UK Spent $180 Million on Prescribing Gluten-Free Junk Food in 2014

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) spent nearly $180 million on prescribing free gluten-free junk food in 2014 amid a national obesity crisis, according to the Health and Social Care Information Centre report.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to the study, the health service wrote a total of 211,200 prescriptions for low protein or gluten-free food last year, including cookies, donuts, pizzas and burger mixes.

According to the rules of the UK's health system, some 90 percent of the prescriptions were filled for free, which added to the severe strain on the NHS' tight budget.

"The NHS offers world-leading care, but it wasn't founded to prescribe chocolate biscuits and cakes — gluten free or otherwise — especially given the damage we know obesity can cause," a spokesman for the UK Department of Health said, as quoted by the Daily Mail.

The data also revealed that the number of prescriptions issued in the country has doubled in the past 10 years.

According to an investigation by The Telegraph, the NHS' debt is expected to exceed six times its its annual operating budget by 2020, prompting the closure of some 20 percent of UK hospitals.

Gluten-free food is usually prescribed to patients with coeliac decease, which leads to difficulties in digesting food. The disease affects about one in 100 people.