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Coffee should be avoided by those who are Celiac and many who suffer from wheat sensitivity as it contains cross-reactive proteins to gluten.
If you drink coffee, even bulletproof coffee and have gluten sensitivity or celiac, you might want to sit down for this one.
There is a surprising connection between gluten and coffee that is by and large ignored by the health community. This revelation holds ramifications for other autoimmune disorders as well.
The problem has nothing to do with caffeine, so decaf coffee would be included in this discussion.
In a nutshell, fairly recent lab research has revealed that 10% of coffee is a protein that cross-reacts with gluten antibodies.
This means that if you are gluten sensitive or celiac and are avoiding gluten-containing grains or perhaps have even gone completely grain-free if you still drink coffee there is a strong likelihood that the protein in the coffee is triggering the very same gluten-related health problems you are trying to avoid.
In other words, even if you think you are doing fine with your current gluten-free diet, it is very possible that skipping the coffee could take your health to the next level.
Symptoms of Gluten Sensitivity
Most people who are gluten sensitive don’t realize it because gastrointestinal problems like burping, gas, tummy upset, or toilet issues are the least common way for gluten issues to present themselves!
The most common symptoms of gluten sensitivity?
Migraines and other neurological issues – even MS!
Hormone and endocrine problems are another common way for gluten issues to manifest themselves.
How Coffee Triggers Gluten Sensitivity
So what exactly happens when a gluten sensitive person eats gluten?
Folks with gluten antibodies react to any gluten in the diet by mounting an immune response. This means that gluten is perceived by the body as an invader and the gluten antibodies attack the gluten itself trying to destroy it.  This gluten attack is an inflammatory response and inflammation issues can occur anywhere in the body in any tissue or organ.
Here’s the real shocker I came across when researching the coffee/gluten connection:
According to Dr. David Clark DC, functional neurologist and endocrinologist:
There’s not a disease or health condition you can think of that does not have an association – in the research literature – with gluten sensitivity.
That’s a very strong statement!
In essence then, if you are gluten sensitive in any way shape or form, and it seems that most people are whether they know it or not given the epidemic levels of autoimmune issues today, gluten antibodies have the potential to react to proteins in other foods as if they are gluten thereby triggering an immune and inflammatory response.
The protein in coffee is the most common cross-reactor for gluten. Because it is the protein in the coffee that is the trigger, switching to decaf coffee does not solve the problem. Apparently, instant coffee is the worst offender.
Is it possible to be gluten sensitive and not cross-react to coffee? Yes, it’s possible but you’ll have to do some expensive lab testing with a knowledgeable doctor to find out.
Reference
Journal of Food and Nutrition Sciences
More Information
You Probably Need to Change WHEN You Drink Coffee
Coffee Enema
Morning Coffee Fix
Caffeine and Chronic Back Pain
Healthy Coffee Substitutes
My point is if you have an issue with it, take it up with the big guys. Are you afraid to call Cyrex Labs and request their research? Or Dr. O’Bryan? This blog post I took it as a report of what she heard. That’s all. The news does this every day, all day long. She does not need to substantiate this blog because she never claims this blog is meant to dish out medical advice. If I’m wrong in assuming that, then someone please point out to me where this blog is meant to provide medical advice? It’s a blog. It’s free speech. There’s a lot worse things being posted out there that are completely dumfounded. Funny thing is your bringing this blog more traffic by commenting.
And thank you, I do know what bullying is. I was a victim of bullying in my childhood and I will stand up and defend when I see others being bullied as well.
I’m not the bully freaking out a bunch of people with celiac disease! Sarah is playing on people’s fears to get blog hits by repeating what amounts to an urban legend. I looked up all the coffee references in Tom O’Bryan’s article. None mention any connections to celiac disease or gluten.
This is extremely new information too new to even be written up in a journal. Why don’t you contact Cyrex Labs? Simple as that. Cyrex Labs is doing food sensitivity testing that no one else in the WORLD is doing. Just because this blog is leading edge does not make it unscientific.
