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Listserve Members,
I have a theory that celiac is going to become less of an Irish/Northern
European disease.  This is based on three factors.  One, modern life has
facilitated intermarriage between people who come from different parts of
the world.  Two, as doctors start looking for CD in other groups, they'll
probably find it.  Three, as the world starts eating a more uniform diet,
people from cultures that traditionally relied on rice and corn and
starchy vegetables will start noticing and caring that they have celiac
disease.  After all, if you have always, for your whole life, been
exposed to wheat only a few times a year, or even perhaps as often as
once a week, you may never have symptoms worth worrying about!  No, I'm
not saying that is safe.  I'm saying that the symptoms that send most
celiacs to MDs come from a degree of intestinal damage that requires
pretty consistent gluten consumption to do in the first place.  Who would
bother an MD over a weekly or monthly bout of indigestion - which many of
us, without the intestinal damage, would not even have?

Elizabeth