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

In reply to the message about nontropical sprue in the tropics which I just
accidentally deleted;

I am not a medical person but have read that tropical sprue responds to
antibiotics where nontropical sprue responds to the gluten free diet. As I
understand it both conditions, when seen on biopsy, look similar enough to
fool even some experts. The reason for the gluten challenge and second biopsy
is to distinguish celiac disease from other diseases such as tropical sprue.

Tropical sprue can be chronic. I have read it several places but have so much
information that I would have to read a week to find it. One article is
entitled, "Chronic tropical sprue and pernicious anaemia in a young indian
man"; Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine; 67(10); 1021-2; October
1974. I have one article that compares tropical and nontropical sprue.

Another article that may be of interest is, "Adult Coeliac Disease in
Tropics"; British Medical Journal ; 1966; 2; 1230-2.  It says, in part,
"Seven cases of adult coeliac disease occurring in tropical regions are
reported with clinical, biochemical, radiological, and histopathological
data, suggesting that, even though gluten-sensitivity is a relatively
uncommon cause of primary malabsorption syndromes in the tropics, it is not
entirely absent."

The two articles mentioned here are fairly old. They are the ones I quoted
simply because the titles were self explanatory. Except for the articles
written prior to the realization that the gluten free diet was effective,
most of the information in the older articles seem to still be accepted as
fact. I have a copy of an article from 1944 discussing, among other things,
the bones problems with non tropical sprue. The spelling "Coeliac" was the
old way of spelling celiac for those who didn't already know.

I see posts from people asking if such and such is connected to sprue and
have, somewhere, information dealing with it. One day I hope to have it
indexed in such a way as to quickly look up what I want.

Sorry to be so long.
Brenda