Gluten-free Diet Useless for Athletes Without Celiac Disease

I know someone with juvenile hemochromatosis. His iron for 60 years has been extremely high despite frequent phlebotomies. He is a dedicated athlete but has low oxygen capacity. He tried gluten free and after a couple of weeks he had more than half his iron disappear. Needless to say the medical people were incredulous. His version of gluten free is to start the day with gluten free food but never give up any nice treats he comes across in his travels. Hugely successful for him.

This study is illegitimate, in my opinion. First, you did not give any credentials for the team of researchers, and the design of the study shows that they do not know what they are doing. The athletes need to be on a GFD much longer than a week, and they need to look at their results in at least two real world races. The researchers obviously were looking to disprove the value of a gluten-free diet and don't know anything about gluten issues.

As usual a limited study with sweeping conclusions. You could do better reporting to emphasize, as mentioned in the second to last paragraph, that all this study really shows is that a week long gluten free diet doesn't show a benefit. But as any number of gluten sensitive people will tell you it can take weeks to months to see a benefit from following a GFD. The last paragraph seems completely unnecessary, what's with all the "unless you have celiac disease" stuff? This study hardly proves that a GFD doesn't improve long term health and performance, only that in the very short term it doesn't change symptoms and performance in people who had no symptoms to start with.

I would like to know the source for the comment: the vast majority of people on a GFD do not have celiac disease. Further, I stopped listening to the rest of the article when I realized the study involves 13 people (sample size too small for normal distribution). The author did a great job summarizing the study, but I don't believe the conclusions he came to are proven-given the information he wrote.

This study is illegitimate, in my opinion. First, you did not give any credentials for the team of researchers, and the design of the study shows that they do not know what they are doing. The athletes need to be on a GFD much longer than a week, and they need to look at their results in at least two real world races. The researchers obviously were looking to disprove the value of a gluten-free diet and don't know anything about gluten issues.

Michael, I am not sure if the researchers set out to disprove the value of a GFD, but they did exactly that in a small number of people. Why do you believe they know nothing about gluten issues?

I know someone with juvenile hemochromatosis. His iron for 60 years has been extremely high despite frequent phlebotomies. He is a dedicated athlete but has low oxygen capacity. He tried gluten free and after a couple of weeks he had more than half his iron disappear. Needless to say the medical people were incredulous. His version of gluten free is to start the day with gluten free food but never give up any nice treats he comes across in his travels. Hugely successful for him.

I know someone who believes in ghosts. Also, if I'm not sure what incredulous means, but if it means they were looking for sources of blood loss to ensure he was not bleeding to death, then I trust their judgement.

I have seen no mention of non-celiac gluten sensitivity. This class of people was not considered. I may well be in that category (undiagnosed). I know personally that I do not do well at all on gluten, sometimes being flattened/prostrated with flu like symptoms and migraine. That would not bode well for athletic performance.