What YOU should know about GLUTEN SENSITIVITY
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I think the reason I chuckle at this article is because people who are gluten intolerant or sensitive seem to love to talk about it over and over and over. I have been stopped in the grocery store by a mom who was staring going gluten free, she went on for twenty minutes about her appointments and symptoms and how great it is, then six months later she just eats normally. I have been to social gatherings with women where the conversation for the night revolves around someone's gluten sensitivity. I can't tell you how many people I know have had the tests and been told they have this then a year later they just go back to thier normal diet and act like it never existed. I guess that is why I get skeptical when I hear people talk about their food sensitivities.
People also go back to smoking and drinking excessively, your point being??? lol
Gluten is now addictive?
My rolls are pretty damn good.
Speaking of rolls...
...I'm ready for this thread to roll of my "last 25 topics" list.0 -
My point is they don't seem to have the sensitivity any more. I believe some people feel better when going gluten free and realize just because I don't have the problem doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but there definitely seems to be a fad . People do it for a certain amount of time and decide it's too much work , then it's the next big thing.I think the reason I chuckle at this article is because people who are gluten intolerant or sensitive seem to love to talk about it over and over and over. I have been stopped in the grocery store by a mom who was staring going gluten free, she went on for twenty minutes about her appointments and symptoms and how great it is, then six months later she just eats normally. I have been to social gatherings with women where the conversation for the night revolves around someone's gluten sensitivity. I can't tell you how many people I know have had the tests and been told they have this then a year later they just go back to thier normal diet and act like it never existed. I guess that is why I get skeptical when I hear people talk about their food sensitivities.
People also go back to smoking and drinking excessively, your point being??? lol0 -
I think the reason I chuckle at this article is because people who are gluten intolerant or sensitive seem to love to talk about it over and over and over. I have been stopped in the grocery store by a mom who was staring going gluten free, she went on for twenty minutes about her appointments and symptoms and how great it is, then six months later she just eats normally. I have been to social gatherings with women where the conversation for the night revolves around someone's gluten sensitivity. I can't tell you how many people I know have had the tests and been told they have this then a year later they just go back to thier normal diet and act like it never existed. I guess that is why I get skeptical when I hear people talk about their food sensitivities.
People also go back to smoking and drinking excessively, your point being??? lol
Gluten is now addictive?
There have been some very credible scientific studies that suggest it is. Wheat gluten is unique in its ability to stimulate opiate-receptor sites in the brain. Interestingly, when an opiate-blocking drug (naloxone) is administered, study participants ate significantly fewer wheat-based foods. Combining gluten's direct effects on the brain with the Amylopectin-A (the majority of starch found in wheat) blood glucose high may make it highly addictive to some people. A word of explanation about Amylopectin. Amylopectin-B (the starch found in bananas and potatoes) is more resistant to digestion and Amylopectin-C (found in beans) is not very digestible at all. Amylopectin-A raises blood sugar VERY efficiently and from there, it can create a host of problems for those who must battle high blood sugar (and that includes a LOT of people, those who are forced to be inactive because of injury or joint disease, the obese, those who are aging and Type II diabetics).
1- Amylopectin-A is not found in gluten, and this thread is about gluten sensitivity.
2- The foods you mentioned such as bananas and spinach also contain tryptophan which is an amino acid that is converted into serotonin, a feel- good neurotransmitter. Does this mean that spinach and bananas are also addictive?
3- are you saying that we all could be addicted to wheat? Is this why I eat toast and peanut butter every day? If I don't have any stomach issues from eating seitan, should I still eliminate gluten from my diet because it inhibits my dopamine receptors which will lead to an addiction similar to that of someone on opiates? I Took a mild opiate last year for seven days and two days after I stopped I felt edgy and depressed. Will I feel the same way if I cut out gluten?
Eating does affect our brains. (Did you know that we even have neurotransmitters in our gut?). I really don't understand your "evidence" that gluten is chemically addictive.0 -
This topic is being stomped into the ground
If you feel better not eating it, then don't.
I quit five years ago, 95% of the time.
Huge difference.
