Evaluating Dietary Supplements: What Should Celiac Patients Know?

It can be difficult for patients with celiac disease to strictly maintain their gluten-free diet. An alternative method of treatment could be what is known as “glutenases” and can be found in the dietary supplement market. 

The Celiac Disease Center of Columbia University conducted a study about identifying products with clear or suggested claims to support digesting gluten and see whether or not their claims, disclaimers, and ingredients are really true. With a thorough search on Google, they were able to determine enzyme supplements that claimed to reduce gluten in the United States, and they identified 14 products wherein most of them had labels like GlutenEase, Gluten Defense, and Gluten Cutter. These products implied giving relief to those patients with celiac disease and to those who are wheat sensitive or those from non-celiac gluten communities.

A brief overview of dietary supplements

According to the US Drug Supplement Health and Education Act of 1944, dietary supplements are products that contain one or more dietary ingredients like minerals, vitamins, herbs, amino acids, and other substances that supplement someone's diet. They supplement the patients’ diet by increasing their total dietary intake, constituent, extract, metabolite or a combination of all. These supplements can also be in a form of capsule, pill, liquid, or tablet. These should not be treated as a substitute for food because they only supplement the diet.

These are commonly available in grocery stores, health food stores, pharmacies, by mail, and on the Internet. The makers of these supplements cannot officially say that these can cure, diagnose, prevent, or treat diseases. Instead, they can claim that they help maintain human’s health and well-being.

The dietary supplement industry

Due to the increasing demand of consumers, the industry of dietary supplements has exploded. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has no authority over the dietary supplement industry unlike cosmetic, food, and pharmaceutical products. 

The demand for these supplements is high because people are looking for other alternatives that will help in treating the symptoms of celiac disease and in maintaining their gluten-free diet. Researchers had concluded, using Google AdWords, that there were 3,173 searches for the glutenase products every month. This is 24 and 75 times lower than the searches for “gluten-free” and “CD” respectively.  However, there is no solid evidence that these products are really effective basing on the claims that they implied. In fact, there’s a possibility that they may be harmful to the patient’s health.