Gluten is a protein composite that gives shape to grains like wheat, rye, and barley. It’s true that some people can’t tolerate it: those with wheat allergies, for example, or celiac disease. But that’s only a tiny fraction of the population, and it’s not enough to explain the overwhelming enthusiasm for this pattern of eating.

Many of us are going gluten-free without any scientific reason for doing so, and gluten is being blamed for a plethora of pathologies, including dementia, depression, obesity, autism, and ADHD. Some people also insist that abstaining from gluten can actually help with weight loss — a major reason acolytes avoid grains in their diets. Science, as you might expect, suggests the relationship between gluten and health is much more complicated than that.

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There are definitely real, gluten-related disorders that people have to cope with. Celiac disease is a serious, diagnosable autoimmune condition that causes people’s immune systems to violently attack their small intestine whenever they eat gluten. About 1 percent of Americans have celiac disease, and, according to the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness, many of them go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed for years — suffering through pain from eating unnecessarily.

Even more rare are genuine wheat allergies, which affect an estimated 0.1 percent of people in Westernized countries. Gluten-free products can certainly be used by those with this allergy, but, as a review article on gluten-free diets pointed out, “Because wheat allergy can be treated with wheat avoidance, a wheat-free diet may be more permissive than a strict gluten-free diet.”

More: The Gluten-Free Craze Is Out of Hand. Here Are 8 Facts to Counter the Madness. - Vox