Mary Jackson wrote:

>> The probability that the lactose
>> intolerance is secondary to gluten intolerance increases the further
>> northwest in Europe one's ancestors are from, and would peak in Western
>> Ireland.
>
>Hi Don,
>
>Why do the difficulties peak in Western Ireland?

I gather you mean why do gluten difficulties peak in Western Ireland, as in
the absence of gluten they aren't lactose intolerant. It has to do with
their being newcomers to agriculture. The Romans did a good job of
spreading agriculture around, but they didn't conquer Western Ireland. This
is explained in two articles. The one of the web is at:

From the Neolithic Revolution to Gluten Intolerance: Benefits and Problems
Associated with the Cultivation of Wheat, by Luigi Greco

  http://www.celiac.com/history.html

And then this one can only be privately sent around:

Dr. Lutz, in the face of epidemiological studies that failed to support the
current belief that fat intake was at the root of coronary disease and
cancer, has done his own explorations of epidemiological data. His findings
show a clear, inverse relationship between these civilisatory diseases and
the length of time the people of a given region of Europe have had to adapt
to the high carbohydrate diet associated with the cultivation of cereal
grains that was begun in the Near East, and spread very slowly through
Europe. (1)

1. Lutz, W.J., "The Colonisation of Europe and Our Western Diseases",
Medical Hypotheses, Vol. 45, pages 115-120, 1995

So for this one you have to privately ask me to e-mail you a copy (which
lacks the exhibits).

> I've heard that
>autoimmune problems are more prevalent in the descendants of people who
>have grown and consumed a lot of hard red winter wheat.  (I wonder if
>the soft wheat would be any easier to deal with?)  Just wondering...

Well, hard wheat has more gluten then soft wheat. People living in cold
climates, if they consume the indigenous grains would be eating more
gluten. More gluten consumption means more problems with it.

Don.