Mediterranean Gluten-Free Diet: Is It a Fair Bet for the Treatment of Gluten-Related Disorders?

Gluten-free diet (GFD) is the current treatment of gluten-related disorders. It eliminateswheat, barley, and rye, while the exclusion of oats is still under debate. GFD is based ona combination of naturally gluten-free foods and gluten-free substitutes of cereal-basedfoods. Although effective as treatment of gluten-related disorders, today there is concernabout how to improve GFD’s nutritional quality, to make it not only gluten-free, but alsohealthy. The “Mediterranean diet” (MedD) refers to the dietary pattern and eating habitstypical of populations living in the Mediterranean basin, which have been associated withlow prevalence of several diet-related pathologies. Here we present a narrative reviewof the current knowledge about GFD and MedD, their characteristics and central foodcomponents. Based on the Mediterranean diet pyramid developed by the Italian pediatricsociety, we propose a combination between the MedD and the GFD, an attractivealternative to reach a gluten-free state that at the same time is healthy, with a clear benefitto those who practice it.