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Researchers Pinpoint Cause of Gluten Allergies
An anonymous reader writes "When patients with celiac disease consume foods containing gluten — a protein present in wheat, barley and rye — their immune systems send out an alarm, triggering a response that can damage their intestines and prevent them from absorbing certain nutrients. Now, scientists have pinpointed the culprits most responsible for this harmful reaction: three small fragments within the gluten protein that spark chaos in the gut."
I've always wondered what was the deal with food allergies. I say peanut allergies because it often provokes such an insane reaction. Is it genetic and those genes were always around but we never made the connection between food and symptons or is it something that developed as we changed or our environment changed?
There's other examples of our change of habitats. Heartburn/gastic reflux/stomach cancer is one I remember just off the top of my head.
In addition to allowing gluten to be made more tolerable to those with Celiac disease, I wonder if the discovery of the proteins responsible will lead to a quick and easy test for immune reaction. Something similar to the TB skin test would be great.
A quick, easy to interpret, cheap test may serve to stem the tide of people self-diagnosing as gluten intolerant. I guess as fads go this one is fairly innocuous, with the only real downside being slightly higher prices to subsidize the "gluten free" versions of foods on menus at restaurants. Of course some sites promote it as a cure for all diseases, but that's always the case with any diet. It must be a godsend to real Celiac sufferers though. All of a sudden the gluten-free products they can eat are much more accessible.
The deal is simple
Over cleanliness, over "fear of germs", soccer moms, etc, etc
let the kids play in dirt and eat stuff, no allergies
how long until
The percentage of people who are harmed by arsenic (100) vs. the percentage of people who are harmed by gluten (small).
You think you're leavin' alive?
Yeah you do, but I don't buy it
I'm gonna eliminate you,
like I did gluten from my diet
Rather it is an auto-immune disorder, gluten causes the sufferer's own immune system to attack their small intestine. Aside from the immediate pain (a stomach ache for a day or two after eating even a tiny amount of gluten), it can result in deficiencies in various necessary substances, and can lead to an increased danger of cancer. My wife had stomach aches most of her life, she had grown accustomed to them, thinking they were normal. A few years back (she was 28), on someone's suggestion she got tested for Celiac (first a blood test, then a biopsy of her small intestine). She was positive. She has been avoiding gluten ever since, she can't even have a single crumb of bread without getting sick now. Most people that have Celiac are never diagnosed, and suffer a life of pain and misery as a result, in addition to a shortened lifespan. If you get a lot of stomach aches for reasons you can't determine, you owe it to yourself to get a blood test for Celiac.
Anecdotal.
Historically, grains were a much poorer source of gluten than they are now. Through selective breeding and through milling processes that refine flour, wheat flour is now 13 to 23% gluten, depending on a number of factors, with whole grain flour being nearer the lower end of that range.
In addition, wheat generally and gluten specifically have become ubiquitous in the foods we eat. For example, soy sauce, which can easily be made gluten free, is often mainly wheat nowadays, especially the Japanese varieties of soy sauce. In the past, a person's gluten exposure was probably comparatively low and, combined with shorter life expectancies, gluten allergies were not as problematic.
Today, with wheat being in all sorts of foodstuffs, gluten allergies are becoming increasingly common, especially among middle-aged and elderly people. Our systems simply become so overwhelmed with gluten that the allergic inflammatory responses become a source of serious illness in some people. When coupled with the malabsoprtion syndrome that accompanies it, since an inflamed, damaged intestinal system absorbs poorly, vitamin deficiencies (especially vitamins E, D and K) gluten allergies cause real illness in many people.
Such illnesses probably remained sub-clinical in people in previous centuries but now, aided by enhanced severity, we better understand what's happening and we are better able to diagnose the trouble.
As for peanuts, just think of how peanuts have become readily available the world over and how they are contained in all sorts of foods, now. Historically, peanuts were a local food that formed a small part of the diet for people in areas near where they were found. In ways similar to what I mentioned above, peanut allergies are much more common and much more severe than ever before.
HTH
Give a man a match: warm him for an instant. Douse him in petrol and set him aflame: warm him for the rest of his life.
First, this research is great. However I want to point out that celiac disease is not an allergy, it is an autoimmune disorder. Calling celiac an allergy makes people think if they have it they will break out into hives or their face will swell if they eat gluten. This contributes to most with celiac not knowing they have the disease. According to U Chicago's Celiac Disease Center, 97% of those with Celiac are undiagnosed (http://www.celiacdisease.net/assets/pdf/CDCFactSheets%20FactsFigures%20v3.pdf). Examples of symptoms of celiac are fatigue, mental disorders, abdominal pain, joint pain... a full list is here: http://www.celiacdisease.net/assets/pdf/CDCFactSheetsSymptoms2.pdf Also about 1 in 133 americans have celiac, however 41% of adults and 60% of children are asymptomatic.
The deal is simple
soccer moms
[citation needed]
As a celiac'er myself, I can say that's not true. I ate dirt, played in the mud, my mom was not overprotective, and I still got critical anemia from damage to my gut from gluten. Also, as noted below, celiac/gluten intolerance is not an allergy - it's an autoimmune disorder.
