I’ve been sent this story a few times by friends who know my thoughts on gluten intolerance.  I never thought it was real. Food allergies are real, but rare. When all of sudden half the population becomes allergic to bread, you should know it is hysterical bullshit. I know exactly one person with celiac disease. I know dozens of people claiming to be gluten intolerant. The fact that all of these people were eating bread with no problem until this fad came along is what the empirically minded call a clue.

That’s according to an academic study that effectively overturned the results of a previous one in 2011, which had served as evidence that non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) is a real condition, Real Clear Science reports.

Peter Gibson, a gastroenterology professor at Monash University in Australia, conducted the original study, but was not satisfied with its results.

So he and a group of researchers carried out a new one, giving 37 people with a declared gluten sensitivity and irritable bowel syndrome four separate diets. Participants were first fed a baseline diet that was low in FODMAPs (fermentable, poorly absorbed short-chain carbohydrates) for two weeks.

The subjects then were blindly assigned one of three diets for a week: a high-gluten diet, which had 16 grams per day of added gluten; a low-gluten diet, which had two grams of gluten and 14 grams of whey protein per day; and a control diet, which had 16 grams of whey protein isolate per day, according to the study.

Subjects reported worsening gastrointestinal symptoms no matter which diet they consumed. Data from the study suggested a “nocebo” effect, similar to when people feel symptoms from Wi-Fi and wind turbines, Real Clear Science reported.

It should also be noted subjects reported feeling fewer gastrointestinal symptoms after eating the baseline diet, low-FODMAP diet, which includes many foods from which people abstain when taking on a gluten-free diet, such as breads, beer and pasta.

This reminds me of the peanut allergy hoax popular last decade. All of a sudden, 20% of the nation’s youth was allergic to nuts. Basic science said this could not be true, but parents convinced themselves their little snowflake was allergic. Then the kids got to the age where they could pick their own food and magically they were no longer allergic. I knew a woman who swore her kid was allergic until one day he came home munching a peanut candy of some sort.

Of course, all of this is an off-shoot of the victim culture. Everyone is looking for a clever way to prove they are up against it. The greatest displays of public piety are those that involve the suffering of the pious. Instead of nailing themselves to the cross, bourgeois bohemian mothers pretend their otherwise mediocre offspring have an exotic disorder.  That’s run its course, so now, in middle age, those same moms claim cupcakes give them the runs.