Hold the Bread!

In a recent article I came across in the Wall Street Journal, a particular article about gluten sensitivity caught my eye. Namely because I follow a gluten free diet and, furthermore, it pronounces some findings that arouse discussion whether gluten effects a larger number of people than previously believed.


Gluten is a protein which is found in wheat, barley, rye and oats. For some reason,  this protein has the ability to bring about an autoimmune response in certain individuals which alerts the body to attack the digestive system and the villi  along the walls of the intestine (Villi allow for the absorption of nutrients). Moreover, as the Wall Street Journal article Clues to Gluten Sensitivity illustrates, "gluten can set off a distinct reaction in the intestines and the immune system, even in people who don't have celiac disease". So we have a continuum of those who show sensitivity to those who cannot tolerate even the presence of gluten in the air. The only treatment for Celiac sufferers is following a strict gluten-free diet, and no medication exists that reduces the harmful effects of the protein.


According to Marian Rewers from the National Institute of Health, 1 in 105 people in the United States have Celiac disease, affirming the statistic of approximately 1% reported by the WSJ. That makes it a relatively common diet disorder, and as it may be expected with recent trends in health awareness, gluten sensitivity awareness has been on the rise. Recently, it has become more common to see items marked as gluten free in popular grocery stores.

Clues to Gluten Sensitivity, Scan from the The Wall Street Journal (March 15, 2011)

The list of symptoms that stem from gluten sensitivity is colossal and ranges from minor bloating and anemia all the way to cancer and everything in between. According to Ms. Beck, "more than 100 symptoms have been loosely linked to gluten." What makes this especially troubling is that people suffering an ailment may go see their doctor to treat a particular symptom and never realize that the cause of the ailment may actually be caused by their intake of gluten-containing foods. Furthermore, testing for gluten autoimmunity is a difficult task that is often times a hit or miss. It is not often for doctors to test for gluten sensitivity and in many cases is given the cold shoulder. "Patients have been told...it was all in their heads," says Cynthia Kupper, executive director of the nonprofit Gluten Intolerance Group of North America.


This raises the question of whether or not the true number of those with gluten autoimmunity is grossly underrepresented; in fact many people do not find out of their sensitivity to gluten within their entire lifetime-- and if they do, it is common that people find out only when they reach their 50s, 60s and even 80s-- enduring the damage gluten has done over those years which can never be retrieved. 


Needless to say, "the incidence of celiac disease is rising sharply-and not just due to greater awareness. Tests comparing old blood samples to recent ones show the rate has increased four-fold in the last 50 years". The cause of this remarkable increase could be attribitable to the fact that a staggering 97% of the population are undiagnosed, and according to Kurt G. Harris of  the American Society of Neuroradiology, "30% of the population has the genetic HLA haptotype that is susceptible to celiac disease." Harris admits, "we don't know how big the iceberg is with these diseases, but the tip seems very large."