N, it's not so 'simple'. Although there is a tendency towards fewer environmental allergies in people exposed to a larger mix of allergens ('dirt and stuff') it's by no means a binary thing. Allergic reactions are complex and multifactorial. I don't think the driving force behind allergic responses is a Darwinian selection sort of thing (remember, not EVERYTHING is a selection factor). It may well be that the inherent complexity of the challenge - response systems in the immune system leads to 'problems'. Although the immune system is a hugely functional piece of kit (try living without one for a while) it is also responsible for many human diseases when it goes out of whack.
So let your kids play out in the back with the horses and hay but don't be surprised if they get celiac disease. That's apples and oranges. Or Yugos and Hummers. (Added to preempt the inevitable request for an automotive analogy.)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You're right, but the parent was talking about allergies, peanuts, etc not celiac disease :)
still: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/04/westerners-gut-micro.html
how long until
You can acquire an allergy via exposure. A good example is powdered latex gloves. The powder, usually corn starch, picks up small amounts of latex protein and rubs it into the pores of your skin. The powder can also get into the air and carry latex into the lungs. As exposure continues, the risk of having a problem rises. This is a large issue for health care workers, and many of them are switching to non-powdered vinyl gloves. ANYONE can get a reaction if they get enough exposure, but it may take 20 years for some people to see an effect. Other people do have a predisposition to develop food or other allergies, there is more information available here.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
People forget peanut allergies and celiac's disease were almost nil until the mid-eighties. What happened in the 80's? Genetically modified food was introduced to the market. Today you can't hardly buy grain/fruit/vegetables that aren't GM and both allergies and celiac's are now considered normal. The fact is it's companies like Monsanto and Cargill that are causing this.
Such illnesses probably remained sub-clinical in people in previous centuries but now, aided by enhanced severity, we better understand what's happening and we are better able to diagnose the trouble.
It's still sub-clinical. 97% of Celiacs are going undiagnosed and leading lives of increasing misery because gluten is in e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.
As you so well pointed out, wheat is being used increasingly in heavily processed food because they have have hybridized the wheat kernel so much that they kernels are large and stuffed with gluten and is incredibly cheap to produce. But there is no reason that wheat has to be used other than it helps in making processed foods. The fact is there are other starch sources that easily could take the place of wheat. The fact is, humans are not dependent physiologically on the wheat kernel for anything.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Arsenic hurts everyone. Gluten does not.
Hypersensitive and allergic reactions have been understood in medicine in varying degrees since ancient times but as a medical student I can tell you that we still know very little. What we do know? Few if any true allergies are truly genetic. Rather, some genes predispose to gathering many allergies and most allergies are gained well after birth. Any honest researcher in the field will share your wonderment about allergies, because we still have much to learn.
Actually, stomach cancer is MORE common in less urban/developed habitats. Affluence and American diets decrease stomach cancer. No research has explained this but the data is unambiguous: something about eating while not poor means LESS stomach cancer. I know, usually you hear about how bad the western diet is (and it's true, high fat + low fiber => colon cancer). Ulcers and heartburn have likely plagued people since before civilization as we know it.
...... and idiots rule the world....
I had never even heard of this until a few weeks ago when i found out a friend had it.
Cool news
You're right
Anyway, celiac disease is not an allergy (and it starts at a very early age), so yeah, eating dirt probably won't make it better...
how long until
was thought to have a sensitivity to gluten and so we cut it out of her diet for a few months. Thankfully gluten did not turn out to be an issue, but it was only after taking the time to read the ingredients list on the things we would normally buy that you find gluten in damn near everything; it's even in soy sauce. It took some effort to avoid.
Nullius in verba
I think you can find substances (lactose, capsaicin, ...) that affect various fractions of people (10%, 50%, 90%, etc). What is the cutoff?
The percentage of people who are harmed by arsenic (100) vs. the percentage of people who are harmed by gluten (small).
For pure arsenic, that's true. It still has its uses in medicine, such as oncology where it works better than iodine for locating tumors.
Oh, and have you eaten fish lately? You probably consumed a milligram of arsenic. But, since you're reading this, I'll assume you're still alive and well.
Does capsaicin kill you? In order for something to be a poison, the LD50 must be a small enough dose that a reasonable person could accidentally, or intentionally, consume it in a reasonable period of time. "a substance that, when introduced into or absorbed by a living organism, causes death or injury, esp. one that kills by rapid action even in a small quantity" lactose and capsaicin don't fall under that category.
I'm definitely afraid of soccer moms...
[citation needed]. Gluten is wheat protein, right? When I buy flour, the protein content is stated and typically ranges from roughly 10-12% (12% being the "strong", high-protein variety, such as this flour). If you're going to claim twice the protein content in wheat flour, please back those claims up with evidence.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
It's a combination of things including really bad medical advice from "experts", people thinking their floors need to be suitable for operating on and a statistically small number of genuine immune abnormalities.
For example, pregnant women, particularly in the UK, were advised to avoid peanuts in case the baby turns out to be allergic (who knows why, I've never heard of that causing a problem). It turns out that lack of peanut protean exposure in-utero results in MORE peanut allergies and more serious peanut allergies. Meanwhile, parents are often advised to keep foods that provoke a mild allergic reaction away from their kids. Again, I cannot imagine why since we know that de-sensitization (which requires exposure) works.
