Hi Everyone,
Thanks so much for such interesting re
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Hi Everyone,
Thanks so much for such interesting responses. I am listing them for you to read. Great info. It is true that with very post came new ?s to ponder.
I am sending Part 1. The rest will follow.
 
My Post
I have been reading the differences between "wheat Allergies" and "wheat & gluten intolerance." I understand the differences, 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! 

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. They get it in some other way. I've known many people who have tested for Celiac, been told it's negative, and continue eating wheat. Some of those may have other intolerances, but I suspect many have wheat & gluten intolerances--I read 75% of the population. 

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.

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.

Any thoughts about this? Am I off base? Many of you are way more knowledgable than I am about the science of Celiac. I'd love to hear from you.
 
Correction 
I said in my question that wheat/gluten intolerance causes intesinal damage.That is not true. Food intolerances cause similar symptoms, but once the offending food is out of the system, the symptoms go away. (Chicago Celiac Disease Center)
 
Hi -
I think that only those with Celiac Sprue get flattened villi.Celiac sprue is an autoimmune disease, not a digestive disorder.  Not sure what gluten intolerance is although I assume that it is more  along the lines of a digestive disorder without the flattened villi  or immune reaction.  My daughter is dx with celiac sprue and has one celiac sprue gene; my husband has 2 celiac sprue genes; I have none,  just gluten intolerant genes.  However, the Enterolab stool test said  that I had an autoimmune reaction to wheat and therefore had celiacsprue, even though I don't have the genes.  At the time, I thought I  was completely GF, so I was only ingesting a tiny amount of wheat  (possibly from eating cross contaminated corn chips a couple of times  a month for several months) - yet Enterolab said I had an immune  reaction - a very tiny one, but an immune reaction just the same.  (Neither my daughter or husband had an autoimmune reaction
according  
to the Enterolab stool test - but they didn't eat the chips.) 

Summary of Responses
 
I think you definitely have a point re: people being told they do not have celiac disease based on a negative endoscopy but not being told it may instead be a gluten sensitivity. My understanding is that gluten sensitity is a much larger group in which CD is a more severe and smaller sub group. I am gluten sensitive and have 2 copies of the gene that Dr. Kenneth Fine has identified as indictive of this. Since I felt so much better on a GF diet but had a negative endoscopy I opted for genetic testing with Dr. Fine. Fortunately he was one of the ones that tested for HLA DQ 1 as well as 2 and 8. I don't think the sensitivity leads to small intestine damage but in my case it certainly acted like IBS. GoogleIgG or Hadjivassiliou and read his article on "Gluten Sensitivity, A "Many Headed Hydra". He feels gluten sensitivity or intolerance leads to neurological problems so avoiding gluten is definitely worth wh

Here is something to think about.  I had 4 Gastroenterologist read my original biopsy which was 25 years ago.One said it's a low positive, stay on a low gluten diet. Next said it is a negative.Third yelled at me for not staying on the gf diet. Told me I would end up with lymphoma. I finally took it to a seminar where a
doctor very well versed in celiac was speaking.I asked him to read it after the talk. He said it looked like a positive to him. It makes me wonder how many people stopped at the second doctor that said it was a negative.

You're not off base. I think you're absolutely right!

I have CD, and agree that sometimes I feel like someone who's gained some super power... I mean, I'm surrounded by people who talk about various ailments and I wonder if they're just eating themselves sick?  Granted, I'm saying this as someone who drinks icky stuff like Diet Coke and eats gummi bears.  

In general, however, I think you're right on.  There are a LOT of people in America just eating themselves back into the doctors office saying, "gosh, I still don't feel well... "

Shoot, I was choc' full of ailments till I went off gluten... But I wouldn't have found out about it had I not had a LOT of testing done after becoming anemic.

It's an interesting time we live in... I feel like one of the lucky ones.
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What you are saying is all true, but my questions are: Why does it seem that so many people are intolerant to wheat? Why is diabetes becoming so widespread? Why are there so many cancers?
 
The list is endless and I keep wondering if it is in the way we grow foods, or the processing of them, or if it's the depletion of minerals in the ground, or if it is the contamination of our air, land and waters,etc. After all everyone eats something, so to me it points toward the food chain. Is it the chemicals they are using to grow the wheat? Is it the chemicals in the water? Is it from the drugs we take that get into our water supply? Why is everyone suffering with some sort of health challenge?
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Very good questions.  Please check out 

www.theglutensyndrome.net

It is all about these very issues.  The primer is in the process of being updated, but the one posted online still has a lot of info on this.  

Note on the genes, researchers are adding more genes and some do not believe the genes (at least DQ 2 and 8), are needed at all to develop the gluten syndrome.  Toxins, stress and infections can cause some of the pathways that lead to gluten related damage without the genes.

Recently, a doctor reports that he ran a very complete panel of gluten related antibodies on around 350 patients over 3 years.  he tested many more antibodies than typical celiac tests check.  77% of the patients were positive.  (This is an "already sick" population.)  What about the ones that are still silent?  This is in line with the numbers found by Ken Fine at Enterolab, which performs a research stool test.

The gluten has been changed.  Several plants were combined in the 1100's, then the wheat we use today was essentially genetically modified by an x ray radiation technique not in use today in the early 1900's (Mendel in the Kitchen, by Nina Federoff), and the gluten has been raised from 3% to 30-40% by hybridizing methods.  When today's gluten isn't properly broken down and absorbed it causes serious trouble.

Plus our bodies are lacking nutrients which are no longer in the soil, or are processed out.  Plus the fats profiles are upside down, and the toxic load in off the charts.  Translates into weakened tissues and messed up digestion.  Who in this culture isn't greatly affected?
 
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