Barley based gluten free beer – a blessing or an uncontrollable risk?

Recent reports have highlighted that gluten-free labelled beer, crafted with enzymatic treatments to remove gluten, may contain multiple polypeptides that could be immunotoxic to individuals with coeliac disease. As strict adherence to a gluten-free diet is the only way to manage this condition, accurate labelling is crucial to those with coealic diasease. This paper aims to discuss the presence, levels and immunogenicity of gluten peptides found in gluten-reduced (GR) barley beers. While advances have been made in the detection and quantification of gluten peptides in beer, there are still challenges on the interpretation of gluten measurements and on the clinical relevance of the degraded proteins needed to carry out proper risk assessment. Future progress will require a combination of in vivo toxicity assessment of the degraded proteins, development of standardised gluten-free production strategies that minimise the variability of gluten fragments obtained, guidance on how to control the outcome, and the development of appropriate reference materials (RMs) and calibrators based on these findings.

CUBERO LEON Elena;  MADSEN Charlotte B.;  SCHERF Katharina A.;  COLGRAVE Michelle L.;  NØRGAARD Jørgen Vinther;  ANTHONI Minna;  RIZOU Katerina;  WALKER Michael J.;  SOLLID Ludvig M.; 

2024-10-03

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

JRC138484

0278-6915 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691524005854,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC138484,   

10.1016/j.fct.2024.115019 (online),