Then floors get cleaned to ludicrous degrees. It's hard to say what's worse there, the removal of things we have evolved with for millions of years, the addition of all sorts of things designed to deaden the sense of smell so that the product doesn't smell repulsive (to me, the 'fragrance' smells far more repulsive than the chemicals it's supposed to cover) or the addition of things we have no idea what they might do because no safety study is required.
It could even be our increasingly stressful societies. We know that stress can cause the immune system to go out of control both causing autoimmune reactions and weakening the reactions against pathogens. Perhaps it can also whip up a bad reaction to a neutral substance as well.
Everyone is your citation. Ask how we grew up.
In soviet Russia, God creates you!
to identify specific markers which then if necessary can be confirmed by samples taken from the digestive tract.
I recently went through a baterial infection which after treatment with Flagyl (sp) cleared the wrong types from my system. Before then two doctors were sure I had celiac but blood tests cleared that off the table. If you test positive to the blood test they take samples from your system to confirm it. For most doctors the blood test is sufficient. In my case while it came back clear I had similar reactions (blood in stool - (its not red btw) to many products with gluten in them. Hence a blood test for Celiac and another other possible physical causes (liver, kidneys, pancreas) . Through isolation and strict diet where I recorded everything for eight weeks that I ate and my reactions I was able to work with my GI doctor to determine the true cause; that being wrong type of bacteria or parasites in my intestines, most likely through contact with fecal matter and improper washing. Think, having dogs and such.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
His numbers are crap, you are closer to the mark.
I know Red Wheats, its what I grew up farming. It ranges from 8 to 16% protein.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat
http://www.eolss.net/ebooks/Sample%20Chapters/C10/E5-21-04-04.pdf
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/crops/00555.html
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_c587d5a6-a1e0-11df-abc5-001cc4c03286.html
It's not the arsenic that kills you, it's the old lace.
I run Ubuntu skinned to look like a Mac on a PC. Go figure.
And yet, exposure can also damp down and finally eliminate an allergy. We seem to be missing something here...
Yes, as mentioned, arsenic is a poison because it's deadly to pretty much everyone (though supposedly you can build a tolerance), and additionally it's not exactly common in the stuff we eat (except where we've poisoning land with heavy metal from discarded electronics).
Gluten, on the other hand, is in pretty much f***'ing everything. Preservatives in canned food, wheat-products, tons of stuff. It also has this tendency to follow family-lines. However, since the full tests usually involve fun things like biopsies, a *lot* of people don't know they have it. However, the numbers of those with gluten-intolerance isn't as small as one might think.
Maybe it's just IMHO, but I think that trying to eliminate a condition which causes a smaller group of people to not be able to eat 80% of the food out there, vs one where it's just "don't eat poison", might not be such a bad thing. Of course the GP is probably a troll, but a lot of people don't seem to realize how serious celiac'ism is.
You're right, of course. I'd intended to say that wheat protein is 13 to 23% gluten, although, admittedly, I was pulling those numbers from an increasingly feeble memory. Thanks for catching that and correcting the record.
Give a man a match: warm him for an instant. Douse him in petrol and set him aflame: warm him for the rest of his life.
Except that we're talking about food allergies here (yes, celiac's isn't an allergy, but the discussion drifted away from that).
I don't think you can deny that the typical diet of the modern western world has become very different from what it was 100 years ago. Better transportation has allowed us access to more and more 'foreign' foods and keeps making them cheaper and thus available to more families.
By your logic, the fact that people have become exposed to more and more different food allergens should mean food allergies should be declining. Which I doubt they are...
Does capsaicin kill you?
Yes; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin#Acute_health_effects
While the LD50 isn't quite that small, it's still possible to get a lethal dose that's not too bulky.
Besides I remember reading that hot pepper powder was used as a method to execute prisoners in one of the ancient Middle Eastern societies (I forget which one - Persia?) and even in the 19th-20th centuries it was still used by murderers in SE Asia.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
My kids have it and believe me it's a huge disruption. If they eat gluten by accident it turns them as white as a sheet and there is a good chance they'll puke their guts up for a day. The only known "cure" to coeliac disease is not ingest gluten at all which easier said than done especially for kids. So many processed foods contain wheat as a hidden ingredient that you have to scrutinize the ingredients list very carefully. Wheat starch for example could trigger a reaction but many foods don't even bother to say what kind of starch they contain. Most coeliac societies publish thick books to help figure out which foods are gluten free and which are not.
Trolls... if they had something important to say they wouldn't be anonymous
Also they would give a better answer, like everybody else
how long until
I saw this stat somewhere but I can't cite it unfortunately. But more precisely, it's 1 out of every 117 caucasian - it's quite a lot, but most people don't get tested or only experience the symptoms after years of gut damage in their middle-age.
