<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> I received about 25 messages agreeing with me and about five disagreeing with me about whether gluten is absorbed through the skin. I think one part of this in particular deserves further comment. I got more messages telling me that the fact we could absorb medication through transdermal patches was absolute proof that we could absorb gluten through the skin. Another offered the fact that the skin soaks up moisturizer as further proof. A couple of people told me that they've been told by doctors that we absorb EVERYTHING through the skin. Let's leave aside the argument about whether the skin can absorb gluten and just look at this "proof." I ask these people to at least do a Google search on the subject. Do you think manufacturers just apply medication to a patch and then we magically absorb it? No. Otherwise all medications would be applied this way because it is MUCH more effective when you get medication through the skin. Why I could just dissolve a few aspirin in water and put the stuff on my skin. That way the aspirin wouldn't upset my stomach and I'd get much better distribution of pain reliever. But it doesn't work that way. The reality is that currently only limited classes of medications are used on a patch because of the difficulty getting the medication through our skin. A few things are actually readily absorbed through the skin -- nicotine just happens to be one of them -- but our skin does not allow most stuff to pass. The stratum corneum in the epidermis is specifically designed to keep water in the body and keep other stuff out to protect us. Without this protection you'd be sucking up everything you touched and would be one sick puppy.Your skin does indeed absorb moisturizers, but only on the surface. It does NOT carry into and throughout your body. The idea is moisturize your skin, not your pancreas. So manufacturers making patches must either alter the medication's molecular structure for application by patch or design a way to carry most medication through the skin. Some use a dermal penetration enhancer or carrier. My daughter had one a few years ago that used a mild electrical current to disrupt the stratum corneum and allow the antibiotic in. Without this current, the medication would NOT have been absorbed. Others are using or studying the use of ultrasound for the same purpose, and there's research to actually use a patch laced with microneedles to get the medication through the skin. This stuff is not just automatically absorbed -- it takes the collaborative work of engineers, biologists, chemists and others to design methods to get the medication through our skin. I can respect testimony from people who say they have had a bad reaction (although I still suspect allergy or the possibility they inadvertently got some of that topical gluten in their mouth), but the fact that some medications can be absorbed through the skin is not proof that gluten can be. BTW, I DO avoid gluten in things going on my skin, such as hand cream, bug spray, and sun lotion, but that's because I'm concerned about accidental ingestion. richard -- Richard Lovegrove Publications, Virginia Tech (540) 231-9468 [log in to unmask] *Support summarization of posts, reply to the SENDER not the CELIAC List*