According to Columbia University researchers, a new study conducted by them has found that more than half of the popular probiotics contain traces of gluten. That amount of gluten could trouble a number of people who are suffering from digestive illnesses, the researchers said.

The Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University stated that the researchers examined more than 20 top-selling probiotics and found that about 55% of them contained detectable gluten. Samantha Nazareth, a gastroenterologist at CUMC and lead author of the study, said probiotics are very popular as a number of people who have been suffering from celiac disease take dietary supplements.

It was earlier reported that patients of celiac disease who take dietary supplements could have more symptoms than the people who don’t take the dietary supplements, Nazareth said. To know more about the problem, the researchers decided to examine the probiotics for gluten contamination, according to Nazareth.

To conduct the study, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry was used by the Columbia University researchers. With that, they tried to find gluten content in several popular probiotics. The study showed that a number of products were tested positive.

Gluten, a protein found in grains such as wheat or barely, could be particularly harmful to those people who have been suffering celiac disease. Usually, those people are advised to eliminate the protein from their food.

Peter Green, professor of medicine and director of the Celiac Disease Center, said, “We have been following reports in the scientific literature and news media on inaccurate labeling of nutritional supplements, and it appears that labels claiming a product is gluten-free are not to be trusted, at least when it comes to probiotics”. According to Green, presence of gluten in foods of sufferers of celiac disease is a hazard for patients and the center is concerned.