Re Science: Researchers Pinpoint Cause of Gluten Allergies : Fortunately I am not a Coeliac (the European spelling) but my wife is. Several contributors have already correctly pointed out that it is NOT an allergy, it is an intolerance to Gluten. Each European Country (or most) have an Organisation, such as the Coeliac Society in England, who exist not only to help Coeliacs, but also to educate the doctors to be able to identify the symptoms so they can make an initial diagnosis. Some fifteen to twenty years ago, not very many doctors had any idea what to look for. One contributor has even sneered at the Biopsies saying they are useless. All the Coeliac organisations in Europe will only accept new members when they have had a positive biopsy, and they all agree the biopsy is the only way to correctly identify whether a person is a Coeliac. The more rigourous a person sticks to their gluten free diet, the greater the adverse reaction if ever they consume, usually unintentionally, any gluten. Several contributors have even tried to say that if you do not observe a gluten free diet, it will not matter, but if Coeliacs are not careful with their diet, they can get acute anaemia which can be fatal if untreated.They can also get a particularly aggressive form of bowel cancer. They can also develop other forms of autoimmune problems and diabetes. However, it is not recommended that people especially children start on a gluten free diet without first consulting their doctor, as if they are not Coeliacs, the effect of the diet can be adverse.One most have sympathy for Coeliacs as it can be a very frustrating diet, my wife in particular hates it when I eat freshly baked bread or Rolls because the smell of them is so good and her memory then makes it worse. However people who must rigidly stick to a Gluten Free AND Lactose free diet are much worse off, as it is much more difficult to find anything suitable for them to eat.
I didn't have an overly clean childhood. I am a very sensitive to gluten. Does my anecdotal evidence disprove your position?
The parent mentioned allergies, and celiac disease is not an allergy
how long until
Actually, no. There is some evidence to support that position. Including both epidemiological and biochemical data. I'm not going to look it up for you, but there was a story on Slashdot a while ago.
I have Celiac's disease and I'd like to comment on wheat substitutes as I have first-hand experience with many. I will say up front, there really is no substitute for wheat. The combination of taste and texture cannot be matched at any cost. The substitution used depends on many factors, and the alternatives may involve adding 4-5 ingredients to replace the wheat.
Gluten is what gives wheat it's spongy/elastic texture. If you tried to make bread from rice or potatoes, it will crumble because these starches lack gluten. Any potato or rice bread you buy in the store or bake will invariably include a flour containing gluten(except those specifically designed to be gluten-free). There are really only two options here:
* Xanthan gum. This is a replacement protein used widely in gluten-free products. It is not cheap nor does it have any flavor.
* Guar gum. Similar to Xanthan but slightly cheaper and is a laxative.
Wheat has a certain taste. There is *NO* substitute that compares here as one cannot get wheat without gluten. The appropriate substitution here depends on the application.
* A common use for wheat flour is dusting so the product doesn't stick. There really isn't anything cheaper then wheat for this application but rice flour is as effective and has a very weak flavor.
* Breads can use a mix of flours based on tapioca, rice, potato or beans. All of these do not taste like wheat. Beans are a laxative and much more expensive. White rice and potato flour are not as nutritious.
Some gluten-containing starches have desired chemical properties.
* Almost all beer is made from barley or wheat and therefore contains gluten.
Wheat has a good shelf-life.
* Anything potato or rice based baked good must be refrigerated and even then only lasts about half as long.
* All the aforementioned flours need to be stored refrigerated whereas wheat flour does not.
The linked to article had little useful info - it didn't even mention who the authors of the paper were or the title of the paper. I had to do some digging around and found it Here's a link to the abstract: http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/2/41/41ra51.abstract The basics are that they isolated 3 peptide fragments that have a very high immuno response - and two were from unexpected proteins
Age of first exposure. From Wikipedia:
Women don't breast feed their kids long enough. They put them on formula a week out of the womb, then try to get them to eat solid foods as soon as they can because breast feeding and formula are a hassle. The result is a huge increase in food allergies.
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Oh, forgot to link to the relevant article.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It's like what is discussed later on - arsenic kills you because of direct effect of arsenic on the body. OTOH, gluten does nothing to the body, It is the body's reaction to the substance (AKA hypersensitivity reaction; AKA autoimmune disease) that causes the disease. So arsenic directly causes damage -> poison. The body reacts aberrantly to a substance and cause an immune reaction against it -> disease.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Although you are right that prolonged breast-feeding is associated with a lower incidence of Celiac, it is important to note that most infant formulas do not contain Gluten.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
"When coupled with the malabsoprtion syndrome that accompanies it, since an inflamed, damaged intestinal system absorbs poorly, vitamin deficiencies (especially vitamins E, D and K) gluten allergies cause real illness in many people."
There are some far reaching implications of this. Nerotransmitters are made in the gut, some of these (ie, GABA) regulate mood. If the gut is compromised enough so few are made that mental problems can be the result. Some parents of autistic children have found that withholding gluten can cause a cessation of symptoms. You may also notice too that people that you know with mental problems often gave gut problems or eat a lot of sugar (which promotes candida growth which compromises the villi in the gut thus again preventing absorption of nutrients).
One of the standard nutritional medicine protocols is to stop sugar, push yourt to repopulate the gut and take large doses of supplements so the inefficient gut actually absorbs enough to actually do the body some good.
