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I'm one of the gluten intolerant folks who came over to this list from the
autism list to get recipes and such, and the type of intolerance that my
father, my daughter and I probably have is related to a possible enzyme
deficiency that could cause our guts to be permeable to foods that are not
thoroughly digested.
 
I have a few examples of uncontrollable appetite preceding eliminating wheat
and gluten products.  During my last visit to see my father, his appetite
was completely out of control.  Coupled with his dementia, his hunger was so
intense that he was taking food off of other people's plates, and
complaining of being hungry constantly. (He was also on Zantac.) This
behavior was totally gone during my most recent visit, after he had been off
of Zantac and wheat and milk for eight weeks.
 
I used to raid the ice box under the influence of intense food cravings.
Since my family has gotten off of wheat and milk products, these cravings
have vanished from all of us.
 
My guess is that the cravings came from the addictive quality of the opiate
fragments formed by wheat and milk when they were improperly digested and
absorbed prematurely.  Possibly, too, the fact that the body may not be
getting all it needs could make it seek more nourishment, but I have no idea
how that mechanism could actually work.  Maybe someone else does.
 
Is your daughter experiencing appetite relief on the celiac diet?  If not,
you might try eliminating milk, too, for a few days, and see if it makes any
difference.
 
I don't know if any of the three of us has celiac, as my father is the only
one who has had gastro-intestinal problems, but we are waiting for test
results from the celiac immunoglobulin test suite for my father and for my
daughter.
 
Oh, and one other thought: I've never been a big bread eater, but when I
visited my sister about five years ago, I found her household ran on a
constant supply of bread and pasta.  I was ravenous the whole time I was
there, and to my great horror, when I got home, I had gained five pounds in
one week, but felt deprived the whole time.
 
Just a few ideas,
 
Susan Owens