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| Nutritionist and Author |
What’s coming in the new year? Plenty of changes, most of which were put into motion in 2008. A new U.S. president is the most obvious change, but there will also be changes in foods and drinks on supermarket store shelves, finance-driven modifications in eating and lifestyle habits, and research and news about health topics that used to be so underground that they were only covered on blogs on the Internet such as this one!
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.
Celiac disease was long considered to be a rare condition; characterized by obvious symptoms such as diarrhea, abdominal distention, and failure to thrive; and not common in areas of the Middle East where the domestication and cultivation of wheat began.
Studies in the past several years, including a few new studies, paint a completely different picture.
Welcome to the increasing number of new visitors to this site! Many of you are looking for gluten-related information, and early posts I wrote a few months ago tend to get missed by newcomers.
So, here is a rundown of gluten-related stories you might have missed:
A component of wheat gluten stimulates an innate immune system response in people with or without celiac disease, says a report in the British medical journal Gut.
Researchers from Spain performed gut biopsies on six patients without celiac disease. Then they used an innovative technique in which they challenged those gut biopsies with fragments of gliadin, a component of gluten, and watched for an interleukin-15 response. Interleukin-15 (IL-15) is a marker of activation of the innate immune system.
Humans aren’t alone in being sensitive to gluten and having symptoms including diarrhea, bloating, fatigue, depression and skin rashes and blistering. Rhesus macaques, a type of monkey, develop gluten sensitivity and these same gluten-related symptoms. They also recover when put on a gluten-free diet.
A reader from Canada wrote me to let me know about a post she wrote today on the Sjogren’s World Community Forum. She told me that my Going Against the Grain book helped her and that eating completely against the grain proved to be the answer to greatly improve many symptoms she was experiencing.
Sjogren’s disease is an autoimmune disorder characterized by dry eyes and a dry mouth. It also can be a more systemic disease, affecting many organs and involving connective tissue disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erthematosus or scleroderma.
The gluten-free movement is growing exponentially. Consider this: Two years ago about 40 people attended the Southern Arizona Gluten-Free Faire. Last year 200 to 250 people attended — that took me and the Southern Arizona Celiac Sprue chapter by surprise! This year the Southern Arizona Celiac Support Group planned for higher attendance, rented a gymnasium to hold the Faire, and more then 650 people attended!
The dramatic increase over last year’s attendance is a record not only for SACS but probably a national CSA record as well! Perhaps most impressive is not the total number of people but the fact that approximately 80 percent of the people who came to the Faire were not SACS members, but new, off-the-street attendees ! That’s more than 500 people in the Tucson area who are new to gluten-free eating but have come to the conclusion that gluten free is the way for them to live for better health.
Last Monday I participated in a short, nationally televised “grain debate” in New Zealand on NZ TV One.
You can view the video here.