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Laura Johnson-Kelly <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>As an archaeologist, I can't resist responding to this query.  Put simply,
>the areas in Europe which have the highest apparent incidence of cd are
>those areas which grain agriculture reached last.  Ireland was a largely
>pastoral economy (ie based on herding animals) long after
>gluten-containing grain agriculture was introduced.  Presumably, the
>genetic predisposition for cd would not have been a disadvantage in hunting
>and gathering economies, or in pastoral economies.  It is only in groups
>where the gluten-containing grains were staple foods that cd would have been
>selected against, thus reducing the incidence in people who trace their
>roots back to the areas where wheat etc. have been cultivated the longest.

But Black Africa has never cultivated any of the gluten-bearing grains. The
hotter the climate the harder it is to grow wheat, and the lower the gluten
content. Wheat grow in the far north has the most gluten. The incidence of
CD is *very* low among people of African descent, and the one that I know
has some Scottish blood in him from many generations back.

Here's something related from Hills, Hilda Cherry, _Good Food, Gluten Free_,
New Cannan: Keats Publishing, 1976.

Dr. R. Shatin of Melbourne, Australia, member of the Scientific Council of
the International Society for Research into Nutrition and Civilization
Disease, has, since 1963, been publishing reports on his treatment of cases
of rheumatoid arthritis with a gluten-free, high protein diet, with
supplements, introducing his concept that in these patients, as in celiacs,
the primary lesion is to be found in the small intestine.

Shatin's concept rests on his view that "the domestication of cereals (wheat
and later rye and oats) crucial to the development of civilization also
confronted metabolism with a historical challenge." He points out that man
changed from a food-gather to a food-producer, epochal changes in his
ecology were paralleled by similar changes in his diet. This transition from
animal flesh amd milk with what nuts, berries, fruits and roots were still
available from the times when he lived exclusively on these, to domesticated
cereals obtained by culturing and farming the seeds of grasses, could have
been too sudden for the digestive functions of a significant minority to
have been able to adapt adequately to such drastic changes in dietetic
habits. Dr. Shatin considers that celiac disease may have been very common
in pre-history, but that since it would have been lethal before the age of
reproduction was reached, a partially dominant trait could in this way have
become rare (as it now is) and recessive.

He presents evidence that there is also small intestine malabsorbtion in RA
and suggest the possibility that a suscepibility to this disease exists
which can be activated by gluten and other factors into a primary lesion
(injury). He claims that the apparent benefit from the use of a
gluten-free-high-protein diet in a few cases of RA has given him some
practical support for his theoretical considerations and points out that in
its medical aspects, his hypothesis has the merit of being eminently capable
of proof.

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