From "Cereal Grains: Humanity's Double-Edged Sword," by Loren Cordain PhD
(www.thepaleodiet.com/articles/Cereal%20article.pdf):
........... much deleted...............
"The main body of evidence implicates viral and bacterial pathogens as initiators of cross
reactivity and autoimmunity [233, 242]; however there is an emerging body of
literature supporting the view that dietary antigens [243, 244], including
cereal grains [245, 246], may also induce cross-reactivity and hence
autoimmunity by virtue of peptide structures homologous to those in the
host. ...."


The above brings up an interesting point for me.  I have a friend recently diagnosed with progressive MS..  She had a complete food allergy panel (88 foods) done at Genova lab; it cost over $450 and necessitated a doctor's prescription, a local blood draw, spinning the blood and putting it into a vial and FedExing it to the lab.

The allergy panel came back that she is allergic to tuna and avocado.  She reacts slightly to grapefruit and a couple other things, but not at all to wheat, gluten, oats, etc..  Since diagnosis, she has been on a no gluten diet thinking that it would be helpful for her autoimmune disease.

I have been struggling with a particularly difficult form of post polio, known as progressive post polio muscular atrophy (similar to ALS), for over 15 years and have been considering spending the money to have an allergy panel done.  My body has enough problems and dealing with foods to which I am allergic just doesn't make sense, plus my form of post polio appears to have an autoimmune component.  That said, I have been paleo or semi-paleo for over a dozen years and one of the things I do not understand is this: if humans are not yet adapted to grains, why does this not show up in at least some sensitivity when an allergy panel is done?

TIA,

Kath