I am a coeliac and the advice for anyone considering a gluten elimination diet - whether they are truly Coeliac or not is NOT to eliminate gluten from your diet without seeking advice from your GP or a dietician. There are obviously many causes of gastrointestinal problems, not just gluten intolerance and to eliminate gluten effectively means you may then miss out on essential components of your food intake that you need not remove from your diet. I certainly would be asking for genetic testing but only a small percentage of those patients with the two known hereditary genes for Coeliac disease actually develop the condition. The only true way of diagnosing true gluten intolerance ie Coeliac disease is a small bowel biopsy via a gastroscopy. If someone is actually gluten intolerant and has removed gluten from their diet prior to a gastroscopy, the small intestine may have had enough time to recover and give an equivocal result re gluten intolerance. At the very least, I would be seeking advice from a dietician prior to removing gluten from any diet as firstly you need to know exactly what to look for when buying ingredients etc as many foods which you may think are gluten free are not and even the tiniest amount of gluten intake for some of us provokes a violent reaction. Secondly, the dietician can advise you in what foods you can have and how to compensate for those foods you have to avoid.
