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 In a belated answer to the question about the paper on papain
digestion of gluten by Messer et al in Gut (5), 295-303 (1964), the
paper does not suggest that eating papain will allow a celiac person to
eat gluten.  The authors confirmed an earlier report that long
PREdigestion (42 hours) of gluten with a huge excess of crude papain
would make it non-toxic when ingested by a celiac.  They showed that
pure papain did not detoxify gluten and suggested that detoxification
was brought about by an enzyme, a contaminant in crude papain, that
released ammonia from gluten.  This was one of the early bits of
suggestive evidence that glutamine-containing peptide sequences were
important in accounting for gliadin toxicity in celiacs.  Since the
authors indicated that the detoxifying enzyme was both inactive and
unstable in the highly acid co;nditions existing in the stomach, there
is no way that papain ingestion will permit celiacs to eat
gluten-containing food.

On Fri, 27 Jan 1995, Don Wiss wrote:

> Some time back an uncle of mine (a conservative southerner) send me
> the July 1991 issue of "Alternatives - For The Health Conscious
> Individual" (by Mountain Home Publishing).  In it there was the
> following paragraph:

>   Taking papain [a protein-digesting enzyme in papaya] supplements
> (500 to 1,000 mg with meals) can help digest wheat gluten.  It often
> works so well that   with supplementation many celiac disease
> patients can once again eat wheat   products without problems!  (Gut
> 64;5:295-303) Papain can be a godsend to those people who
> meticulously have to avoid wheat-containing products.
>
> My question is what did the Gut article really say?