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I've been following this debate with some interest, because it
looks as if I belong to that minority of celiacs who react to tiny
amounts of gluten. I'm hoping it is just a passing phase - although I've
been gf for a few months now. A reaction to "bourbon vanilla" flavour a
few days ago that made me ill for 30 hours, and today a reaction
to the alcohol basis of a homeopathic remedy has made me think again
about just how sensitive I may be to gluten.
 
It would be nice to know that people with an increased sensitivity
can feel at home on this list, and not be marginalised. There is a
danger in statements like "it's only a minority", a phrase which has
been used in the last few days.
 
We all know that classical celiac disease is caused by damage to the
intestinal villi, but that is not the only danger in gluten, and
measuring villi damage may not be the only thing we have to look at
to determine whether something is doing us harm. Nor is the maxim: if
it makes you ill, don't eat it (as Dr. Murray recently wrote)
necessarily the final word. We may not know that it is making us ill
till much later, and anyway, who else would be asked to test a
possible poison by first eating it?
 
There IS a medical basis for suggesting that tiny amounts - even
molecular levels - of gluten can cause nervous disorders, depression,
among other things, in SOME people. As those people are also celiacs,
they ought to be able to feel that their particular problems, including the
nightmare of avoiding all gluten (and in many cases also all casein)
sources, aren't going to be minimalised.
 
Max Desorgher