The toast of Twitter: Rosanna – and gluten! – almost breaks the internet

Let's face it: a lot of folk would love to look even just a little bit more like Rosanna Davison.

Indeed, her forthcoming book, Eat Yourself Beautiful, has been on plenty of people's wish-lists for weeks.

Promising a load of recipes to "help you look and feel amazing," here in SHEmazing! we've been pretty excited to discover what goes into creating a Miss World worthy glow (not to mention a killer bikini bod).

But last night on Twitter, the model and nutritionist caused all-hell-break-loose OUTRAGE – prompting so many thousands of tweets that her name was soon trending nationally.

The issue? Quotes credited to the Playboy cover-girl in the Irish Independent's Weekend magazine reveal that her husband-of-a-year, Wesley, had recently been suffering from significant discomfort and pain in his joints and back.

And when the aches didn't go away, Rosanna suspected his ongoing symptoms could be because of rheumatoid arthritis.

Drawing on her nutritional qualifications and experience, she subsequently told Wesley to "stop with the pizzas and beer," encouraging him to embrace a totally gluten-free diet.

And "within a couple of weeks," she explained, he was pain-free and moving more freely. "So now he is really receptive to anything that I say to him."

In the same interview, the 31-year-old Dubliner went on to say: "A huge proportion of preventable diseases are attributable to a deficiency in certain nutrients… Wheat, dairy and refined sugar are trigger foods for a lot of people."

And further comments attributed to Rosanna (although, significantly, she is not quoted) in the same piece cites research that links gluten to autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia.

Understandably, it was these remarks in particular that proved hugely divisive within the Twittersphere – with even the likes of Embarrassing Bodies' celebrity medic Dr Christian weighing-in.

Ms Davison has since clarified her comments with statements on her hugely popular website, rosannadavisonnutrition.com (in fact, so many people were attempting to log on last night, that the site temporarily crashed).

"I completely agree with Arthritis Ireland, in that those who have been diagnosed with RA must manage their disease with the advice of their GP and consultant, and not through diet alone," she states.

She also asserts: "I was by no means stating that gluten causes arthritis or any other diseases, or that they can be cured by removing it from the diet."

And this afternoon, the model issued fresh comments on the matter.

Welcoming questions and queries from those unsure of her sentiments in the Irish Indo interview, she took to Twitter to tell her 63.5K followers: “I think I'd better clarify a few things: I do not believe gluten is responsible for autism, schizophrenia or arthritis.

"Or that those suffering from those conditions can be cured by going gluten-free.

“My point was, and remains, that diet may play an important role in alleviating symptoms of serious conditions. This is well documented."

She furthermore links to a more detailed statement on her website.

Ms Davison also replied to Dr Christian, telling him: "The sentence that appears to be at the root of all of this, is not a quote, does not appear in the book and does NOT reflect my views."

Today, the commotion seems to have died down somewhat (phew!), although Twitter has a new distraction: namely the now-trending hashtag, #BlameGluten, which was kicked-off this morning by radio station, Spin 1038. 

And we have to say, we've been getting major lolz from the resulting tweets.

In the meantime, it's full steam ahead for Rosanna Davison's Eat Yourself Beautiful launch, which takes place this week. She's doing a signing too in Dubray Books on Grafton this Saturday at 3pm too. 

What do you think of Rosanna's comments? And will you be attempting to Eat Yourself Beautiful?