The lack of, say B3 can induce schizophrenia. google "pellagra"; this is the reason all white flour is enriched - to prevent insanity.
Abram Hoffer asserted that 80% of schizophrenics could be cured with vitamins and diet based on his empirical observations over 50 years.
Need Mercedes parts ?
When were you weaned off breast milk? When did you being eating solid foods?
Another one is B12. That can lead to depression and anxiety, among other things, and is actually fairly hard for the gut to absorb. (Thus it's fairly easy to damage/overload it enough to create a deficiency.) The liver normally stores huge amounts of B12 relative to the body's needs, though, so symptoms may not show up for months or years.
E pluribus unum
But in the case of gluten, some people genetically can't process it properly. There may be enviromental factors, but the genes matter most. Most common in those of Irish descent - and there are about 30 million descendants of Irish people in the USA.
http://www.coeliac.ie/aboutus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease#Genetics
So it's more like the way some humans have problems with lactose in adulthood. Some have problems with alcohol, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactose_intolerance#Lactase_biology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_tolerance#Alcohol_tolerance_in_different_ethnic_groups
Of course alcohol intolerance tends not to be a problem for irish people, but another inherited genetic condition that people of Irish descent should also be aware of is haemochromatosis. It has been hypothesised that in the past, the iron retention the mutation causes was probably quite adaptive. Unfortunately in the modern era, with all sorts of iron-fortified food, vitamin pills etc., it's easy for a person with the mutation to absorb so much iron that they develop health problems.
http://www.haemochromatosis-ir.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_overload#Causes.
From what I understand there is a very high incidence of peanut allergies downwind from where peanuts are grown, and the same things tend to occur with other allergens too. It's only in the last few hundred years that crops like that are grown on the scale they are today and all in one place etc.
Btw, Coeliac Disease isn't an allergy like a peanut allergy. You can get very sick from having gluten (my daughter will be quite unwell within an hour from even the tiniest bit) but it's a completely different response by the body - you won't get an anaphylactic response in most cases. There are plenty of other proteins in wheat that you can be allergic to, but that's different to Coeliac Disease.
Coeliac Disease has always been common, and often it just manifests itself as not feeling particularly well most of the time which is a fairly common complaint these days for a lot of reasons. We're just better at detecting it.
Where are you? As an Irish person (gluten sensitivity is common in Ireland, in the genes...), I'm used to there simply being a gluten-free section in the supermarket, never really thought about the fact it must be much harder in areas where it's rarer.
That is, the lack of pseudo-symbiotic hookworm infections?
Only if you extracted and purified it. I find it pretty unlikely for a "reasonable person" to do so.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Is that what makes their hair look rusty?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
In Australia the labeling is heaps better than it used to be so it's actually not that hard to avoid gluten here compared to 5 years ago. And maybe because of the labeling there are products that you'd think would have wheat or other gluten grains in it but don't, presumably just to expand their market a little bit - sticking 'gluten free' on the front of the packaging makes it an easy choice. But yeah, any substitute for gluten in a product that depends on it's properties is a poor substitute.
Wheat flour is incredibly versatile, from the same basic product you can make all sorts of things with very little modification except maybe that a finer flour is better for bread. With gluten free flours you need to pick a flour based on what you are making, and while the various gums can help a bit, any bread you make is basically just a savoury cake that you really need to eat straight away after you cook it or it goes stale. Any gluten free bread you buy at the supermarket probably is packed full of preservatives as it's normally a fairly slow moving line and is very expensive.
I have no problems with my gluten but one of my kids has Coeliac disease and while my wife and another kid have been tested (blood test and biopsy) and come back negative, they find they feel much better by excluding wheat (and possibly other gluten-containing grains too but with one Coeliac in the family it doesn't come up). The excluding wheat thing appears to be fairly common too, even with a negative diagnosis of Coeliac disease, but we've found that once you excluded it you tend to become even more sensitive to it which is a problem if you ever want to get a biopsy done as it means you need to have wheat again for a bit...
I have Cecilia's disease. It's breaking my heart. It's shaking my confidence daily.
Not all diseases are named after people, you know.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Move to Australia. The ingredient labeling over here seems to have improved incredibly in the last 5 years or so. It's very rare we'll find a product that doesn't list any wheat or other gluten containing grain that ends up actually containing it.
Eating out and take-away foods are still a bit of a problem. Even for eateries that claim to have a gluten-free product line it's so easy to accidentally contaminate the product with a small amount of gluten that it just seems to be not worth it, and most workers just don't get it. Fries from McDonalds are normally fine as each deep fried product has different heat requirements so in theory the 'fries oil' only has fries in it, but the last two times my daughter has had them she's been unwell not long after so i'm not so sure and probably won't try it again. Mexican restaurants are the most likely to be safe in my experience but even then it's a gamble.
There is a misperception that is being abused that the protein fragments which cause people to become sick are NOT the problem. This article goes on to further confuse the notion that gluten sick people need only de-sensitize themselves to the allergen in wheat, oat, barley or rye. The findings isolate gluten protein peptides as the culprit.
