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After reading the posts about Daniel Engber's article "Throwing out
the Wheat' in Slate, I was ready, as a long-time Slate subscriber, to
fire off an angry missive.
After carefully reading the actual article, already primed to look for
inaccuracies, I found none. On celiac disease, Mr. Engber states in
the third paragraph:
"The lavishing of attention on wheat alternatives is wonderful news
to the sufferers of celiac disease, for whom any amount of dietary
gluten can inflame and destroy the lining of the small intestine. (The
human gut can't fully process gluten. At best, it's converted into a
set of indigestible protein fragments that pass uneventfully through
the gastrointestinal tract. If you've got celiac disease, these
fragments set off a damaging immune response.) This can show up as
diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, skin rash, anemia, fatigue, or
osteoporosis—and the long-term prognosis isn't so good, either: Celiac
patients have almost twice the normal risk of cancer, and one-third of
them suffer from another autoimmune disease, like Type 1 diabetes,
lupus, or multiple sclerosis. (They may also be susceptible to
schizophrenia.) As far as we know, the only way for people with celiac
to stave off these dangers is to eliminate gluten from their diets—
entirely and without exception—for the rest of their lives."
The fourth paragraph, which summarizes what the article is about,
states:
"But diagnosed celiacs only account for a small fraction of the
bloated and still-expanding market for gluten-free products. (In
total, the disease affects just 0.75 percent of the population.) The
remainder are those consumers who believe, for one reason or another,
that gluten is hurting them, too. According to Alessio Fasano,
director of the Center for Celiac Research at the University of
Maryland and a leading expert on the disease, almost half the people
who show up at his clinic are on the gluten-free diet before they've
even been tested for celiac. For every patient whose intestinal biopsy
turns up positive, he says, nine or 10 more test clean but commit to
going G-free all the same."
As one who often engages other shoppers in the gluten-free aisle at
the local Wegmans in conversation, I am not at all surprised that
people are adopting the GF diet for non-celiac related reasons. Quite
selfishly, I am happy about this since the larger the market, the more
motivated food manufacturers and vendors are to make more GF products
available and ultimately more affordable for us.
So, read it yourself and form your own conclusions.
http://www.slate.com/id/2223745/?from=3Drss
Joel
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