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The truth about gluten has become obscured by media "hype."

(The Associated Press)

You're doing it, or you know friends and family who are doing it.

Going gluten-free is a hugely popular diet choice right now, with millions of Americans insisting that wheat-based (and thus gluten-filled) foods cause them digestive distress and other, deeper problems. The cardiologist William Davis, author of the best-selling book "Wheat Belly," says gluten is literally killing us.

Which brings us to Michael Specter's article "Against the Grain" in the November 3 issue of The New Yorker. It's a fascinating essay that we recommend you read. But it is more than 6,000 words, so you'll have to set aside some serious time for it.

Want the highlights? Here's what The New Yorker -- backed up by a few other sources we tracked down -- wants you to know about gluten:

1. Gluten is known to cause problems for those with celiac disease. Only about one percent of the population has this disease.

2. In Asia, gluten on its own is a popular meal. It's called seitan and is typically fried or steamed.

3. Dr. Davis says that, thanks to the industrialization of food production, the bread you buy today is "nothing like" the bread made half a century ago. This, he says, has magnified its adverse effects on humans.

4. Most commercially made wheat has been milled into white flour. This strips out most of the vitamins and nutrients -- but not the gluten.

5. Look out for the word "bleached" in your bread's list of ingredients. Stephen Jones and Bethany Econopouly of Washington State University's "Bread Lab" wrote the following in a recent Huffington Post essay: "Chemicals like acetone peroxide, chlorine and benzoyl peroxide (yes, the one used to treat acne) can be included in the recipe and are masked under the term 'bleached.'"

6. A key element of commercially made bread is a dubious additive called "vital wheat gluten," which is a highly concentrated industrial version of gluten. Specter says that a "shard" of vital wheat gluten on its own looks "like a prehistoric weapon, or the hardened bone marrow of a small mammal." The Bread Lab's Jones says, "The stuff is simply indestructible."

7. Dave Dahl of Portland's own Dave's Killer Bread apparently is a big fan of vital wheat gluten. Specter writes that the Dave's Killer Bread factory is "stacked with fifty-pound bags of vital wheat gluten."

8. The number of people with celiac disease has increased significantly over the past half-century. But the reason for this increase is probably environmental, not changes in commercial bread making.

9. Peter H.R. Green, who heads up celiac-disease research at Columbia University Medical School, told Specter that "it's cruel and unusual treatment to put a child on a gluten-free diet without its being indicated medically."

10. Taking up a gluten-free diet won't make you healthier if you rely on supermarket products branded as "gluten free." "Often gluten-free versions of traditional wheat-based foods are actually junk food," says Green. He adds: "Salt, sugar, fat and gluten. If the makers take one away, then they add more of another to keep it attractive to people. If you don't have celiac disease, then these diets are not going to help you."

11. Gastroenterologist Peter Gibson says the digestive problems we attribute to wheat products aren't the result of eating gluten. The culprit is a set of complex carbohydrates he calls FODMAPs, an acronym for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccarides and polyols. FODMAPs are found in milk, ice cream, honey, onions, garlic, apples and watermelon, among many other food sources.

12. Gibson's FODMAPs study, says the Mayo Clinic's Dr. Joseph A. Murray, "blew our minds." Speaking of people who say they feel better after giving up gluten, he told Specter: "I would have to say that at least 70 percent of it is hype and desire. There is just nothing obviously related to gluten that is wrong with most of these people."

13. People feel better when they try to go gluten-free for a simple reason that has little to do with gluten per se: it means they're cutting back on many high-caloric foods, and so they lose weight.

-- Douglas Perry