To each their own.0 -
Can anyone that is anti gluten free please explain the rash on my arms that would not heal, leaving a couple dozen scars that still remain ? Doctor thinking it was skin cancer. Not even. Gluten. Anyone else out there with the same experience ?0
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One thing that stood out to me in the study was that participants were recruited based on being positive for IBS. They were then placed on a low Fodmap diet for 1 or 2 weeks? after which all reported reduced symptoms. Based on reported success rates of low Fodmaps for relieving symptoms for IBS, ~25% (9 participants) should have had no change in symptoms, and still have 'background noise', which was one of the explanations for the difference in results from the last study.
Yet they apparently didn't.
This was not mentioned or explained. If I was a reviewer of this paper, that would be an important question for me. I would want the researchers to provide an explanation of 100% results from a reduced Fodmap diet in their study group when literature reports 70-75% in the general population of IBS sufferers.
Apart from that, and the obvious nocebo effect, it seems like a really nicely run study.
It was explained in the full-text. The study was designed to eliminate background noise, so participants who were symptomatic on the run-in diet were excluded.0 -
Can anyone that is anti gluten free please explain the rash on my arms that would not heal, leaving a couple dozen scars that still remain ? Doctor thinking it was skin cancer. Not even. Gluten. Anyone else out there with the same experience ?
This doesn't make any sense to me. An actual dermatologist doctor said s/he *thinks* it was skin cancer??? No biopsy, just speculation?0 -
There's a scientist from MIT who believes that the large numbers of people who find that they cannot eat wheat is a reflection of "cross-reactivity." First thing that must be understood is that the wheat we eat today is VERY different from the wheat our ancestors ate. From the wild Einkorn wheat grabbed and soaked and long-cooked by our hunter-gatherer ancestors, to the Emmer wheat of Biblical times to the Triticale of modern times, the genetic base of wheat has been tampered with over and over. In the 1950s, they went to producing wheat with a VERY high gluten content. That is problematic because large amounts of gluten are not particularly digestible in the human gut. The "cross-reactivity" issue comes from the glyphosate (Roundup) residue that a lot of wheat contains. Wheat is not yet "roundup ready" but it seems that the "geniuses" at Monsanto have come up with a new way of poisoning us with glyphosate. Wheat is now sprayed with glyphosate just before harvest (in order to kill the wheat plants in preparation for the "no-till" planting method that uses seed-drills). The MIT scientist believes that it is the combination of gluten with the glyposate residue that produces a lot of gastric consequences. When pigs are fed Roundup-Ready Soy, they experience a lot of gastric distress and some even die. When they are autopsied, they are found to have bright red, highly inflamed, gut-linings. The digestive systems of humans are somewhat similar to those of pigs. A growing chorus of medical professionals are becoming quite concerned about genetically modified and chemically tainted food.
This is very much a hypothesis, but an interesting one nonetheless. The paper I read reports a lot of correlation data with no consideration for confounders, which makes it seem a bit dodgy, but still, it was an interesting read.
I was able to access it from this article. http://www.examiner.com/article/is-it-the-gluten-or-is-it-the-glyphosate
Here's the abstract if anyone's interested.
Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases II: Celiac sprue and gluten intolerance
Anthony SAMSEL 1 and Stephanie SENEFF 2
1 Independent Scientist and Consultant, Deerfield, NH 03037, USA
2 Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
Celiac disease, and, more generally, gluten intolerance, is a growing problem worldwide, but especially in North America and Europe, where an estimated 5% of the population now suffers from it. Symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, skin rashes, macrocytic anemia and depression. It is a multifactorial disease associated with numerous nutritional deficiencies as well as reproductive issues and increased risk to thyroid disease, kidney failure and cancer. Here, we propose that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide, Roundup®, is the most important causal factor in this epidemic. Fish exposed to glyphosate develop digestive problems that are reminiscent of celiac disease. Celiac disease is associated with imbalances in gut bacteria that can be fully explained by the known effects of glypho- sate on gut bacteria. Characteristics of celiac disease point to impairment in many cytochrome P450 enzymes, which are involved with detoxifying environmental toxins, activating vitamin D3, catabolizing vitamin A, and maintaining bile acid production and sulfate supplies to the gut. Glyphosate is known to inhibit cytochrome P450 enzymes. Deficiencies in iron, cobalt, molybdenum, copper and other rare metals associated with celiac disease can be attributed to glyphosate’s strong ability to chelate these elements. Deficiencies in tryptophan, tyrosine, methionine and selenomethionine associated with celiac disease match glyphosate’s known depletion of these amino acids. Celiac disease patients have an increased risk to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which has also been implicated in glyphosate exposure. Reproductive issues associated with celiac disease, such as infertility, miscarriages, and birth defects, can also be explained by glyphosate. Glyphosate residues in wheat and other crops are likely increasing recently due to the growing practice of crop desiccation just prior to the harvest. We argue that the practice of “ripening” sugar cane with glyphosate may explain the recent surge in kidney failure among agricultural workers in Central America. We conclude with a plea to governments to reconsider policies regarding the safety of glyphosate residues in foods.
