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This is my favorite reponse. All responses are valuable and appreciated. It's just that this one made me laugh and enlightened me at the same time. Part 2 was too long, so I had to put this in a separate email.
Thank you for all the links to articles and websites.
I have been reading the differences between "wheat Allergies" and
"wheat & gluten intolerance." I understand the differences,
Unfortunately different people have different ideas as to what the
differences are. It makes a difference just *who* you have been I agree. I try to discriminate.
reading.
but as I
was reading a big question came to me. We are told that doctors
consider Celiac disease a rare disease, when in fact 3 million
Americans have it and most do not know it. I consider that appalling,
but am now wondering if Celiac could be more rare than we think!
It all depends on how narrowly you define it. If you confine celiac to
those who have been biopsy diagnosed, then no one has it that does This, to me, is quibbling!
not know it.
People with wheat/gluten intolerances suffer the same symptoms as
Celiacs, and damage occurs in the small intestine. As far as I know,
the only difference is that they do not carry the gene.
More than one possible gene has already been identified. Most likely
there are hundreds of genes that can cause it, most of them being
rare and undiscovered.
They get it in some other way. All kidding aside, this is very interesting reading. Thanks.
Celiac is genetically based, but it also requires some kind of
environmental trigger. We do not know what that is. Exposure
to contagious disease, vaccinations and exposure to gluten in
some combination are likely culprits. It is somewhat surprising
that the incidence of celiac (based on random blood tests) is
highest in those countries that eat the most wheat: notably
Italy with their pasta and bread.
I've known many people who have
tested for Celiac, been told it's negative, and continue eating
wheat.
I do not believe that celiac is fully understood at this time. There
are a number of issues that do not add up. First up we have the
"autoimmune disease" part. There is no place in the immune system
that is set up to recognize "self" from "not self". Second we have the
fact that none of the tests are perfect. Intestinal damage is patchy,
and so even a biopsy can give false negatives. Villi damage has
been reported in cases of soy and milk allergy, so a biopsy can
also give false positives.
A year or so ago I attended a conference in Germany on celiac disease.
I remember one doctor who lectured on a comparison between celiac
and food allergy. One slide after another was food allergy does this...
followed by celiac does the same. This went on for half an hour.
The very last slide was celiac is an allergy to gluten! This was
something that I have long suspected, but never would have dared to say
on my own.
If you look at pictures of damaged intestines they look a lot like a
skin rash that could well come from allergy. In fact if I rub grass
on my skin, I break out as if I had contacted poison oak. I do not need
a doctor to look up my rectum to know that I should not eat poison oak!
I know that most celiacs do not have that particular problem, but I am
not the only one who does.
Finally we have the fact that different celiacs do not respond in the
same way to the same types of gluten. It is well documented that
some can eat oats while others cannot. I also cannot eat rice, and
I am not the only one with that problem.
Gluten is defined as the water soluble portion of a food. Grind it into
flour, soak it, and the the gluten washes out. This is the way the
Brits make their deglutinized wheat starch, and it is the way Indians
render acorns edible.
The celiac community commonly uses a gluten in a narrow sense to
mean the gluten in wheat, oats, barley, and rye. This is only by
convention among ourselves. We also see "glutinous rice",
which is a sweet sticky rice. So the word gluten has multiple
definitions.
Within the water soluble fraction there are many proteins any one of
which may trigger an allergy in susceptible individuals. In food
testing they refer to gliadins, which is a narrower category than
gluten. Some people will be allergic to a protein found only in
wheat, while others are allergic to a protein found in several
related species.
Perhaps by coincidence the gliadins found
in wheat, oats, barley, rye contain proteins that are common
allergens. Celiac is not caused by *one* protein, nor by
*one* gene. We cannot understand it by thinking about *one*
individual, but rather a statistical distribution of traits
in a population. This is how immunity works. It works statistically
for a population and not for an individual.
As far as I am concerned there the only sure test celiac is
an elimination diet. If a person eliminates gluten and his symptoms
improve, then he is celiac. Not everyone will have flattened villi,
not everyone has DH, not everyone has diarrhea. But all celiacs
improve on a gluten free diet.
It really is not the doctor's job to find out what we can eat. All What is the doctor's job?
it takes is a good weaning. These days mothers would rather
be president of the United States than take care of their
children. It takes two years to wean a baby properly, and mothers
just will not do it.
Some of those may have other intolerances, but I suspect many
have wheat & gluten intolerances--I read 75% of the population.
I do not believe everything I read, and you should not either. Thank you for this...
I hope you will not repeat numbers like that without citing some
evidence. The 1/133 or roughly one in a hundred come from
IgA blood tests for gliadin reaction that are done on blood
donor samples. We know that there are other reactions such
as IgG which also cause celiac. There are different proteins and
protein fractions which can be involved as well. So we know that
the incidence is higher than one in a hundred, but we have no
way of measuring it. Repeating high numbers like this will only
cause people to doubt the message. One in a hundred is high
enough. People should make allowances.
As to food allergies in general, the number could well be 75 percent.
Most everyone has something that they cannot eat. Or they used
to, when mothers weaned their babies. These days they just get
sick without knowing the reason.
My question is, are we missing a huge segment of the population, who
does not know that Celiacs and non-Celiacs can both be wheat & gluten
intolerant? These non-Celiac people should not assume they are out of
the woods just because they do not get a positive result from Celiac
testing.
Iread this as a quibble over the definition of celiac. Excuse me for I'll consider this....
not participating. Possibly you are monolingual and do not accept
multiple meanings for words.
No wonder so many people don't know wheat/gluten is their problem. It
seems like most of America could feel better in as little as 2 weeks.
For many people it is *not* their problem. What we have to learn is It sure helps to figure out what keeps you on the stool!
that we are all different, and we cannot sit at the same table and eat
the same food. That is just the way it is. It seems as though you
are making the same mistake that those who reject celiac make.
God made man in His image, therefore I am like God and everyone is
like me.
Evolution requires that we are all different. Darwin called it
diversity of species. Without it we would could all die out from some
new disease. With it each generation has a wider variation
in immunity. This also show up as food allergies, and it separates
the population into groups that will eventually become new
species.
Celiac is not a disease. It is part of the normal functioning of I may be misunderstanding, but there's a big difference between
the immune system. It is scientific proof of evolution. This may accepting it and living with it.
be why so many people cannot accept it.
Visit the Celiac Web Page at Http://www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/index.html
Archives are at: Http://Listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?LIST=CELIAC
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