The problem has been the fact that wheat is not a naturally occurring food. Wheat is a hybrid, the result of 8000 years ago in the Mesopotamia combining of a grain and a grass to produce what today is known as wheat, a hybrid grass/grain. The problem is that man cannot eat grass (unlike cows with 4th stomach) therefor every human being consuming wheat passes the grass protein fragments through the gut undigested and out. Thousands of years of hydridization of wheat to produce more yield, higher fortification, stouter, stronger and more concentrated in modern times has produced worldwide a 1: 133 intolerance rate in humans. For these people the body's natural immune system responds to those protein fragments (long i.e. 13 chain fragments) as foreign invaders and proceeds to a full cytokine storm reaction.
Celiac disease describes people who suffer the effects of the bodies immune destruction of healthy tissue and organs to rid itself of foreign matter harmful to the system. There is harm from the immune system damaging their body set off by exposure to gluten (long chain) protein fragments. Celiacs cannot de-sensitize themselves to an allergen. They simply cannot tolerate long chain protein fragments. There are people for whom wheat _is an allergen_ and they may respond to desensitivity training but this does not include people who have Celiac disease.
The good news. This narrows the culprits down to 3 peptides. There is reason to believe that these peptides can be treated, removed or modified in processing to avoid gluten intolerance in the first place. It does not imply that Celiacs are responsible for de-sensitizing themselves to the 3 known peptide offenders. It doesn't work that way, in all due respect to the chaps in Australia to the contrary.
It's kinda like arguing for smoking because it tastes good. On my gluten free diet I have found that I do not miss bread that much as there are enough reasonable substitutes to keep me happy. I like chocolate cake, and Kinnikinnick Food's gluten free chocolate cake is as good and moist as anything I have ever tasted. It seems I can get by without the daily dose of gluten and my health has improved. The fact is that according to many nutritionists we would should not be eating huge amounts of carbohydrate bread products for good health anyway. It may taste really good, but it is not necessary for a diet.
As someone with celiac disease, fark all of you, I want my pizza and beer back.
Fantastic work there, scientists. Hopefully they'll be able to determine if peanuts are what causes peanut allergies, though I dunno - seems like that would be a pretty big coincidence.
Presuming you mean the red hair that americans tend to associate stereotypically with Ireland, no, that's different entirely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair#Genetics.
While you will see redheads if you visit Ireland or the UK, and red hair is typically viewed positively in Ireland, one must bear in mind that you're talking about 1 person in 10 to 1 in 20 being redheaded, depending on the area. This sometimes disappoints american tourists to Ireland, as it's not much different in proportionality terms to "white" areas of the USA (well, except thinner), whereas they've been told by their Hollywood propaganda machine that Ireland is full of tiny redheads.
This despite the fact most well-known irish or [irish-american](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irish_American_actors) actors and celebrities are fairly tall with brown hair.
Red hair is actually proportionally more common in Scotland, and the USA itself has by far the most redheads in absolute terms - presumably originally as a result of scottish/irish/english/welsh and other redheaded european immigration, of course, but if you want to pick up a redheaded partner, then the USA is the place to be.
There is also, I recall reading, a set of immune system genes that appear to be activated by the presence of hepatitis A (a relatively benign strain, transmitted in poop) which used to be ubiquitous, and is now getting pretty rare. Unfortunately I cannot find a citation for this effect, so this may have been refuted.
One interesting factoid I learned related to this is that in obscure amazonian tribes the people's immune systems are hyperactivated compared to ours. This isn't all too surprising considering how clean your average civilized household is compared to the jungle where diseases and parasites of all forms run rampant. So, like your musculature, if your body doesn't use it it won't bother spending the energy in the first place.
No double standard, just your lack of understanding of what a "disease" is:
1. A pathological condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms.
2. A condition or tendency, as of society, regarded as abnormal and harmful.
Arsenic in the environment (such as in a water supply) would lead to a harmful, abnormal condition identifiable by a group of symptoms. So arsenic ingestion results in an arsenic disease. One of the differences would be that arsenic is a poison because it will kill almost everyone with a fairly tight range of exposure (er.. amount absorbed).
Wheat gluten adversely affects only a portion of the population so we don't call it a poison. We could say it is somewhat poisonous to celiacs because it does do organ damage to celiacs. And it causes celiac disease in that portion of the population.
Both arsenic and wheat gluten result in a disease condition for some people.
Arsenic results in disease condition for all people (unless there is an arsenic immune person out there).
Your statement blaming the sufferer for the disease is troublesome at best.
The deal is simple
Over cleanliness, over "fear of germs", soccer moms, etc, etc
let the kids play in dirt and eat stuff, no allergies
How this got modded to 3 for insightful is ridiculous. This is a very non-useful, over-simplification of research that has shown that there is a relationship between the household environment experienced in youth and the development of some immune system disorders. The relationship itself is not well understood and the statement that kids who "play in dirt" don't develop allergies is fatuous. Perhaps adding dirt to the diet is not the answer but removal of "Mr. Clean" and "Spin n' Span" etc from the environment is. Or, kids who play outside all day are not exposed as much to the vapours flashing off of OSB, paints, and carpets in new homes.
