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Hello everyone,

I have been following the discussions over the past couple months.  What
a wonderful and helpful group of people!  I am a 29 year old graduate
student studying Animal Welfare at U.B.C.  here in Vancouver, Canada.  I
have not been officially diagnosed with celiac disease but I carefully
avoided gluten for six weeks and then tried it again to see what would
happen.  I reacted with bloating and back pain and many other obvious
symptoms.  So, I guess I am a self-diagnosed celiac (of course my doctor
stated, "it is unlikely because you don't suffer from diarrhea and are
not `wasted' in appearance").  Nevertheless, I have officially been
diagnosed with hemochromatosis and since many symptoms are the same as
celiac disease I thought I had better relay some information so that you
are all aware of this disease as well.  Hemochromatosis is a genetic
disease also prevalent in 'Northern European Cultures'.  My father and
Uncle were just diagnosed with it and that is why I requested to be
tested for it as well.  It is a disease that does not allow your body to
get rid of the excess iron it has accumulated from food.  Normally your
body stores iron in the bone marrow but hemochromatotics (?)  don't have
any room left in their bones and so the iron begins storing itself in
the joints and organs.  Any area where it is being stored starts to
deteriorate.  This leads to cancer, heart disease, and cirrhosis of the
liver.  It also causes fatigue, joint disease, reddening or bronzing of
the skin, hair loss, sexual dysfunction or libido loss, testicle atrophy
in men...the list goes on.  One of the first symptoms is arthritis in
the first and second knuckle of the hand.

One symptom difference between Celiac disease and Hemochromatosis is
that hemochromatotics don't suffer from anemia.

I would encourage anyone who is interested in learning more about
hemochromatosis to visit the Canadian Hemochromatosis Society here in
Richmond, British Columbia, Canada... http://home.iSTAR.ca/~chcts/

One journal article states that hemochromatosis and celiac disease are
both associated with the Human Leukocyte Antigen region (I'm not sure
myself what this is, perhaps someone out there who knows what this means
could tell us).  Anyway, I think it means that these diseases both have
a hereditary component and that the interaction of multiple and closely
related genes produce the diseases. Here is the journal article and quote:

Thomsom, G. (1995) HLA disease associations: models for the study of
complex human genetic disorders.  Crit Rev Clin Lab Sci 1995; 32(2):183-219]
Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley
94720-3140, USA.

The genes of the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) region, the major
histocompatibility complex (MHC) of humans, control a variety of functions
involved in immune response and influence susceptibility to over 40 diseases.
Theoretical studies in the development of models to determine the modes of
inheritance of the HLA-associated diseases have led to a better understanding of
the inheritance patterns in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM),
rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, ankylosing spondylitis,
hemochromatosis, celiac disease, and others. It is now clear that many
of the HLA-associated diseases involve heterogeneity in their HLA
components, as well as non-HLA genetic factors.

Hope this is of use to someone,

Cheers and good health,

Anna