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> I was talking with a friend whose husband is CD, and she asked me had
> I ever heard this and I quote " that if people with CD eat any food
> containing gluten it will shorten their life by 5 years" Now I have
> never heard that and have never been told it by my doctor, she swears
> it true, however I find it a little difficult to believe.  So was
> wondering what you all think or if any of you have ever heard this.

Certainly that's true: and every single cigarette you smoke will shorten
your life by ten years; and every drink you take will shorten it by ten :)

Of course not, Christina. When I look back at my mother's side of the
family, I'm pretty certain that about 3 out of 4 of them (the result of six
generations of first cousin Irish marriages before Mendel showed the world
the error of intermarriage) were celiacs. As they aged they developed that
telltale volleyball belly and left terrible smells in the small porcelain
room. Luckily they didn't get bad enough to loose all  ability to digest
food and die  young, and they did't develop any cancers (apparently that
side of the family doesn't get cancer or fever blisters) so all but two
lived to be from 80 to 92, though mostly not in good health at all. Don't
know how long they'd have lived if they'd been healthy :) And these are
people who had no idea what their problem was and ate lots of gluten in
their southern diets all their lives.

On the other hand, there are certainly many undiagnosed who are in dire
straits young. But many of us who not too careful or too sensitive may hit
accidental gluten many times in our lives. If each one took off five years,
I'd now have about a 700 year deficit I owed. I'd probably be a negative 768
years old :) Reasonable people will avoid all the gluten they can do
reasonably. Some will try hard avoid all gluten, but even they  will not be
able to. And most of us will live long healthy lives, God willin and the
creek don't rise :) Best wishes to you all.

BTW, for those of  you who will visit the Scottsdale or Phoenix area, I just
returned to Pinnacle Peak Patio restaurant, for the first time as a celiac,
after a 35  year old hiatus. I'm not a heavy meat eater, but they do by far
the best T-Bone steaks I've ever eaten anywhere. Not for the $2.50 it was
the last time I was there, but still reasonable. Just a salad, a bowl of
really good beans (with nothing added), bread (which I of course told them
to keep and send to those starving children my mother used to tell me about
:) and a great 16 ounce T bone. And never any kind of gluten or dairy
reaction to any of it. But if you're gonna go, make sure you get good
directions cause it's hard to find. And don't get it confused with  Peaks at
Pinnacle Peak restaurant, which is a rip off. The right one is on Pinnacle
Peak Parkway. A big solid six stars out of five recommendation. And I ain't
normally one to make much out of food :)

-vance