<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> Hello to all who requested my results looking for a journal article linking CD and some cardiac problems. Ron Hoggan kindly forwarded this address as a source of information about a certain kind of CD cardiac connection. While it had nothing to do with my friends daughter's problem it may be of help to someone else. http://www.panix.com/~donwiss/hoggan Nobody had knowledge of the journal but many are experiencing cardiac problems they feel are related to their CD. One woman had cardiac trouble and other seemingly unrelated problems and all went away after she started the GF diet. Someone mentioned Down Syndrome and cardiac connections but the heart defect that is common with DS was surgically corrected. Suz is the girl with Down Syndrome and CD who recently began to have cardiac episodes. She experienced chest pain and passed out. She has an arrythemia that the cardiologist has said is not dangerous. These episodes are frightening to her and she feels a lot of pain. The doctor thinks this is a vasovagal episode. The cause is right now unknown. She will wake from her sleep and have an episode. The teacher reported that she has seemed afraid and sad at times before an episode. Her twin sisters have gone to college this year. Suz has had them around as companions; this could be part of the fright and sadness. She was with her mom and they stopped at Burger King where Suz ate the fries. From postings on this list I have thought BK fries coated with wheat. She had no diarrhea but the next morning a severe pain in her head suddenly struck her on the school bus, there was a cardiac episode and she spent the day in the emergency again. Her mother has searched for other possible gluten contaminations but has not found any. It is also baffling that if she has come in contact with gluten that the reaction has not been digestive. She has been sensitive to minute tracings of gluten in the past. If you are not familiar with vagus nerve, it supplies motor nerve fibers to the muscles of swallowing and parasympathetic fibers to the heart and organs of the chest cavity and abdomen. Vago is the prefix denoting the vagus nerve. I have a suspicion that the anxiety many recently spoke about is related to the actions of this nerve when gluten is eaten. Vasovagal relates to the action of impulses in the vagus nerve on the circulation. The vagus reduces the rate at which the heart beats and so lowers its output. A vasovagal attack is excessive activity of the vagus nerve, causing slowing of the heart and a fall in blood pressure, which leads to fainting. Suz is wearing a portable moniter. She records the episodes. So far indications seem to be this kind of attack. With an attack she will have hard to detect blood pressure and a slow heartbeat. I am not medically trained but this cardiac reaction seems like it might be one more symptom of an assualt by gluten for those with CD. What I am not clear on is if this is from ingestion as a food- and why no diarrhea for Suz, or breathing in gluten or perhaps using wheat based products unknowingly. Any thoughts? Ginny