<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> Thank you for the numerous replies I had to my post and I will pass them on to my friend now I have some proof to back up what I had tried to explain to her initialy. I did forget to mention that my friend's husband is in his 70s and has only been diagnosed about 15 years so this really should say it all to him, also according to my friend it was his dietician that told him this. Here is a brief summary for those that asked of the replies I recieved. I would say it is true just for the fact that your risk for intestinal cancer goes up extremely if you do not stick to a GF diet, therefore you could die from cancer therefore making your life shorter.if you develop cancer or something because of continual damage to the intestines, then that is a risk. We need to be more diligent, certainly, because our choices are more limited, but there is no reason that I can't be a healthy person. (This was a common reply in most of my reply) In Prevention Magazine November 2000 issue, it states that it takes 5 years on the gluten free diet to put Celiacs on par with the rest of the population's risk for certain cancers. Well we know that eating gluten does damage which cIt's impossible to go through life without having a gluten accident every once in a while. If you're really good, maybe you can keep it down to, say, one a year. If each time you ate gluten it shortens your life by five years, then every infant with CD would only live to 15 years old or so........ but to my knowledge, there is NO real evidence that this tale is true. -Certainly not as to defining the shortened time! Uncontrolled celiacs have a lifetime cancer incidence of 15%, according to a paper at one medical conference I attended, largely from the risk of lymphoma. Osteoporosis, which is a common celiac complication, often leads to broken hips in the elderly, which greatly increases mortality in its victims. Celiac neurological complications can be fatal, according to the literature. Several outcomes are possible: - you increase your chance of getting lymphoma - the exact increase is hard to determine, but may be in the range of 5 - 12 % per year higher than the general population - you run the risk of activating a second auto-immune disease - again, this is a developing concept, but it appears that the genes for diabetes, lupus, celiac and a number of other auto-immune diseases are on the same chromosome. Further, the activation sequence is only being gradually understood, but many celiacs report having more than one. Loved this one and thought it put it all in perspective willl certianly show my friend this one The quote reminds me of one that got started in my business. I'm a Sales Director in Mary Kay Cosmetics. Some years ago I heard that everytime you slept in your makeup, you age 7 days. We had a laugh over it; however, it certainly made us think about cleaning our faces every night, and many certainly didn't want to take the chance! Possible this "tale" comes from the evidence of people with CD developing carcinomas if they don't follow the gluten free diet Here are some websites that will list many of the health problems that result from a celiac not following the diet http://www.celiaccenter.org/index.htm & http://www.celiac.com/ & http://www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/ http://www.finerhealth.com/ Every gluten accident is a hit on the immune system, the consequences of which are unknown, no celiac should deliberately consume gluten. And after saying what we have to exclude, we have to acknowledge that there is a lot of gray area regarding what is safe. Each must assess and then assume some risk in our g.f. lifestyle, like trusting a chef to make us a g.f. meal or a manufacturer's product to be g.f. when it's supposed to be. Only sure way to insure we consume no gluten is to eat nothing and then we die anyway... So in conclusion I think most agreed thre is a risk in eating gluten( I already knew that) but the statement as to it shortening our life is unsubstanstiated, and most likely untrue, probably he misunderstood what he was told as there is a common belief backed up by research that it takes us 5 years before we can be equal as to our risk of cancer or lymphona as the general population. Thanks again for you time and replies I am sure this will benefit my friend, also I love this list I have learned so much so thank you one and all who take the time to supply us with information. My suggestion here is that we need a chatroom so we can shat to one another. Thank you Christina.