Celiac disease, gluten-free diet, and oats.

Oats in a gluten-free diet increase the diet's nutritional value, but their use remains controversial. Contamination with prolamins of other cereals is frequent, and some clinical and experimental studies support the view that a subgroup of celiac patients may be intolerant to pure oats. Thus, this issue is more complex than previously suggested. In order to produce oats that are safe for all celiac patients, the following topics should be addressed: selection of oat cultivars with low avenin content, research on such recombinant varieties of oats, development of assay methods to detect avenins in oat products, guidelines for the agricultural processing of oats and the manufacture of oat products, as well as guidelines for following up with celiac patients who consume oats.