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DECbot writes:

from the "damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't" dept.

Ars Technica provides the scoop on a new study that should alarm practitioners of gluten-free diets--especially the 1% of Americans that suffer from celiac disease and thus are gluten-sensitive. While admittedly a small study, the researchers found many of the blood and urine samples of the gluten-free participants had elevated levels of mercury and arsenic.

Those just happen to be toxic substances that often accumulate to high levels in rice, a food that is naturally gluten-free. Rice flour and other rice products are often used as substitutes for gluten-containing ingredients in foods.

Exposure to high levels of mercury and arsenic is linked to risks of cardiovascular disease, cancers, and neurological problems.

The study is very small, and it’s unclear if the elevated levels are directly linked to the participants’ self-reported diets or even if the mercury and arsenic levels are high enough to cause health effects. But the researchers say the findings raise concern.

“These results indicate that there could be unintended consequences of eating a gluten-free diet,” Maria Argos, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago and lead author of the study, said in a statement. But it’s impossible to draw firm conclusions “until we perform the studies to determine if there are corresponding health consequences that could be related to higher levels of exposure to arsenic and mercury by eating gluten-free.”

Argos and colleagues reported their findings in the journal Epidemiology.

High accumulation of mercury and arsenic in rice is not a new thing. Previous research as shown that rice plants are at least ten times better at accumulating toxins from the soil than other grain plants. However, it seems that people are putting together the evidence that a high rice diet has its own set of unfortunate consequences too. In 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration proposed new regulation restricting the allowable arsenic levels in rice cereals for infants. Chew on that organically grown, fat-free, sugar-free, low salt, gluten-free, flavor-free, nutrition-free, non-GMO, PETA-approved, recycled cardboard for a while.

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