That's actually super interesting, thanks! I suggested earlier that those who were experiencing symptoms from gluten might have issues with their intestinal flora. I had no idea that studies were being done in that direction. It makes me wonder if a really good probiotic might have some helpful effect.
Also, for the poster who suggested that those who didn't believe in gluten sensitivity were closed-minded, I rather think that those who refuse to entertain the thought that their symptoms might be caused by some other factor are just as closed-minded, if not more so.
Cheers!0 -
Can anyone that is anti gluten free please explain the rash on my arms that would not heal, leaving a couple dozen scars that still remain ? Doctor thinking it was skin cancer. Not even. Gluten. Anyone else out there with the same experience ?
This doesn't make any sense to me. An actual dermatologist doctor said s/he *thinks* it was skin cancer??? No biopsy, just speculation?
Maybe they thought it was cancer, tested, and found out it wasn't? The number of times Dr's think I have a tumour/cancer/miraculous conception...0 -
I think the reason I chuckle at this article is because people who are gluten intolerant or sensitive seem to love to talk about it over and over and over. I have been stopped in the grocery store by a mom who was staring going gluten free, she went on for twenty minutes about her appointments and symptoms and how great it is, then six months later she just eats normally. I have been to social gatherings with women where the conversation for the night revolves around someone's gluten sensitivity. I can't tell you how many people I know have had the tests and been told they have this then a year later they just go back to thier normal diet and act like it never existed. I guess that is why I get skeptical when I hear people talk about their food sensitivities.
People also go back to smoking and drinking excessively, your point being??? lol
good question0 -
Can anyone that is anti gluten free please explain the rash on my arms that would not heal, leaving a couple dozen scars that still remain ? Doctor thinking it was skin cancer. Not even. Gluten. Anyone else out there with the same experience ?
either you are lying or exaggerating, then again there could be something wrong with you but human nature tells me otherwise, its time like this that make me which House M.D was a real person to either diagnose your ailments and help you through them and hopefully heal you, or to tell you how full of it you really are0 -
Can anyone that is anti gluten free please explain the rash on my arms that would not heal, leaving a couple dozen scars that still remain ? Doctor thinking it was skin cancer. Not even. Gluten. Anyone else out there with the same experience ?
either you are lying or exaggerating, then again there could be something wrong with you but human nature tells me otherwise, its time like this that make me which House M.D was a real person to either diagnose your ailments and help you through them and hopefully heal you, or to tell you how full of it you really are
Well, obviously it's lupus. Duh.0 -
There were only 3 though, less than 10%. With the others, symptoms 'generally improved', although it's difficult to see in figure 1 how many didn't improve......it could have been 25%. Some seemed to have had a large improvement, some no improvement.One thing that stood out to me in the study was that participants were recruited based on being positive for IBS. They were then placed on a low Fodmap diet for 1 or 2 weeks? after which all reported reduced symptoms. Based on reported success rates of low Fodmaps for relieving symptoms for IBS, ~25% (9 participants) should have had no change in symptoms, and still have 'background noise', which was one of the explanations for the difference in results from the last study.
Yet they apparently didn't.
