No, you're wrong (sorry to be blunt). I used to think as you do, that gluten was just another "white fluffy" that should be avoided to stay lean.

Then I got sensitized to wheat around 2018 for a variety of reasons. Mostly work stress, chronic dehydration, drinking too much rye whiskey and beer, occasional tobacco which is really hard on the gut, and a total lack of awareness of how overconsumption of any food injures the body. And getting older, even after 20 years in the gym and generally following a healthy diet.

The main problem is that gluten and other components of wheat/husk make it past stomach acid, and their partially digested compounds injure or kill the villi of the small intestine. We don't notice until middle age, when the villi start losing their ability to regenerate. Then people who succumb enter an IBS phase where their digestion is never the same, and they have trouble absorbing nutrients in their small intestine. Gluten also mimics proteins in the body, like in the thyroid, which can trigger various autoimmune diseases. Glyphosate in high concentrations in wheat and oats also disrupts gut flora and can lead to dysbiosis, which may be the cause of a whole host of autoimmune diseases like arthritis, multiple sclerosis and even cancer. Many older obese people are actually starving, and their body composition looks like one of an alcoholic, with hormone imbalances from a deficiency of key vitamins, and too much fructose which is broken down by the liver once the small intestine can't absorb it.

https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2020/june/th...

There is a wealth of information from the holistic community which hasn't made it into western medicine yet, and tons of books like these which started gaining popularity a decade ago:

https://againstallgrain.com

Another anecdote is that I've struggled with ADHD symptoms my entire life, which can be loosely thought of as having depression and anxiety at the same time. I've found that avoiding the following foods has largely eliminated my symptoms, as well as completely stopped the chronic joint pain I used to have:

* wheat

* unaged dairy

* caffeine

* alcohol

* sugar

Note that caffeine speeds gut motility, which can be mistaken for IBS. I think it hits vegetarians especially hard, because meat slows digestion. I went through a healing journey from around 2019 to 2022, and my comments from that time are filled with me blaming FODMAPs as the cause of my symptoms. But in all honesty, I think that too much coffee could have been as much as 50% of my problem, tied with wheat and dairy. Legumes and nightshades are still inflammatory, but I feel they contribute perhaps 10-25%.

I could write at length about all of this, but I already sound like a conspiracy nut. The big takeaway is that calories-in-calories-out is NOT the cause of obesity - that's propaganda. If you're struggling with your weight and/or mental health, please consider your diet, and get advice from older people. I want to emphasize that I've derived my solutions here as a programmer from firsthand experience, so if something is wrong in my analysis, it doesn't mean that I'm wrong, because I'll just incorporate any new evidence and form a stronger theory. Hope this helps someone!

Edit: imtringued's comment about peppermint tea reminded me that peppermint oil is a traditional cure for diarrhea. It may help get IBS in check long enough for the body to return to a healthy state as long as the guidelines I've mentioned are followed.