You really find it ethical to freak a bunch of people out over unpublished, private data? We’ve been calming folks down who got really upset after reading your blog post on celiac.com all day now. You scared and upset a bunch of people with this and you can’t even provide a link to the putative data? I’m sorry but this is heresay and what you are doing is very damaging to the celiac community. Not everyone who is reading the Internet understands that you are reporting nothing more than heresay and they shouldn’t worry.
I think it is great to get this information out there and I am very proud to have done so. This blog is for those who are on the leading edge and who are out of the box thinkers. Best to know this now rather than suffer for another bunch of years until it becomes “mainstream knowledge”. You of course may choose to ignore it. That is your prerogative. Many – actually most – who have commented are happy I posted this post.
And, yes it is HIGHLY ethical to have posted this post. To know what I have learned and NOT posted it would be extremely unethical. Let people choose for themselves how they want to respond to this information. It is their personal choice. My choice as it is my blog after all, is to post the best and most leading edge stuff I come across.
How so? They told me just today that the test is just a standard IgG food sensitivity test. How is that leading edge? I am confused.
she’s done getting blog hits from me. 🙂 especially after how she handles her commenters.
I did some research to get the ball rolling:
Jen, in defense of the author, this is not a scientific journal. It is a blog. A blog is a place to have a conversation, share ideas and opinions. And sometimes its about reporting facts. Without ideas and unsubstantiated (non-peer-reviewed) conversations, we would never progress. If you have a problem with this concept of cross-reactivity, then take it up with the big guys. Contact Cyrex Labs and ask for references (they have them). But bullying people who write blogs that are trying to report information they hear out in the world is unacceptable in my opinion. Your tone in your comment sounds like bullying to me.
Primo, your response to Jen makes me wonder if you’re familiar with what bullying is, because her comment is perfectly respectful. She’s just asking for actual proof, which makes sense given that this blog post is written about a link between gluten and coffee as if it’s fact, which it is not, at this point. There’s everything right about expecting scientific proof of a claim that an author (blogger or otherwise) purports to be scientific.
I wish this blog post were written as, “Is There A Link Between Gluten and Coffee?” instead of, “Here are the facts! Coffee is like gluten! Get rid of coffee now!” That would be more appropriate for a ‘conversation,’ as you say this is.
And Jen is right that the page you linked to, in its list of citations, does not include proof of coffee and gluten being linked. Plus, the author of the post you linked to is employed by the testing lab that claims that coffee and gluten are linked–he’s hardly an independent source. http://www.cyrexlabs.com/Meettheteam/tabid/165/Default.aspx
As far as I can tell, everyone writing about this is ultimately linking back to Cyrex Labs, but Cyrex Labs hasn’t released any studies indicating the link between gluten and coffee.
Can you provide a scientific reference for this? A link to a commercial testing service is hardly scientific proof. As far as I can tell, there have been no peer-reviewed studies on celiac cross-reactions to coffee. Allergy or intolerance are certainly possible but that has nothing to do with shared epiptopes and is not evidence on which to write a sensationalist article on celiac and coffee.
There are actually 18 common gluten cross reactive foods. http://blog.primohealthcoach.com/blog/bid/79586/18-Gluten-Cross-Reactive-Foods
I think you need to try digestive enzymes if you have burping and such after eating before calling it a gluten problem. Gluten destroys the villi in the intestinal lining it is best to stay away from it anyway.
Definitely sharing this with my celiac friends and family. It’s worth looking into further for sure!
There is a lot of info about cross-reactivity and the lab testing here, including some links out to other sites/sources: http://www.adventuresofaglutenfreemom.com/2011/08/cyrex-labs-array-4-gluten-associated-cross-reactive-foods/.
Thank you gfmama – this information is fantastic!!
Does anyone know the medical research that shows this effect? I’m not questioning it (as I can see the negative effects of coffee in my own life), but I would like to know more about it.
Any link to a journal article or a specific MD website would be extremely helpful.
Thanks!