Some years ago there were gluten allergies.
Yes, I’m aware that that’s still a thing for a small number of people, but it’s not like it was in say, 2012 or so. If you were unborn then, or young, or dead, what happened was that there was a sudden surge of news articles proclaiming that gluten, basically, anything that was a carbohydrate or related in anyway to bread, was causing a lot of the public to be sick. People were really into it. Gluten free restaurants and bakeries popped up everywhere, your friends became insufferable to dine-out with, Denise in the office was very particular about your sandwich being sufficiently distant from her all-protein salad lest a small crumb of gluten get into her salad container and send her into epileptic shock. Gluten! had become the thing to blame for your ills. It was why you were tired and felt bad and why you were grumpy to your husband at home. I knew a fellow who once accidentally ate a piece of biscuit and then turned a sort of grey color and passed out on the floor (true story).
Then it stopped.
Nobody knows why.
Today, almost 10 years later most people can eat bread without dying again. Low carb diets are still a thing I suppose, but the idea that you can blame bread for all your health problems seems to have been erased from the public consciousness. The thing is though, those people who were allergic 10 years ago weren’t faking it. They really were getting sick, feeling terrible, experiencing inflammation. And… now they aren’t.
Science doesn’t work how you think it does. That’s a big statement but I think it’s probably true. It’s probably not true that what you believe is happening or will happen has no physiological effects on you. Not to say that there aren’t also chemical/anatomical things which cause illness. There are. However, you can also BELIEVE yourself into being sick.
Apply that to our current situation if you want. Or don’t, none of my business.