Wheat population in developed countries. There is evidence that most cases remain undiagnosed and untreated. The only known effective treatment is a strict lifelong gluten-free diet. While coeliac disease is caused by a reaction to wheat proteins, it is not the same as a wheat allergy. Other diseases triggered by eating gluten are non-coeliac gluten sensitivity, (estimated to affect 0.5% to 13% of the general population), gluten ataxia and dermatitis herpetiformis. The following table shows the nutrient content of wheat and other major staple foods in a raw form. Raw forms of these staples, however, are not edible and cannot be
Wheat gluten (food) among adherents of Buddhism. The oldest reference to wheat gluten appears in the "Qimin Yaoshu", a Chinese agricultural encyclopedia written by Jia Sixie in 535. The encyclopedia mentions noodles prepared from wheat gluten called "bo duo". Wheat gluten was known as "mian jin" by the Song dynasty (960–1279). Wheat gluten arrived in the West by the 18th century. "De Frumento", an Italian treatise on wheat from 1745, describes the process of washing wheat flour dough in order to extract the gluten. John Imison wrote an English-language definition of wheat gluten in his "Elements of Science and Art" published in 1803.