In 1994 I was diagnosed with celiac disease, which led me to create Celiac.com in 1995. I created this site for a single purpose: To help as many people as possible with celiac disease get diagnosed and living happy, healthy gluten-free lives. Celiac.com was the first site on the Internet dedicated solely to celiac disease, and since then it has become an invaluable resource to people worldwide who seek information about celiac disease and the gluten-free diet. In 1998 I created The Gluten-Free Mall, Your Special Diet Superstore! which was also another Internet first—it was the first gluten-free food site to offer a shopping cart-style interface, and the ability for people to order gluten-free products manufactured by many different companies at a single Web site.
The average gluten-containing diet contains roughly 10-40 grams of gluten per day. This figure is based on the amounts of gluten in your average slice of whole wheat bread, which contains around 4.8 grams of gluten (10% gluten by weight), and the amount of gluten in a serving of pasta, which is roughly 6.4 grams of gluten (11% gluten by weight). The smallest amount of gluten which has been shown by a biopsy to cause damage to a celiac is 0.1 gram per day (Catassi et al.). This is approximately the amount of gluten contained in 1/48th of a slice of bread! The biopsies in this study showed an increase in intraepithelial lymphocyte count, one of the earliest signs of damage. The challenge was on 10 patients (children) for 28 days each. Four of the patients showed an increase in IgA antigliadin antibodies. The intestinal permeability test remained normal.