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This poster answers in parts. The posters remarks are in parenthesis. The rest is parts of my original question or my responses.
 I have been reading the differences between "wheat Allergies" and" wheat & gluten intolerance." I understand the differences.  Unfortunately different people have different ideas as to what the differences are.  (It makes a difference just *who* you have been reading(listening to?)
 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 rarer than we think!  (It all depends on how narrowly you define it. If you confine celiac to those who have been biopsy diagnosed, then no one has it that does not have damaged villi) Poster says I am quibbling in later remark.  This, to me, is quibbling! 
 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.  (More than one possible gene has already been identified.  Most likely there are hundreds of genes that can cause it, most of them being rare and undiscovered.   
Celiac is genetically based, but it also requires some kind of environmental trigger. We do not know what that is.  Exposure to contagious disease, vaccinations and exposure to gluten in some combination are likely culprits.  It is somewhat surprising that the incidence of celiac (based on random blood tests) is highest in those countries that eat the most wheat:  notably Italy with their pasta and bread.) 
 I've known many people who have tested for Celiac, been told it's negative, and continue eating wheat. (I do not believe that celiac is fully understood at this time.  There are a number of issues that do not add up.  First up we have the"autoimmune disease" part.   There is no place in the immune system that is set up to recognize "self" from "not self".  Second we have the fact that none of the tests are perfect.  Intestinal damage is patchy, and so even a biopsy can give false negatives.  Villi damage has been reported in cases of soy and milk allergy, so a biopsy can also give false positives. A year or so ago I attended a conference in Germany on celiac disease. I remember one doctor who lectured on a comparison between celiac and food allergy.   One slide after another was food allergy does this...followed by celiac does the same.  This went on for half an hour.  The very last slide was celiac is an allergy to gluten!   This
 something that I have long suspected, but never would have dared to say on my own.  If you look at pictures of damaged intestines they look a lot like a skin rash that could well come from allergy.   In fact, if I rub grass on my skin, I break out as if I had contacted poison oak.   I do not need a doctor to look up my rectum to know that I should not eat poison oak!  I know that  most  celiacs do not have that particular problem, but I am not the only one who does.  Finally, we have the fact that different celiacs do not respond in the same way to the same types of gluten.   It is well documented that some can eat oats while others cannot. I also cannot eat rice, and I am not the only one with that problem.  Gluten is defined as the water soluble portion of a food.  Grind it into flour, soak it, and the gluten washes out.  This is the way the Brits make their deglutinized wheat starch, and it is the way Indians render acorns edible. The
 celiac community commonly uses a gluten in a narrow sense to mean the gluten in wheat, oats, barley, and rye. This is only by convention among ourselves.  We also see "glutinous rice", which is a sweet sticky rice. So the word gluten has multiple definitions. Within the water soluble fraction there are many proteins any one of which may trigger an allergy in susceptible individuals.   In food testing they refer to gliadins, which is a narrower category than gluten.  Some people will be allergic to a protein found only in wheat, while others are allergic to a protein found in several related species.  Perhaps by coincidence, the gliadins found in wheat, oats, barley, rye contain proteins that are common allergens.   Celiac is not caused by *one* protein, nor by *one* gene.  We cannot understand it by thinking about *one* individual, but rather a statistical distribution of traits in a population.  This is how immunity works.   It works
 statistically for a population and not for an individual.  As far as I am concerned there the only sure test celiac is an elimination diet.   If a person eliminates gluten and his symptoms improve, then he is celiac. Not everyone will have flattened villi, not everyone has DH, not everyone has diarrhea.   But all celiac improve on a gluten free diet.  
It really is not the doctor's job to find out what we can eat. My response: What is the doctors job?  It takes is a good weaning.  These days mothers would rather be president of the United States than take care of their children. My response: generalization?  It takes two years to wean a baby properly, and mothers just will not do it.) My response: some mothers. I nursed my kids past 2. 
Some of those may have other intolerances, but I suspect many have wheat & gluten intolerances--I read 75% of the population. ( I do not believe everything I read, and you should not either.) My response: Unfair assumption on your part.
I hope you will not repeat numbers like that without citing some evidence. My response: I am asking a question, not writing a paper. (The 1/133 or roughly one in a hundred come from IgA blood tests for gliadin reaction that are done on blood donor samples. We know that there are other reactions such as IgG which also cause celiac.  There are different proteins and protein fractions which can be involved as well.  So we know that the incidence is higher than one in a hundred, but we have no way of measuring it.  Repeating high numbers like this will only cause people to doubt the message.  One in a hundred is high enough.  People should make allowances.  As to food allergies in general, the number could well be 75 percent. My response: Cite some evidence, please.  Most everyone has something that they cannot eat.   Or they used to, when mothers weaned their babies.  These days they just get sick without knowing the reason.
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. (I read this as a quibble over the definition of celiac.  Excuse me for not participating.  Possibly you are monolingual and do not accept multiple meanings for words.) My response: I am asking a question. Is this necessary?  
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.( For many people it is *not* their problem.) My response: Try to tell them that it isn’t a problem. ( What we have to learn is that we are all different, and we cannot sit at the same table and eat the same food.  That is just the way it is.) My response: Overly simplified.  ( It seems as though you are making the same mistake that those who reject celiac make. God made man in His image, therefore I am like God and everyone is like me.) My response: I am just asking a question. (Evolution requires that we are all different.  Darwin called it diversity of species.  Without it we would all die out from some new disease.   With it each generation has a wider variation in immunity.   This also show up as food allergies, and it separates the population into groups that will eventually become new species. 
 Celiac is not a disease.  It is part of the normal functioning of the immune system.  It is scientific proof of evolution.  This may be why so many people cannot accept it. My response: There’s a big difference between accepting it and living with it. The scientific (medical) community certainly has made no effort to enlighten the “underlings,” who continue to suffer and are treated, when they question, as if they are stupid.   


      

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