While researching sources of gluten, I came across this question in several places. My first thought was, "Great! What's supposed to help me can be making me sick!" We know that the active ingredients in medications can have their side-effects. But some of those inactive ingredients can also adversely affect your health.
My first course of action was to ask my pharmacist how I can find out if my medications contain gluten. She suggested calling the manufacturers. Celiac disease is not the first autoimmune disease I have been diagnosed with, so I am on a lot of medications for conditions caused by my other disease. The thought of calling all the manufacturers and waiting on hold for who knows how long did not sound like my idea of time well spent.
So, I went to the Celiac Disease Foundation website. Right on their home page was a headline regarding gluten in medications. Steve Plogshead, who has earned his PharmD, as well as other credentials, did some research into this subject. He found that even if you call the manufacturers, you may not get all the information you request. The most likely ingredient in a pill that could contain gluten is starch. In foods, plain starch comes from corn; but this does not hold true in pharmaceuticals. Dr. Plogshead wrote, "With all things considered, the true chances of getting a drug that contains gluten is extremely small, but as a protector of your health, you should eliminate all risks by evaluating the ingredients in your medications."
Since I'd rather try to find out the ingredients of a medication online rather than calling several manufactures, I looked for a search engine for this type of information. In books, magazines and websites, the same to websites come up as resources for determining gluten containing medications. One is Gluten Free Drugs, which is actually a blog by Dr. Plogshead. The other is Pillbox, created by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. Since I feel the National Institutes of Health to be a more reliable source (and also used by Dr. Plogshead), I chose to plug my medications into it's search feature. When looking at the ingredients, I was looking for mainly starch, maltodextrin (can sometimes be made from wheat), and of course wheat.
The first medication I entered had starch in the ingredients, but specified that it was potato in origin. Yay! I can keep that one!! The second, a generic, could not be found in the database. I was warned by a couple sources that this could occur. So, I set it aside for later. The next medication also contained potato starch. Okay, I know you don't really want to know about each and every medication. In a nut shell, I found ingredients for all but one medication and if they contained a starch, it was potato starch. None of them contained maltodextrin. The one I could not find was also not in other databases. But I did see that in other tablets, that manufacturer used potato starch. My iron supplement actually stated that it was gluten free.
Now I can feel better about taking my medications. If you find that a medication may or does contain glucose, talk to your pharmacist about alternatives from another manufacturer.
Resources
Celiac Disease Foundation. (2015). http://www.celiac.org
National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. (2013). Pillbox. http://pillbox.nlm.nih.gov/pillimage/search.php
Plogshead, S. (2015). Gluten in Medication. http://celiac.org/live-gluten-free/glutenfreediet/gluten-medication/
Plogshead, S. (2015). Gluten Free Drugs. http://www.glutenfreedrugs.com
Note: This blog does not provide medical advice. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist if you are uncertain about your medications.
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