This was not mentioned or explained. If I was a reviewer of this paper, that would be an important question for me. I would want the researchers to provide an explanation of 100% results from a reduced Fodmap diet in their study group when literature reports 70-75% in the general population of IBS sufferers.
Apart from that, and the obvious nocebo effect, it seems like a really nicely run study.
It was explained in the full-text. The study was designed to eliminate background noise, so participants who were symptomatic on the run-in diet were excluded.
For those who didn't improve on low FODMAPS, it's likely that FODMAPS weren't 'background' and therefore, based on the researchers' plan to reduce background, they should have been excluded IMO, or at least reported as a subgroup. I wonder if any of them were gluten responders. Nevertheless, it still doesn't implicated gluten as the offender, but it doesn't implicate FODMAPS for those people either.0 -
There's a scientist from MIT who believes that the large numbers of people who find that they cannot eat wheat is a reflection of "cross-reactivity." First thing that must be understood is that the wheat we eat today is VERY different from the wheat our ancestors ate. From the wild Einkorn wheat grabbed and soaked and long-cooked by our hunter-gatherer ancestors, to the Emmer wheat of Biblical times to the Triticale of modern times, the genetic base of wheat has been tampered with over and over. In the 1950s, they went to producing wheat with a VERY high gluten content. That is problematic because large amounts of gluten are not particularly digestible in the human gut. The "cross-reactivity" issue comes from the glyphosate (Roundup) residue that a lot of wheat contains. Wheat is not yet "roundup ready" but it seems that the "geniuses" at Monsanto have come up with a new way of poisoning us with glyphosate. Wheat is now sprayed with glyphosate just before harvest (in order to kill the wheat plants in preparation for the "no-till" planting method that uses seed-drills). The MIT scientist believes that it is the combination of gluten with the glyposate residue that produces a lot of gastric consequences. When pigs are fed Roundup-Ready Soy, they experience a lot of gastric distress and some even die. When they are autopsied, they are found to have bright red, highly inflamed, gut-linings. The digestive systems of humans are somewhat similar to those of pigs. A growing chorus of medical professionals are becoming quite concerned about genetically modified and chemically tainted food.
This is very much a hypothesis, but an interesting one nonetheless. The paper I read reports a lot of correlation data with no consideration for confounders, which makes it seem a bit dodgy, but still, it was an interesting read.
I was able to access it from this article. http://www.examiner.com/article/is-it-the-gluten-or-is-it-the-glyphosate
Here's the abstract if anyone's interested.
Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases II: Celiac sprue and gluten intolerance
Anthony SAMSEL 1 and Stephanie SENEFF 2
1 Independent Scientist and Consultant, Deerfield, NH 03037, USA
2 Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
Celiac disease, and, more generally, gluten intolerance, is a growing problem worldwide, but especially in North America and Europe, where an estimated 5% of the population now suffers from it. Symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, skin rashes, macrocytic anemia and depression. It is a multifactorial disease associated with numerous nutritional deficiencies as well as reproductive issues and increased risk to thyroid disease, kidney failure and cancer. Here, we propose that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide, Roundup®, is the most important causal factor in this epidemic. Fish exposed to glyphosate develop digestive problems that are reminiscent of celiac disease. Celiac disease is associated with imbalances in gut bacteria that can be fully explained by the known effects of glypho- sate on gut bacteria. Characteristics of celiac disease point to impairment in many cytochrome P450 enzymes, which are involved with detoxifying environmental toxins, activating vitamin D3, catabolizing vitamin A, and maintaining bile acid production and sulfate supplies to the gut. Glyphosate is known to inhibit cytochrome P450 enzymes. Deficiencies in iron, cobalt, molybdenum, copper and other rare metals associated with celiac disease can be attributed to glyphosate’s strong ability to chelate these elements. Deficiencies in tryptophan, tyrosine, methionine and selenomethionine associated with celiac disease match glyphosate’s known depletion of these amino acids. Celiac disease patients have an increased risk to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which has also been implicated in glyphosate exposure. Reproductive issues associated with celiac disease, such as infertility, miscarriages, and birth defects, can also be explained by glyphosate. Glyphosate residues in wheat and other crops are likely increasing recently due to the growing practice of crop desiccation just prior to the harvest. We argue that the practice of “ripening” sugar cane with glyphosate may explain the recent surge in kidney failure among agricultural workers in Central America. We conclude with a plea to governments to reconsider policies regarding the safety of glyphosate residues in foods.
