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

Dear All,

Can I ask a little caution in assessing the Canadian study
Don has quoted.  As with all studies of human biochemistry,
psychosocial aspects have to be taken into consideration.

This is why placebos (treatments known to have no medical
value) are so powerful.

As far as I can see from the Canadian "study" (I'll leave
professional statisticians to discuss the experimental
design), this was not a "double blind" study, merely a
group of people who agreed to use this material and report
effects.  The problem is that when we take part in such a
study we take with us all our preconceptions and this can
result in a LOT of funny results.  It would be interesting
if the same doctor were to run the same tests with the same
people handing out flour which (unbeknown to him) actually
contained NO gluten.  There is plenty of evidence in the
literature that the most likely outcome would be near
identical results.

What Don and others fail to address is the MAJOR fact that
in the UK as in Sweden and Denmark (known to me for
certain) and, I believe, in other Northern European
countries effectively all coeliacs use flour mixes
containing Codex Alimentarius purified wheat starch.  If
the Canadian study were true, then we would have 50%
perpetually sick (and with 40,000 biopsy diagnosed COeliacs
in the Coeliac Society of Great Britain alone that would
SHOW!).  The truth is that we do not, yet this major
stumbling block to the belief that CA wheat starch is
unsafe for Coeliacs goes on being ignored.

I only studied statistics for my BSc and during the time
before that, when I worked as a research technician in
Biology and was responsible for the data reduction for our
papers.  This gives me enough insight to know how to check
suspect papers.  Sadly some of the leading doctors in
coeliac work seem to have only limited understanding of
statistics and to be making claims for some papers which go
far beyond the reality described.

For those interested in starting out into this statistical
minefield in a fun way, I'd recommend "How to Lie with
Statistics" and "How to take a Chance" by Darrel Huff.  (My
copies are from Pelican Books).

I'm sorry if I appear rather strict about this fairly
uninteresting subject.  What coeliacs need to know is the
truth not someone's ideas about what that might be.  We
will only get close to that when proper, well constructed
studies are published and the oddities are consigned where
they belong - in the research area or the waste bin,
depending on the validity of the design.

Regards

David

David J Walland
[log in to unmask]
Tel +44 (0)117 928 8323
Fax +44 (0)117 929 1209

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Support the Jubilee 2000 movement.  Remove the debt burden
from third world countries.  See http://www.cafod.org.uk/petition.htm