Gluten: The Whole Story

Wheat, Gluten, Allergy, Food, Allergen
Gluten troubles were once thought to be a problem primarily for those with celiac disease. But recent research indicates that gluten-related disorders extend to a far broader population, and affect far more than the digestive system.
Duck through the doorway of Sweet Christine’s Bakery in Kennett Square, Pa., and you’re enveloped by the sights and smells of a classic neighborhood bakery. But what makes this bakery unusual is that everything from vanilla cupcakes to chewy chocolate-chip cookies to baguettes is gluten-free, baked with ingredients such as brown rice flour and tapioca, rather than wheat. As a result, the bakery has become a safe haven for people with both celiac disease and gluten intolerances.
Lisa Stevens, 41, the bakery’s wholesale manager, spent years struggling with digestive issues before she learned she had a problem with gluten nearly four years ago: “I was always the little girl with the tummy ache,” Stevens recalls. But, as she grew older, her ills spread beyond her belly. In her 20s, she was plagued by debilitating headaches, joint pain and fatigue. “I could hardly get out of bed in the morning,” she says. “I was 25 but felt 85.”
She bounced from doctor to doctor with no diagnosis. Finally, a friend with celiac disease insisted Stevens experiment by cutting gluten from her diet. Within two weeks of going gluten-free, her stomach stopped hurting after meals  — a first. Within a few short months, her fatigue, joint pain and headaches all vanished. Testing confirmed her suspicion — gluten was the guilty party. But Stevens doesn’t have celiac disease; she has an intolerance to gluten, an increasingly common diagnosis.
As scientists chip away at the mountain of health problems caused by the modern American diet, a troubling finding is emerging. Gluten, present in our most popular grains, is being linked not only to celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder affecting one out of 100 Americans, but also to non-celiac gluten intolerance, which afflicts many millions more.
Non-celiac gluten intolerance is a lesser-understood but no-less-serious condition capable of igniting inflammation, the first stop on a path toward chronic illness. Yet not all doctors understand the condition or take it seriously, says New York City naturopathic doctor Donielle Wilson, ND: “These people need help, but conventional medical practitioners aren’t listening.”
Feeding the consternation of practitioners like Wilson is that many of their colleagues, including most gastroenterologists and even some celiac specialists, hesitate to acknowledge that any gluten-related disorder beyond celiac disease even exists. “The perception is that if you don’t have celiac disease, you don’t have a problem,” says Stephen Wangen, ND, a board-certified and licensed naturopathic physician in Seattle and author of Healthier Without Wheat (Innate Health Publishing, 2009).
But people with non-celiac gluten intolerance have plenty of problems, as evidenced by a 2009 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found an increased risk of death among patients with both celiac and other types of gluten-related inflammation. The risk of mortality, mostly from heart disease and cancer (two leading inflammatory conditions), was an alarming 39 percent higher in people with celiac disease and a jaw-dropping 72 percent higher in people with gluten-related inflammation.
“This is ground-breaking research that proves you don’t have to have full-blown celiac disease to have serious health problems from eating gluten,” says Mark Hyman, MD, chairman of the Institute of Functional Medicine and founder of the UltraWellness Center in Lenox, Mass.
If that forecast sounds dire, take heart. There’s a lot you can do to dodge the gluten bullet. It starts with understanding what gluten intolerance is, and why it has become such a huge problem for so many.

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