That's actually super interesting, thanks! I suggested earlier that those who were experiencing symptoms from gluten might have issues with their intestinal flora. I had no idea that studies were being done in that direction. It makes me wonder if a really good probiotic might have some helpful effect.
Yes I think so. There are some studies showing positive results in CD. Apparently some bacteria can alter the effects of gluten by modifying the inflammatory cascade, and also protecting epithelial cells in the gut. It's very interesting.....0 -
I'm convinced that gut flora have a great deal more to do with our immune systems than we ever dreamed of. I hope that the probiotics industry is able to develop more efficient systems of delivery so that you're not essentially taking capsules full of dead bacteria.0
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There were only 3 though, less than 10%. With the others, symptoms 'generally improved', although it's difficult to see in figure 1 how many didn't improve......it could have been 25%. Some seemed to have had a large improvement, some no improvement.One thing that stood out to me in the study was that participants were recruited based on being positive for IBS. They were then placed on a low Fodmap diet for 1 or 2 weeks? after which all reported reduced symptoms. Based on reported success rates of low Fodmaps for relieving symptoms for IBS, ~25% (9 participants) should have had no change in symptoms, and still have 'background noise', which was one of the explanations for the difference in results from the last study.
Yet they apparently didn't.
This was not mentioned or explained. If I was a reviewer of this paper, that would be an important question for me. I would want the researchers to provide an explanation of 100% results from a reduced Fodmap diet in their study group when literature reports 70-75% in the general population of IBS sufferers.
Apart from that, and the obvious nocebo effect, it seems like a really nicely run study.
It was explained in the full-text. The study was designed to eliminate background noise, so participants who were symptomatic on the run-in diet were excluded.
For those who didn't improve on low FODMAPS, it's likely that FODMAPS weren't 'background' and therefore, based on the researchers' plan to reduce background, they should have been excluded IMO, or at least reported as a subgroup. I wonder if any of them were gluten responders. Nevertheless, it still doesn't implicated gluten as the offender, but it doesn't implicate FODMAPS for those people either.
That was not the purpose of the study. Note that ALL dietary triggers were removed from the run-in diet, not just FODMAPS.
Furthermore, the subjects were chosen because the had previously seen a remission of symptoms on a gluten-free diet. It's probable that the vast majority of those that don't see improvement on a low FODMAPS diet don't see improvement on low-gluten either.0 -
The following is a NPR blog write up for those who don't want to read the study or who take instant umbrage at the hint that they may not, in fact, be gluten sensitive so much as have a FODMAPs issue. There is also some disagreement below as to whether non-celiac gluten sensitivity exists. More research is certainly warranted.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/22/314287321/sensitive-to-gluten-a-carb-in-wheat-may-be-the-real-culprit
As late-night host Jimmy Kimmel so cleverly captured in a recent segment, some people on the gluten-free bandwagon don't know much about gluten, or why, precisely, they should avoid it. (For the record, gluten is a protein found in some cereal grains, including wheat and rye.)
Uncertainty about the effects of gluten on people who don't have celiac disease, a serious autoimmune disease, but who identify as "gluten sensitive" or "gluten intolerant" is rampant among doctors, too. As more and more patients experiment on their own with a gluten-free diet, researchers are struggling to keep up with just how and why cutting out the gluten may be helping or hurting them.
But the gastroenterologists around the world who've been trying understand the gluten puzzle say they're increasingly convinced of two key things: One is that the number of people who are truly non-celiac gluten sensitive is probably very small. Second, they say that the people who say they feel better on a gluten-free diet are more likely sensitive to a specific kind of carbohydrate in the wheat — not the gluten protein.
That carbohydrate, called fructan, is a member of a group of carbs that gastroenterologists say is irritating the guts of a lot of people, causing gas, diarrhea, distention and other uncomfortable symptoms. Altogether, these carbs are called fermentable oligo-di-monosaccharides and polyols, or the cumbersome acronym FODMAPs.
