<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

Hello! Sorry it's taken me so long to summarize, but the resonse was
overwhelming and it is a daunting task to sum it all up!!!

Firstly, many people wrote to say that living GF had definitely improved,
if not cured, their depression and/or ED. One woman said she got her "zest
for life" back, and many others wrote to say just that, yes, there is a
connection.

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"...you're not greedy, not weak-willed, not lazy, not self-indulgent,
not awful, but in all probability, metabolically unfornate... the critical
factor is WHAT you eat."  (quote from 'Dr. Atkin's New Diet Revolution')
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Someone who has an ED said that her GI has said there definitely is a
connection. He says when you are getting gluten, you are NOT absorbing the
vitamins that affect mood - especially the B vitamins from starches.

Gluten damages all tissues, not just the small intestine and the skin;
gluten is at the root of a range of other illnesses.

One man wrote to say his son had a mental problem but no one recognized it.
At 32, he hated to eat and tried to live only on greens. 6 months later, he
had full-blown schitzophrenia and lost all the hair on his body. After
being hospitalized, etc., he went off gluten, and now behaves rationally!
His whole family is GF now.

It is known that improperly functioning neurotransmitters cause
depression, anxiety, schitzophrenia, etc.********"Opoids compete for
endorphin receptors in synapses, thus altering the neurotransmitters at the
synapses where the opoids have attached."

A few people pointed out a different venue than what I was referring to, in
which people become anorexic DUE TO their discomfort from CD. In my case,
the CD would definitely be causing a change in mental activity in the brain
-ie, not depression being caused by the discomfort.

Another unfortunate connection for people with ED and CD is that when they
gain a couple lbs. it is tempting to just eat gluten and drop the weight.
:-<

Someone who did not have CD (her husband did) eliminated gluten from her
diet, upped protein, and the major cravings she had always had for carbs
disappeared. She felt lots better, had less depression, is more active, has
tons of energy...

**** Over 20% of celiacs are overwieght because they eat more to get the
nutrition of the substances which are lost thru malasorption. When they go
GF,their wieght stabilizes.**** (this could also be part of my problem. I
always used to be 10 to 15 lbs overweight, which caused me to get depressed
and resort to ED to do something about it.

It is a tangled web, is it not?

RECOMMENDED WEB SITES:

http://www.GFLinks.com/hoggan/
http://www.panix.com/~donwiss/hoggan/

RECOMMENDED BOOKs:

"Breaking the Vicious Cycle" by Elaine Gottschall  (one particular chapter
   in it)
"Dr. Atkin's New Diet Revolution"

Wow. Sorry so long, but obviously this is a subject worthy of research!
Thanks to everyone for the participation!

Mimi