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

----------
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