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On August 26,  Don Kasarda said,

>> (in the book Coeliac Disease, edited by Mike Marsh, Blackwell
Scientific, 1992), I find in their Table 5.6 entitled "Cancer morbidity in
CD by diet group"
snip, snip

 The actual numbers of tumours of all kinds (all sites) for the
gluten-containing group was 14 for 108 subjects and the number for the
gluten-free group was 17 out of 102, thus 13% vs. 17%.<<

Cancer risks are commonly given as  a %/year because of the long period of
time  over which they can occur from one insult. In this case the number of
person years for the two groups wasn't the same- it was less in the normal
diet group, hence the 2.5 increase in total probability for getting cancer
compared to the norm for    the gluten eaters. 12 of the 17 cancers for
those on a normal or "reduced gluten" diet came from the GI tract.  The
small size of the 14 and 17 in statistical sampling terms, however, shows
how uncertain the size of the effect is.

So yes, you have to cut down on gluten. I guessed before that by a factor
of 300 would be very conservative, based on the larger increases in
probability of getting GI cancer and ignoring the other sources of cancer.


Dr. Murray commented at the Baltimore meeting that eating gluten once a
month was sort of "OK", but once a week was certainly not. Well, once in a
month of 90 meals, and less than one portion in that meal, is in that same
range.

That still leaves the separate question of whether you can maintain you
nutritional state while eating gluten at this low level.

                         Kemp Randolph
                         Long Island
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