I too have some Jewish ancestry (although "Jewish" seems awfully vague as
it is less a term of origination and more a term of religious affiliation,
right?). One grandfather was a Jew, my other three grandparents were
Portuguese. I am not sure what exactly "Crohn's Colitis" is, but I
suffered all my life from colitis until the day I started lowcarb and gave
up wheat-based products (and complex carbs in general). This also cured my
lactose intolerance (although I've since given up dairy when starting
Neanderthin, of course).
I also don't know what IBD is. What I can tell you is that my entire life
up until this January was eating meant pain, diarrhea, and bowel spasms.
Many a night I spent an hour in the bathroom around 3 in the morning with
the functional equivalent of the dry heaves. Anti-diarrheal medications
had no effect. And of course, I always ate bread, pasta, corn chips, and
basically any kind of complex carbohydrate I could get to avoid fat and
never made the connection. And if I ate something like Fettucine Alfredo
which combined gluten and dairy, forget it. The pain was enough to make a
grown man cry (and often did).
My mother, who is half "Jewish" and half Portuguese also seems to suffer
from similar problems, although never to anywhere near the degree that I
have. My father (full Portuguese) nas no such problems, and I don't think
my sister does either, although she'd never admit it if she did because
that would be tantamount to admitting I was right... and we can't have
that! <g>
John Pavao
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I've never heard that Celiac Disease is in any way prominent among Jews;
and have never known a Jew with Celiac Disease; in fact, in the flesh
I've only known one person who was gluten intolerant, and he was Gentile
(Scotch Irish ancestry, if I remember correctly). Since I am Jewish, I
would expect to know at least one or two Jews with Celiac Disease over my
life if it were more common than usual.
I do suffer from Crohn's Colitis. Crohn's Disease and the rather similar
Ulcerative Colitis are reputed to be unusually high among Jews. And in
fact, I know several Jews with one or the other, and overall there does
seem to be a high percentage of Jews with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
(the general name for the two). But statistical studies have shown that
this is more a myth than a reality: IBD is not really more common among
Jews than Gentiles, or at least the rate among Jews has fallen to match
that of Gentiles. So I would suggest taking these claims of a disorder
being higher among one ethnicity than another with a grain of salt. It
may be merely impressions of incidence rather than actual statistics.
Jeffrey Smith [log in to unmask]
As the lily among thorns is tinged with red and white, so the Community
of Israel is visited now with justice and now with mercy; as the lily
possesses thirteen leaves, so the Community of Israel is vouchsafed
thirteen categories of mercy which surround it on every side.--Zohar
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