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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4758492

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Copyright 2005 National Public Radio (R)
All Rights Reserved
National Public Radio (NPR)

SHOW: Morning Edition 11:00 AM EST NPR

July 18, 2005 Monday


LENGTH: 661 words

HEADLINE: Government to introduce new food labels for people who are
allergic to wheat and gluten

ANCHORS: RENEE MONTAGNE

REPORTERS: ALLISON AUBREY

BODY:


RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

Now our consumer health segment. Life without beer and pizza. These are just
a few of the favorites that people with a wheat sensitivity do without. In
some cases, the grain causes an allergic reaction. For others, a component
of wheat called gluten triggers the onset of a genetic disease. An increase
in the diagnosis rate of the disorder has led to new government food
labeling requirements. NPR's Allison Aubrey reports.

ALLISON AUBREY reporting:

People have been eating wheat for 6,000 years. It's so common in the
American diet that avoiding it often means not eating out, especially at a
bagel shop.

Ms. ALLISON HERWITT: Well, luckily I brought my own breakfast because I know
that there's probably nothing that I could eat here.

AUBREY: That's Allison Herwitt. She always brings her own food to business
luncheons, dinner parties. This way she's certain she won't ingest a crumb
of wheat gluten. The substance works like a poison in her body, a fact it
took her years to figure out.

Ms. HERWITT: For 11 years off and on, I was suffering from constant diarrhea
to constipation to constantly being fatigued, and I would just go from one
doctor to another and I was just misdiagnosed.

AUBREY: Finally a specialist screened her for celiac disease, an immune
system disorder. It's similar to a wheat allergy, but instead of leading to
an immediate allergic reaction, the gluten found in wheat, rye and barley
leads to chronic inflammation of the intestines. Painful symptoms come and
go.

Ms. HERWITT: The way that I always understood food allergies is if you eat
something, immediately, you know, you can't breathe or something, and so I
never thought what my symptoms were could be related to the food that I ate.
Eliminating gluten from diet made me a perfectly healthy person.

AUBREY: Herwitt's story sounds familiar to Dr. Peter Green. He's a
gastroenterologist at Columbia University. He says five years ago, celiac
disease was considered very rare--fewer than 20,000 Americans had been
diagnosed--but this is changing.

Dr. PETER GREEN (Columbia University): The rate of diagnosis is doubling
about every two years in this country.

AUBREY: It's not that the condition is becoming more prevalent. It's just
that doctors are screening for it more often. Recent studies suggest that
about one in a hundred people carry the genes that put them at risk for
celiac disease.

Dr. GREEN: Even though it's still perceived as being fairly rare, the
condition is being diagnosed, and I think that leads to a demand for
improved quality and quantity of gluten-free foods.

AUBREY: Eating a gluten-free diet is a lot more complicated than just
avoiding wheat. Food manufacturers use gluten as a sort of glue to bind
together various ingredients of processed foods. This means it turns up in
everything from tomato sauce to ice cream to salad dressing. Allison Herwitt
says it's a sort of hidden ingredient often labeled as just `natural
flavoring.'

Ms. HERWITT: Unless I have extra time to find out, you know, what is in that
natural, artificial flavor, then I just err on the side of being safe and I
don't eat it.

AUBREY: But life is about to get a little easier for people who can't eat
wheat and gluten. A new federal law that takes effect in January requires
manufacturers to list wheat and seven other common allergens on food labels.
Allison Herwitt is working with a celiac advocacy group to push for more.
The latest effort is to have the federal government establish an acceptable
level for traces of gluten in food.

Ms. HERWITT: It's the first step to getting a standard in the United States
for what would be gluten free.

AUBREY: Last Friday, advisers to the Food and Drug Administration met and
came one step closer to establishing that standard. Once it's finalized,
people with celiac disease will be able to trust a label that claims a
product is gluten free. Allison Aubrey, NPR News, Washington.

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