If you're someone with a sensitive stomach and you've never heard of FODMAPs, listen up. In addition to fructan in wheat (and garlic and artichokes), FODMAPs include fructose (found in some fruit), lactose (found in some dairy products) and galactans (found in some legumes).
While most people can digest FODMAPs with no problem, for many with chronic gut disorders like irritable bowel syndrome, they're poorly absorbed by the small intestine and then fermented by bacteria to produce gas, which leads to those unpleasant symptoms. IBS affects up to 20 percent of Americans.
After a team of scientists at Monash University in Australia led by Peter Gibson and Susan Shepherd linked FODMAPs to IBS in 1999, they designed the low-FODMAP diet. According to William Chey, a gastroenterologist and professor of medicine at the University of Michigan, the diet was swiftly embraced by doctors and dieticians as a treatment for IBS because it's as effective as the drugs on the market. (In most trials, 70 percent of patients see improvement in their IBS symptoms when they go on the low-FODMAP diet.)
Yet the gluten-free diet is still way more popular and well-known than the low-FODMAP diet. And that's led researchers to want to try to separate the effects of the gluten protein from the FODMAPs in foods like wheat where both are found.
Back around 2010, Jessica Biesiekierski, who's now a post-doctoral research fellow at the Translational Research Center for Gastrointestinal Disorders in Belgium, heard that a lot of people with IBS in Melbourne, Australia, were saying they experienced benefits from the gluten-free diet. That gave her the idea, while she was a grad student at Monash, to do a trial to test gluten sensitivity in these people who didn't have celiac disease.
In a study published in 2011, Biesiekierski and a team of researchers at Monash (who were also involved with the FODMAP research) showed evidence of the existence of non-celiac gluten sensitivity in a randomized controlled trial of 34 people, some of whom got gluten and some of whom got placebo.
"Everybody was jumping up and down since that was the first study to show gluten could induce symptoms in patients that did not have celiac disease," Biesiekierski tells The Salt. It also helped fuel the explosion of gluten-free food: The number of people with celiac disease is small — less than 1 percent of the population — but suddenly it seemed possible that a lot more people were sensitive to gluten and should avoid it.
Given the response to the study, the team decided to try to reproduce its results. This time, 37 subjects with non-celiac gluten sensitivity and IBS were randomly assigned to groups given a two-week diet of reduced FODMAPs, and then placed on high-gluten, low-gluten or control diets for one week.
The results, published in 2013 in the journal Gastroenterology, were intriguing. Only 8 percent of the participants had gluten-specific effects from the gluten diets, while all participants has significantly improved symptoms on the low-FODMAP diet. The researchers concluded that gluten had no specific or dose-dependent effects on patients who claimed to be gluten sensitive but were not diagnosed with celiac disase.
"We believe non-celiac gluten sensitivity probably does exist, but it's not very common and we have a lot more to do until we fully understand [gluten]," Biesiekierski says.
And, Biesiekierski says, for the majority of the people with IBS, FODMAPs like fructan are more likely to be the trigger than gluten. "That means we really have to understand the differences between gluten sources and FODMAP sources," she says, to help people figure out what's upsetting their stomachs and how to avoid the triggers.
What's more, in a survey published in April, Biesiekierski found that some people who put themselves on a gluten-free diet still had some symptoms, which suggests they could be sensitive to FODMAPs other than the ones in wheat.
Chey, the gastroenterologist at the University of Michigan, agrees that fructans in wheat are more likely to be triggering IBS in most patients than the gluten. "But we still need to understand which symptoms are related to gluten, and [which ones are] related to fructans," he says.
And it's exceedingly difficult for scientists to answer these questions.
"It's really hard to design and execute studies that really separate out constituent effects of food," says Chey. "We've still got a long ways to go."
Regardless, Chey says, "a number of people, including me, now feel that non-celiac gluten sensitivity is a misnomer. We should be saying wheat intolerance."
