In addition, a gluten-free diet may, in at least some cases, improve gastrointestinal or systemic symptoms in diseases like gluten free baked goods bowel syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, or HIV enteropathy, among others. Gluten proteins have low nutritional and biological value and the grains that contain gluten are not essential in the human diet.
However, an unbalanced selection of food and an incorrect choice of gluten-free replacement products may lead to nutritional deficiencies. A gluten-free diet may be based on gluten-free foods, such as meat, fish, eggs, milk and dairy products, legumes, nuts, fruits, vegetables, potatoes, rice, and corn. Gluten-free processed foods may be used. One breadcrumb of this size contains enough gluten to reactivate the autoimmune response in people with coeliac disease when they are following a gluten-free diet, although obvious symptoms may not appear. Coeliac disease with “classic symptoms”, which include gastrointestinal manifestations such as chronic diarrhea and abdominal distention, malabsorption, loss of appetite, and impaired growth, is currently the least common presentation form of the disease and affects predominantly to small children generally younger than two years of age. Following a lifelong gluten-free diet is the only medically-accepted treatment for people with coeliac disease.
