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| Nutritionist and Author |
by Melissa Diane Smith
Gluten sensitivity is much more than celiac disease: It is ten times more common than celiac disease and it is a brain and nerve disease, not a gut disease, New Zealand’s Dr. Rodney Ford said at the Southern Arizona Celiac Support Group general meeting in Tucson on November 7th.
by Melissa Diane Smith
Dr. Rodney Ford, who is known as “Dr. Gluten” because of his expertise in gluten sensitivity, will present evidence to support his breakthrough idea that gluten sensitivity is caused by neurological harm, not gut damage as is commonly thought, at the Southern Arizona Celiac Support Group meeting in Tucson, Arizona, at 9 a.m. on Saturday, November 7, 2009. The event will take place at the Pima Community College District Office Campus, 4905 E. Broadway, Building C, and it is free and open to the public. To view a map of the location, click here.
by Melissa Diane Smith
People with gastrointestinal symptoms who test negative for celiac disease have long known that they are apt to get a diagnosis of “irritable bowel syndrome” (IBS) from a doctor rather than a diagnosis of gluten sensitivity. But gluten sensitivity provides a trigger that can explain at least part of the spectrum of symptoms that constitutes IBS, a group of doctors from the Farncombe Family Digestive Health Research Institute in Canada and the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota propose.
by Melissa Diane Smith
(Opinion) - It used to be that I was the only one writing about non-celiac gluten sensitivity, a condition largely dismissed by mainstream doctors. Major newspapers wouldn’t come close to touching the subject. Now, seven years after my Going Against the Grain book came out, the Los Angeles Times, a newspaper with a circulation of three-quarters of a million people, has run a story “Gluten sensitivity: A long road toward discovery” and a follow-up story a few weeks later, “Going gluten-free – for many reasons.”
by Melissa Diane Smith
Ever wonder how gluten can cause such a wide array of symptoms in so many different people? Dr. Rodney Ford, a doctor from Christchurch, New Zealand who is known as “Doctor Gluten,” just may have the answer – that gluten causes symptoms, in both celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity, by directly and indirectly injuring nerve networks that control various organs and systems in the body.
Last week Natural Products Expo West, the country’s largest natural, organic, and healthy products trade show, was marked by gluten-free products at virtually every turn and an astounding array of new products sweetened with agave nectar. The trends toward more gluten-free and agave-sweetened products both sound like positive developments, but consumers need to beware of the unadvertised pitfalls of these foods.
Do you have celiac disease and are you confused about which nutrient supplements you should take? The first thing to understand is supplement needs vary depending on how much damage has been done from the celiac disease and whether other health problems have developed. Eliminating gluten from the diet is the first and most important step, but after that, then what? It’s important to work with a doctor who specializes in celiac disease and can order tests to determine if you have secondary health conditions brought on from the celiac disease and, if you do, exactly what conditions they are and what levels of nutrients you have.
An update on my Top Celiac Researcher Speaks Out About Gluten Sensitivity post: This past week I asked Alessio Fasano, M.D., from the Center for Celiac Research, a few questions for a magazine article I was writing. He said that there is “no doubt” that gluten sensitivity affects many more people than celiac disease does and that 60 to 70 percent of the patients who come to the Center for Celiac Research fit his criteria for gluten sensitivity. His criteria for gluten sensitivity is not testing positive for celiac disease or for wheat allergy but responding positively to a gluten-free diet with resolution of symptoms. New screening tests for gluten sensitivity may be coming in the near future to change the criteria, Dr. Fasano says.
The researcher who established that celiac disease is much more common in the United States than long thought is now speaking about gluten sensitivity.
Alessio Fasano, M.D., Medical Director of the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research, is known for conducting landmark research that showed that celiac disease is a common gastrointestinal disease in the United States, with prevalence rates comparable to those in Europe. Now is he conducting research and speaking about gluten sensitivity, a non-celiac intolerance to gluten. Gluten sensitivity is a condition that many people who have tested negative for celiac disease have long suspected but that most traditional celiac disease researchers have not acknowledged.
The topic of celiac disease is hitting the mainstream. This weekend it was one of many conditions covered in short stories in a Special Women’s Health Report in USA Weekend, a magazine distributed in 623 newspapers throughout the country, with a circulation of 23 million people.
Seeing a story about celiac disease in the nation’s second-largest-circulation magazine is encouraging. However, as I mentioned in my last post, “The New Picture of Celiac Disease,” many stories in the media – the USA Weekend story, “Celiac: A Gut Reaction,” included – perpetuate the old picture of celiac disease: that people with celiac disease almost always have gastrointestinal symptoms and weight loss.