intestinal wall permeability. Either way, it means things are getting through your gut wall into the rest of your body when they should not be there.

And then your body says, that should not be there, let’s attack it. That is where increased allergies come from. Your body learns it does not want that foreign thing, so every time you eat it, you can develop a reaction to it.

Leaky gut also plays a role in Hashimoto’s. I have heard it said that every single person with Hashimoto’s has leaky gut.

As a nurse I will not state that as fact, because I have not read enough firm research on it. What we do know is that everybody with an autoimmune problem has a gut component.

Stress opens those same junctions, which is why I did a whole episode on stress and leaky gut.

Why your thyroid can react to gluten

An allergy is your body learning to identify a specific thing and then attacking it.

When you have Hashimoto’s, your body is already attacking your thyroid. Your immune system is already mobilized and looking for that target.

Gluten and your thyroid look very similar on a molecular level. Gluten is called a molecular mimic of your thyroid.

So if your body is already attacking your thyroid and you eat something with gluten, what do you think happens if it confuses the two? It attacks. And you might have more symptoms after you eat gluten.

Levothyroxine gives your thyroid the hormone it is not making. It does nothing about the immune system doing the attacking.

Food is one of the few places you have direct input on that side of the equation. (This is also why the foods to avoid with Hashimoto’s conversation matters at all.)

What the 86 percent survey actually tells you

Dr. Izabella Wentz is a pharmacist. Her website is The Thyroid Pharmacist, and she has books and videos and a lot of resources.

She ran a survey that went viral, and a whole lot of people responded. Of everyone who answered, 86 percent said they felt better when they went gluten free.

These were not necessarily people with celiac disease. They were people with thyroid problems.

That is a big number. It is also a survey, not a controlled study.

And it cannot tell you how you will respond.

Sure, you might have an 86 percent chance of feeling better. But are you in the 86 percent, or are you in the minority who eat gluten and feel just fine? Nobody can tell you that.

Every single person is bio-individual. You are unique. You are valuable.

There is no little card that comes with you listing what your body does and does not tolerate. (As parents, wouldn’t a user’s guide with each baby have been nice?)

I did not go gluten free for myself

I went gluten free because of my youngest son.

When he was two or three months old, he had a horrible eczema rash head to toe. He was clawing at his skin until it opened up and bled. He was miserable.

I was his only source of nutrition and the caretaker of his environment. Figuring out what was causing it was my job. So I went on a very, very strict elimination diet.

I would not have done that for myself. I do not have that much self-control and self-restraint to give up every single food.

I think I was eating fish and chicken and vegetables while breastfeeding, and if you have ever breastfed a baby, you know how many calories that takes. I was bored and frustrated with my own food.

When I started bringing foods back in, I found out my body was not okay with gluten. His body was fine with it. Mine said, oh, you gave me a break from gluten, let’s stay off it forever.

And I said, yeah, no. I love donuts. I love bread. I love sandwiches.

I did this for my son, not for me.

So I argued with myself for quite a while. I was mostly gluten free, and then a special occasion would come up and I would eat whatever I wanted.

We have four birthdays within 30 days in our house, so during birthday season I ate as much gluten as I wanted. I figured gluten is an all-or-none thing anyway, so I might as well enjoy it.

After a couple of years I realized I was having more and more symptoms, and it was not worth it anymore. The migraines were what ended birthday season for me.

Then I tried sourdough. Making sourdough changes the gluten a little, and long fermented sourdough (where you let it rest in the fridge overnight) changes it more. People were saying that some who normally cannot eat gluten can eat that.

I tried it. I could not.

What I learned that day is that gluten makes me really depressed. I had some gut symptoms, but mostly it was depression, plus more migraines.

Depression is not something you can easily get tested for. It is something you find out by running an experiment on yourself. (I later tried fresh milled flour too, if you are wondering about that loophole.)

How to test gluten free and Hashimoto’s on your own body

Four steps. This is the experiment.

Step one, decide you are actually doing it

Gluten is all or nothing. You cannot 80 percent it.

If you are going gluten free, it has to be 100 percent, and it has to be for a real length of time. Some people say it takes up to 90 days to get all the gluten and all of its effects out of your body. I would suggest at least a month.

So decide that you are doing it, and decide how long.

Step two, take an inventory

Write down everything you eat. A food diary works well here. Log at least three days, and five to seven days is better, because you are looking for patterns.

You are looking for clues. When I eat X, I experience Y. Weekday eating is often different from weekend eating, and if you go out to eat once a week, include one of those meals.

Write down the symptoms too. Bloating, low mood, headaches, whatever you notice. It is not a verdict, it is just data.

Then check your personal care products. I found gluten and wheat in my shampoo and conditioner. (Pay attention to the commercials, they will tell you outright that they added wheat protein to make your hair shiny.)

Step three, plan two to three weeks of meals and snacks

Even if you never meal plan, plan this.

When you completely change how you eat, you are going to have stressful days. You do not want to hit one of those days standing in the kitchen, starving, with nothing you can eat.

Have a plan in place. Whether you follow it exactly is up to you, but have it. Have snacks you know are safe.

One of my favorites is hummus with microgreens and some sauerkraut mixed in, with gluten-free crackers or carrot sticks as my scoopers. For meals, look up paleo recipes. Paleo is grain free, so it is gluten free, and between paleo and keto there is a lot available now.

If you want more on the food side of this, I walk through what to eat with Hashimoto’s in its own episode.

Step four, run it and log it

Do the thing, and keep a log of how you feel.

Then at the end of your month or your 90 days, have a little bit of gluten and see what it does to you. That is your chance to experiment.

That reintroduction is where you get your answer. Not from a survey, not from a podcast, not from me. From your own body.

What to do with this

You now know why gluten comes up in every Hashimoto’s conversation. It opens the junctions in your gut wall, and it looks enough like your thyroid that an immune system already on alert can go after it.

You also know that no statistic can tell you what your body does. Only your body can.

So pick your window. A month, or 90 days.

Then take the inventory, make the plan, and log what happens. That is the whole experiment, and you can start step one today.

If you try it, come tell me about it in the Health with Hashimoto’s community. I want to hear what you noticed, because these conversations are usually the best ones we have.

And if you are still not sure which of your symptoms belong to your thyroid and which belong to your immune system, that sorting is exactly what Hashimoto’s Decoded: Thyroid or Immune walks you through. Finally understand what’s actually happening in your body. Get started for $27.