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Dear List,

A week or so ago, I wrote to say that my experience suggests that the 
problem with air-borne gluten is that it lands on one's lips and is 
then inadvertently licked off and swallowed. Several listers 
responded with useful addenda and corrections:

1. That is why I stay out of obvious places where flour is floating 
in the air i.e. pizza parlors, bakeries, pancake houses, Long John 
Silver's. I understand that flour can hang in the air for many, many 
hours.

2. It can land on the food, too!

3. Don't forget that when you inhale, inhaled particles are also deposited
along the back of the nose/throat in the naso and oropharynx, which are then
also swallowed.

4. The inside of the nose & throat is covered with mucous & tiny 
hairs called celia.  The mucous & celia trap particles & brush them 
to the back of the throat where they are swallowed.  This process is 
controlled by involuntary reflexes and cannot be prevented.  This is 
part of our body's natural defense system.  The system is designed to 
protect us from invasion of bacteria & viruses by trapping & sending 
these pathogens to the stomach where they can be destroyed by stomach 
acid & digestion.  Unfortunately, gluten is not destroyed by stomach 
acid & normal digestion.

Flour & grain particles are quite large compared to bacteria & 
virusus so just about any good fitting mask should provide adequate 
protection from these particles entering the nasal passages.  However 
finding a good fitting mask that effectively seals out unfiltered air 
can be difficult.


The nose hairs also act as a barrier to catch particles before they 
can be pushed back, but of course they don't catch everything. It 
there is grain dust in the air, it has a good chance of getting to 
the throat.

Current medical belief holds that, irrespective of symptoms, the 
inflammatory reaction to gluten arises solely in the gut, or 
(somewhat controversial, and in any case hardly universal) the 
Purkinje cells of the cerebellar cortex. It is my understanding that 
at present, there is no physiological explanation for apparent 
reactions to gluten contacted outside the digestive tract.

Bottom line: air-borne particles can land on anything and have myriad 
options for access to the gut. And, as we know, it doesn't take much 
to trigger the inflammatory reaction.

regards,
Mary B.
NYC



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