A relative has opened another door for me on this issue -- the possibility of menopause raising HDL. Most studies suggest that menopause decreases HDL-C, however, one study found that often it's increased. "Surprisingly, HDL cholesterol was higher (p < 0.001) in postmenopausal women by 11%. Further, the number of women who had low HDL cholesterol was higher in pre vs. postmenopausal women. The range of ages were 26–49 years for pre-menopausal and 51–74 years for postmenopausal women. "This interesting finding has also been observed by other investigators. It is possible that the observed increase in HDL-C in postmenopausal women could be due to a protective mechanism to counterbalance the deleterious effects of biomarkers associated with menopause. However, further studies are needed to confirm this theory. And to the point raised earlier about functionality: "...some patients with elevated HDL-C concentrations could remain at risk for coronary events if HDL is not functional and some authors have suggested that this could be the case for menopausal women." Postmenopausal Women Have Higher HDL and Decreased Incidence of Low HDL than Premenopausal Women with Metabolic Syndrome. By no means to I think this is definitive, rather food for thought.

Yes, lots of delicious things have barley malt. It also doesn't include rye. And there are a number of grains commonly cross contaminated such as oats.   Additionally, wheat allergies are different from gluten allergies as wheat allergies are a reaction to a wheat protein. So something *could* contain wheat gluten without causing a wheat allergic response (though realistically,  I don't know how likely that is to occur)

Although it is true that FDA regulations don't require gluten to be included in allergy info, it does require wheat and ingredients made from wheat to be listed. Of course, that doesn't preclude gluten from barley being found in a product.

I had a lot of weird/random symptoms for a few months after going gluten free. But eventually they evened out and I felt SO MUCH BETTER. The person above wrote a very detailed message that looks helpful. I'd add don't forget to check for gluten in places like medicine. Advil liquigels, for example, have gluten. It's very frustrating trying to figure out if things are gluten free as us law doesn't require it to be declared. The only labeling rule is that if the product says gluten free, it must have less than 20ppm gluten.

You had the wrong link to the menu, so I fixed that for you 😉. Trying to eat gluten-free at Chili's is risky due to cross-contamination, even if you go with items marked gluten-free on their menu. Every person with celiac disease has a different level of sensitivity, and you've not mentioned anything about your situation in that regard. Whenever I eat out I take GliadinX (a sponsor here), but of course, the best option would be to avoid eating out.