Another critical determinant of gut health that scientists are scrambling to understand is the community of microbes in the digestive tract, as we've reported. Chey notes that what you eat influences your microbiome, and your microbiome influences how you ferment carbs like FODMAPs that reach your colon.
While many people say they feel better when they cut out the gluten, there's also a question as to how many of them are experiencing the nocebo effect — when believing that something makes you sick causes it to do so.
Despite the confusion — or perhaps because of it — gluten-free food is spreading through the market like wildfire. According to Mintel, a market research company, sales of gluten-free products reached about $10.5 billion in 2013. And the company expects them to rise to $15 billion annually by 2016. The gluten-free diet isn't just trendy in the U.S. It's also taking off in Europe and Australia.0 -
If you suspect you are sensitive to gluten, do NOT eliminate gluten before being tested for celiac. The test relies on detecting antibodies that only arise when gluten is consumed. If you have celiac and eliminate gluten before being tested, you may very well test false-negative.
Just wanted to throw this in again for good measure. It's so important. Years ago, my doctor suspected Celiac based on a lifelong history of medical problems that caused real, tangible (some very serious) problems but were not explainable, and family history of autoimmune disease. I had not heard of Celiac and listened when he said the easiest way to diagnose it would be to just stop eating gluten and see how I feel since that was the only treatment anyway (I can't remember but I either had no or lousy health insurance at the time). Now I know better and wish I knew. The only thing I know is that I don't have chronic abdominal distention and hyperactive abdominal sounds. I have no idea if it was Celiac that caused the more serious problems, so I often wonder about the placebo effect and whether I've avoiding gluten (something I love) unnecessarily. I have tried eating gluten in small amounts due to this a couple of times, but it doesn't really help much since I'm pretty aware of how psychological factors play a part. The only thing I know is that the few times I've tried eating gluten over the years, I've experienced bleeding 3-5 days later. I usually settle with being happy that my stomach is much smaller and flatter and quiet and non-embarrassing, but it's not easy. Some truly tasty products that used to be staples in my diet are made out of gluten.0 -
If you suspect you are sensitive to gluten, do NOT eliminate gluten before being tested for celiac. The test relies on detecting antibodies that only arise when gluten is consumed. If you have celiac and eliminate gluten before being tested, you may very well test false-negative.
Just wanted to throw this in again for good measure. It's so important. Years ago, my doctor suspected Celiac based on a lifelong history of medical problems that caused real, tangible (some very serious) problems but were not explainable, and family history of autoimmune disease. I had not heard of Celiac and listened when he said the easiest way to diagnose it would be to just stop eating gluten and see how I feel since that was the only treatment anyway (I can't remember but I either had no or lousy health insurance at the time). Now I know better and wish I knew. The only thing I know is that I don't have chronic abdominal distention and hyperactive abdominal sounds. I have no idea if it was Celiac that caused the more serious problems, so I often wonder about the placebo effect and whether I've avoiding gluten (something I love) unnecessarily. I have tried eating gluten in small amounts due to this a couple of times, but it doesn't really help much since I'm pretty aware of how psychological factors play a part. The only thing I know is that the few times I've tried eating gluten over the years, I've experienced bleeding 3-5 days later. I usually settle with being happy that my stomach is much smaller and flatter and quiet and non-embarrassing, but it's not easy. Some truly tasty products that used to be staples in my diet are made out of gluten.
I'll bet it's especially difficult given that you're vegan. Aren't a lot of vegan protein sources gluten? I think I read that somewhere.0 -
I'll bet it's especially difficult given that you're vegan. Aren't a lot of vegan protein sources gluten? I think I read that somewhere.
Yup. I never even used to have think about protein until the gluten thing. I decided last year that I wanted to get the testing done and started to research how long I would have to eat gluten. Basically, no one answer but the consensus seemed to be at least three months. Other stuff was going on then so I let that go. While I don't know that I have Celiac, I do know that my tummy looks much nicer and is much quieter and doesn't hurt. So I would still try to avoid it, even without Celiac, but really I'd like to know if I am doing damage to myself or just getting some unpleasantness because it would make social outings easier. Next time I go to my (different) doctor I'll ask what they think.0
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