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Caramel coloring:
When sugar is heated for a while, it will turn black and into 'coal'.
Before it reaches the 'coal' stage, the sugar melts and becomes brown.
That brown stuff is called 'caramel', and can be used as a flavour or
as a dye for food. So theoretically, caramel coloring is gluten free,
but I also have to add that I am not familiar with food additives in
the US (as I have European roots). However, somebody reported that
Coke is gluten free, and to my knowledge, Coke contains caramel coloring
too.

Alzheimer (and gluten):
Although there is a lot more research going on on Alzheimer than on
Coeliac, one does not really know what causes Alzheimer, or those
amyloid plaques that are found in Alzheimer patient's brains. From
what I recall from a recent meeting session on protein folding, one
theory is that some proteins undergo an aberrant folding pathway
forming insoluble and unfunctional proteins instead of the native one.
Why this happens is under investigation...
As a nonceliac scientist I would say that CD and Alzheimer's disease
are not directely related. Of course, any celiac patient has a certain
risk to catch something, just like anybody else. Moreover, one inherits
markers that have nothing to do with each other, eg tendency to develop
hayfever and body size.

Marianne
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