Even then, allergy issues have been around throughout the ages. In particular, celiac disease appears to have been reported as far back as the first century AD. It has probably been an issue since people started eating and cultivating grains.
Given American Pharmaceutical Companies, if this discovery leads to anything, it will not be a cure. More likely they will develop a drug that will let people eat gluten as long as they keep buying a pill.
Nerotransmitters ?
Is that where red matter comes from ?
Hell, our local aquifer contains a lot of iron and even after processing into potable water it still contains enough to leave brown stains on things that are exposed to it frequently. Unprocessed it tastes like blood.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
The contrast is clearest by comparing two similar stores LIDL and Aldi. Both are regarded as budget stores although in truth the stuff they sell is often no worse and frequently better than some other stores. The difference for sufferers is very pronounced. LIDL is absolutely terrible. A packet of golden rice (for example) might have ingredients listed in 12 languages in miniscule badly printed lettering. The 15th ingredient might say "starch" but what kind of starch? Wheat starch is bad, potato / corn / rice starch is fine. They don't say. LIDL should be ashamed how bad their advice especially in contrast to Aldi.
Aldi deserves massive praise. Virtually every Aldi has a prominent white on black "allergen advice" section making it easy to see what contains what. Furthermore, a lot more of their produce is gluten free compared to other stores.
The deal is simple
Over cleanliness, over "fear of germs", soccer moms, etc, etc
let the kids play in dirt and eat stuff, no allergies
It's a working theory, and possibly a good one, that exposure to infections prevents allergies developing. But the evidence is a long way from conclusive. The most recent review I can find of the evidence (published in 2007) concluded that the studies to that date were inconclusive. So, you might be right, but even if you are the effect you have on the chance of developing allergies is small, and there's always the chance you're wrong.
Then there's the fact that coeliacs is an intolerance, not an allergy, so this research doesn't even apply to it. And the theory that it's caused by a rotavirus infection, which would mean playing in the dirt and eating stuff would increase your risk of developing it.
What the fuck kind of point is that? I find it unlikely for people to cultivate and smoke pot!
An alergy is simply something that causes you little to no direct threat (it doesn't destroy tissue or organs or block neural pathways etc) BUT your body misrecognises it as something that does, and triggers for example an immuno-response like closing your airways to stop the threat. The problem is the response, not the substance.
Things aren't "a poison" or "not a poison", things are "poisonous" at different amounts... some things are more "poisonous" than other things. I don't think there has to be a line.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
"if they had something important to say they wouldn't be anonymous"
Citation needed.
What?! I'm tired of arguing, so I thought I'd just give a non-argument, rudely... show off the fact that I've read wikipedia, but haven't learnt to string whole sentences together yet. What wrong that?? Personal validation needed!!!!
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Allergies are essentially an immune response. They might be genetic, but can also develop simply from repeated exposure. Generally, if you randomly react to a substance (say peanuts) you develop anti-bodies. Some people do, some people don't, there's a lot of random 'evolution' going on in the immune system. The next time you eat peanuts, your immune system is primed to them, and can recruit those specific anti-bodies faster. The effect is cumulative, getting worse with each exposure. Obviously, the randomness of the generation of antibodies is constrained and selected for to a large extent by survival, organisms that evolve the constraint that they will never react to their primary food source will survive, organisms without this constraint don't.
Point I'm trying to make is: Allergies to some substances are more varied than others. It's entirely possible that the 'peanut' allergy is different in from one person to another, i.e. triggered by a different peptide sequence on the same protein, or even different proteins in the same food source.
You having a hard time with reality doesn't mean the rest of us have to.
Also, as noted below, celiac/gluten intolerance is not an allergy - it's an autoimmune disorder.
Actrually, all "allergies" problems with the body's defense systems (which include the immune system).
Over cleanliness does not lead to gluten or peanut allergies. They are genetic. In the case of peanut allergies, you have them from day one. That is why they tell you never give peanuts to children under a year - it's instant death if they have the allergy.
I'm living in Amsterdam and gluten intolerant, and I have to say that (the prevalent grocery store chain) 'Albert Heijn' has excellent labelling. With almost every product, there is a section on the label containing allergy information, and I can just glance at the back of everything to see if it has a "glutenvrij" (gluten free) symbol. (Another common symbol is "melkvrij", for those who are lactose intolerant.) And the store I go to added a gluten-free section recently with bread and cereal, so I'm happy about that; before I had to make a separate trip to "Biomarkt", which also has a gluten-free section.
Before working here, I'd never met anyone else with wheat intolerance, but at my company there are 3 others, and the company provides gluten-free bread for lunch.
There is some differentiation here as to gluten reactions. Celiac as described in the lit is an auto-immune reaction which causes damage to the lining of the gut. There are some other indications that there is, for some people, a lack of ability for the gut to properly break down gluten before it enters the blood stream. Theory goes that the gut allows the gluten fragments to enter the bloodstream where they act like a toxin. Other proteins in this category are casein and soy.
People with gluten sensitivities just get glommed together as celiac even though there may different underlying causes.
Another confounding factor is gut ecology with some more theory and anecdotal support for yeast colonization causing a number of negative effects.
