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

Hello to all who requested  my results looking for a journal article linking
CD and some cardiac problems.

Ron Hoggan kindly forwarded this address as a source of information about a
certain kind of CD cardiac connection.  While it had nothing to do with my
friends daughter's problem it may be of help to someone else.

 http://www.panix.com/~donwiss/hoggan

Nobody had knowledge of the journal but many are experiencing cardiac
problems they feel are related to their CD.  One woman had cardiac trouble
and other seemingly unrelated problems and all went away after she started
the GF diet. Someone mentioned Down Syndrome and cardiac connections but the
heart defect that is common with DS was surgically corrected.

Suz is the girl with Down Syndrome and CD who recently began to have cardiac
episodes.  She experienced chest pain and passed out.  She has an arrythemia
that the cardiologist has said is not dangerous.  These episodes are
frightening to her and she feels a lot of pain.  The doctor thinks this is a
vasovagal episode.  The cause is right now unknown.  She will wake from her
sleep and have an episode.  The teacher reported that she has seemed afraid
and sad at times before an episode.  Her twin sisters have gone to college
this year. Suz has had them around as companions; this could be part of the
fright and sadness.

She was with her mom and they stopped at Burger King where Suz ate the fries.
 From postings on this list I have thought BK fries coated with wheat. She
had no diarrhea but the next morning a severe pain in her head suddenly
struck her on the school bus, there was a cardiac episode and she spent the
day in the emergency again.

Her mother has searched for other possible gluten contaminations but has not
found any. It is also baffling that if she has come in contact with gluten
that the reaction has not been digestive.  She has been sensitive to minute
tracings of gluten in the past.

If you are not familiar with vagus nerve, it supplies motor nerve fibers to
the muscles of swallowing and parasympathetic fibers to the heart and organs
of the chest cavity and abdomen.  Vago is the prefix denoting the vagus
nerve.  I have a suspicion that the anxiety many recently spoke about is
related to the actions of this nerve when gluten is eaten.
Vasovagal relates to the action of impulses in the vagus nerve on the
circulation.  The vagus reduces the rate at which the heart beats and so
lowers its output.
A vasovagal attack is excessive activity of the vagus nerve, causing slowing
of the heart and a fall in blood pressure, which leads to fainting.

Suz is wearing a portable moniter.  She records the episodes.  So far
indications seem to be this kind of attack.  With an attack she will have
hard to detect blood pressure and a slow heartbeat.
I am not medically trained but this cardiac reaction seems like it might be
one more symptom of an assualt by gluten for those with CD.  What I am not
clear on is if this is from ingestion as a food- and why no diarrhea for Suz,
or breathing in gluten or perhaps using wheat based products unknowingly.
Any thoughts?
Ginny