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I don't understand much about the gluten antibodies, the process, the
reliability, how the limits (less than 18 or 24) are arrived at.  Can you
have high gluten antibodies and not have celiac?  Can you have no
antibodies and still have celiac.  I saw a program on tv where the dr. said
that the continual mfg of antibodies weakened the arteries.  Also read an
article, years ago before I knew about celiac, that said that in some
people the inability to process certain proteins could cause mental
retardation.  Some of my family and I participated in a blood screening.
Below is an excerpt of some of a message that I sent to one of the doctors.
"How were the limits for the antibodies arrived at (less than 18 for IgA
and less than 24 for IgG).  Would seem to me that you would need a test
group of healthy people who had been gluten free forsix months or so.  I
would guess that most people who enter your program have some type of
problem and want to see if they have celiac.  I'm sure that was the case
with most people in our group.  We had scores, for IgA from 1.38 to 18.50
and for the IgG from 1.88 to 46.78.  No one was supposed to have celiac
based on these results.  The person with an IgA of 18.50 was advised to be
retested in six months.  Our average scores were 7.67 and 9.86.  Leaving
out the extremes, the averages were 4.6 and 5.3.  I have been gluten free,
as best I could, for two years and my scores were 4.43 and 2.56.  It would
seem to me that the limits are too high.  I don't know or understand
anything about the tests are whats involved.  Just have questions from my
personal observations."  Does anyone understand this process, etc.  I got a
reply but it didn't answer any of my questions.

Thanks,
Junior Welch
Rutledge, TN, USA