Gluten-free diet carries increased obesity risk, warn experts

Food adapted for those with coeliac disease often has more fat and less protein, and no benefits to non-sufferers, finds research

Substituting everyday staples with gluten-free foods could increase the risk of obesity, experts have warned, after finding that such products often contain higher levels of fats than the food they aim to replace.

A gluten-free diet is essential to those with coeliac disease - an auto-immune condition that is thought to affect 1% of Europeans - while the regime is also proving increasingly popular among those without the disease. But while a host of gluten-free products are on the market, researchers have said they have a very different nutritional make-up to conventional staples.