Gluten: Who Actually Needs to Avoid It, and Who Does Not

By Tina Chagoury, Clinical Dietitian · 5 min read · 2026-09-07

Gluten is inflammatory for most people to some degree. That does not mean the answer is a shelf full of gluten free products.

Gluten is one of the most polarised topics in nutrition, and the truth sits in a fairly boring middle.

Where I actually stand

Gluten is inflammatory for most people to some degree. That is my clinical position, and it is why reducing it is part of most anti inflammatory protocols I write.

But, and this matters, that does not mean you should eat gluten free products.

Why gluten free is not the same as healthier

Walk down the gluten free aisle and look at what is actually in those products. Refined starches, added sugars, industrial oils, and a long ingredient list designed to replicate the texture that gluten provides.

Removing gluten and replacing it with that is not a health improvement. It is frequently a downgrade.

What I recommend instead

Avoid wheat as much as you reasonably can, rather than replacing it with engineered substitutes.

And if you genuinely love bread, and many people do, choose one that does not drive inflammation as strongly: whole wheat sourdough.

Sourdough is different because of the fermentation. The long fermentation partially breaks down the gluten and the fermentable carbohydrates before you ever eat it. Many people who react to ordinary bread tolerate good sourdough considerably better.

When people ask me to choose between brown bread and white bread, my honest answer is that they are more similar than the marketing suggests. Brown has slightly more fibre. If I am choosing, I remove both and take sourdough.

Who genuinely must avoid it completely

This is not a preference question for everyone.

Coeliac disease requires complete, permanent, strict avoidance. This is a medical diagnosis and it is not negotiable.

Autoimmune conditions, during an Autoimmune Protocol phase, gluten comes out entirely for four to six weeks as part of calming immune activity and settling the gut.

Some people with significant gut symptoms find that removing it produces a substantial change. If you stop and your life genuinely changes, that is meaningful information about you.

But here is the important qualifier: the fact that it transforms things for one person does not mean everyone needs to do it.

How to find out where you sit

Do not guess indefinitely. Remove it properly for a defined period, four to six weeks, then reintroduce it deliberately and pay attention.

Reintroduction is the part people skip, and it is the part that produces the answer. Without it you simply end up avoiding more and more foods with less and less information, which is how food fear develops.

The bigger picture

Gluten is one input among many. If your blood sugar is disordered, you are not sleeping, you are undereating and your stress is unmanaged, removing gluten alone will not resolve much.

Reduce the total inflammatory load: processed food, refined and fried oils, processed sugar, artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose. If you want a sweetener without the sugar, stevia, allulose or monk fruit are the better options, and I tend to prefer stevia because its taste is less aggressive than monk fruit.

Then look at gluten in that context, rather than treating it as the single villain.

This article is nutrition education, not medical advice. Coeliac disease must be diagnosed by a doctor, and testing requires that you are still eating gluten.

Tina Chagoury is a licensed clinical dietitian specialising in women's hormonal health and gut health, and the creator of the Hormone Reset Method™. Learn more and start here.