Unfortunately, there is not much incentive for drug-company funded research to get involved. No money in it. All these stories, theories, factors vectoring in on the gut and digestive processes as fundamental to some of the most puzzling and difficult to treat diseases and syndromes yet the research being done is limited. No obvious profit outcome if the treatment is not eating gluten or taking a daily dose of a cheap drug like nystatin.
A really tangled knot: hard to study either directly or indirectly, and there are a lot of individual factors (apparently).
Finally: at least anecdotally (and there are a LOT of stories supporting this), celiac/leaky gut seems to be a factor for a large number of people in the autistic spectrum (Asperger's, Tourette's, etc etc). So, if you have an autistic child, at least trial removel of gluten, casein and soy from the diet. Kicker is that even if a celiac test comes up negative, removal of gluten and the others from the diet may show a very positive effect.
If only it were so simple. As a kid I was always in the middle of dirt and germs. I was a filthy kid... guess what, that didn't do SHIT as I still had plenty of food allergies to contend with. Granted nothing life threatening but food allergies are not pleasant at all.
In Austria there lived the so called "arsenic eaters", who ingested doses far beyond the lethal dose of arsenic trioxide without any apparent harm. Arsenic is thought to enable strenuous work at high altitudes, e.g. in the Alps. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_trioxide)
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
In Australia they still sell corn flour made from wheat. It's a technical term for fine flour. At least some brands have caught on and advertise themselves as 'corn flour made from corn.' And then there's the ever present 'Anti Caking Agent.' You're right, things are getting better, but it's taking time.
Yogurt, or specifically the AB cultures, are important. Garlic is also helpful against candida. There's supposedly a link between gluten and lactose problems and candida as well. Throw all of these together unregulated and you have a mess.
You still have to know the code phrases. Anti-caking agent is the biggest one I can think of right now. McDonalds fries are a problem because of cross contamination after the frier. Try ordering them without salt. A lot of them now don't blink if you order a burger without the bun, so there is some improvement. The good ones will do up a nice looking dish on a tray. Mexican is safest if you stay with the corn tortillas. Have you looked at Nandos? Our local ones actually have dairy and gluten allergy information on the printed menus.
Apostrophes are used to warn of the arrival of an "s", not to bemoan the passing of a "c".
I agree, but then I don't agree. Sort of.
I think being overprotective, and trying to "clean up" natural bacteria exposure, which will also mess up natural internal bacteria culture easily can lead to trouble. But that is far from the only problem of our society today. The chemicals in our food, water and our air for example, can also mess up our internal machinery. So you shouldn't think that letting kids your play around in the dirt where the nuclear waste was dumped under the powerlines when the smog is thick will somehow make them immune because dirt is so good for them. They can get sick still.
> The term coeliac derives from the Greek (koiliaks, "abdominal"), and was introduced in the 19th century in a translation of what is generally regarded as an ancient Greek description of the disease by Aretaeus of Cappadocia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease
Yeah, those 1st C Greeks and their goddamn germ fetish
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
No not true.
My mom has this celiac disease and she's from that generation that played in the dirt and eat stuff! She's had to deal with this disease her whole life and it wasn't a pleasant experience (not for me either).
This disease is a genetically transported to children so i too have it (but far less severe then my mom).
The thing is that our food stinks! The food industry or the shitty food they produce is the cause of the surfacing of these diseases.
Their search for inferior products and more profit is a plague. The problem is today one product is okay and the next day they invent "this new recepy" and things turn for the worse (especially when you have a celiac disease).
Things will get worse.
'corn flour made from corn.'
All the wheat based cornflour i've seen recently is fairly clearly branded as 'wheaten cornflour'. We probably don't get such a wide brand selection in central Victoria though.
The supermarket around the corner is reasonably expensive but has a huge range of gf foods for a supermarket its size (which are obviously more expensive again).
All allergies are autoimmune diseases. The problem isn't so much the allergen as it is the bodies reaction to it.
I didn't say that they did. I didn't even imply that. Longer breast feeding has two benefits. First, it boosts the child's immune system. Second, it is a good indicator for how late the child will begin consuming solid food, for two reasons:
Admittedly, that's more correlative, not causative; the causative factor is the consumption of solid food at too young an age. Breast feeding for a longer period of time tends to stave that off due to lack of demand from the child, but it's not strict causation.
Either way, the point was that parents who are quick to use formula instead of breast feeding are also more likely to be in a rush to get away from having to give their kids special foods, and the long term effect of this is that they end up eating foods that do contain gluten (e.g. taking a bite of their parents' burgers) at an earlier age than kids who breast feed for longer periods of time. It's not that the use of formula causes gluten sensitivity, but rather that formula is symptomatic of a societally driven rush back into the workforce that also tends to cause other poor nutritional choices for those infants, which in turn, increase the risk of gluten sensitivity. It's an indicator, not a causative factor.
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Honest question. Do you mean something that would _typically_ contain gluten, or not? If not, why should it list gluten free?
I can't remember the specific examples, but there have been cases in the U.S. of products saying "fat free" or "cholesterol free" on the package, when such products would never contain that. I think they got in minor trouble with the FDA over labelling laws. (If someone has specific examples, great.)