Celebrities With Celiac?

[2Boys4Me]

I found this while surfing tonight (slow night at work).

Open Original Shared Link

It list the following people as having Celiac disease:

Keith Olbermann (Sports Analyst)

Emmy Rossum (Actress)

Terence Stamp (Actor)

Sarah Vowell (Author)

Amanda Donohoe (Actress)

Jodie Kidd (Model)

The Duchess of Kent

Joe C. (Vocalist)

I don't really know how accurate it is, I mean how concerned about accuracy can a website called "am I annoying or not" really be?

[debmidge]

Is the Duchess of Kent also known as Sarah Ferguson?

[nikki-uk]

No,she's Princess Michael of Kent-so married to Prince Michael-not sure who he is or how he's related to the Queen.(Gosh and I'm British-not so hot on British royalty! )

Anyway-she is a coeliac.

Terence Stamp (british actor)however is Wheat Intolerant not a coeliac (although who knows,maybe he didn't get tested)and he has a food range sold in the UK-Wheat Free bread and the like.

[Guest BellyTimber]

If Mr Stamp had celiac disease he would experience pain in his abdomen and/or would be recommended to stop eating his own recipe loaves which contain rye and barley.

Certainly he originally got the idea of setting up his brand with recipes suitable to himself for consumption, I don't know whether he has made further discoveries about his own health since then, but there is plenty of room for people that have his dietary needs as we least heard of them.

Peter Benenson was also a founder of Coeliac UK. Another of his candle lighting deeds definitely. I want to be like him. In whatever field(s), more than one not obviously interrelated.

I found this while looking for something else. Peter Benenson, the founder of Amnesty International, had celiac disease.

"Peter Benenson

Founder, Amnesty International

Benenson set up Amnesty International in 1961 after reading an article about the arrest and imprisonment of two students in a café in Lisbon, Portugal who had drunk a toast to liberty. He initially set up Amnesty International as a one-year campaign but it went on to become the world's largest independent human rights organisation working on behalf of people for whom Benenson coined the term "prisoners of conscience." Currently, it has more than 1.8 million members and supporters worldwide.

.....

In the 1980's, Benenson became chairman of Association of Christians Against Torture, and in the 1990's he organized aid for Romanian orphans. He also founded a group to aid victims of celiac disease - a faulty absorption of gluten in the intestines - which he had. Modest and unassuming, Benenson repeatedly rejected knighthoods, telling officials that if they wished to acknowledge his work for human rights, they should redress remaining abuses in Britain.

"Once the concentration camps and the hellholes of the world were in darkness," Benenson said. "Now they are lit by the light of the Amnesty candle; the candle in barbed wire. When I first lit the Amnesty candle, I had in mind the old Chinese proverb: Better light a candle than curse the darkness."

February 25, 2005 at age 83. Pneumonia."

[ms-sillyak-screwed]

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[debmidge]

Yesterday's Star Ledger paper, column by Dr. Donohue (a regular Dr. column) mentioned a 13 yr old boy who died of celiac recently.

[moonunit]

You guys got me thinking... Elisabeth Hasselbeck... Survivor... who could help her to eat gluten-free? Aha, how about Keith Famie, the chef guy from her season on Survivor Outback and currently on Food Network?

So I went to his web site and wrote him an e-mail suggesting that they could do some wonderful things by considering making a gluten-free cookbook and publicizing it together. I don't remember whether they got along on the show, and I don't even know if they're represented by the same people, but hey... at least Keith Famie and/or his handlers will have heard about celiac disease by the time they open my message. That's one down, umpty-ump million to go.

(I told him in a P.S. that the more they raise awareness, the more people will be looking for a good gluten-free cookbook so he better get in on it now!)

[jerseyangel]

Wow Moonunit--good thinking

[ms-sillyak-screwed]

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[jenvan]

Maybe this was mentioned somewhere in the past, but Former Red Wing Mickey Redmond has Celiac. I read it in the Detroit Free Press this morning.

[zip2play]

I personally only tell my closest friends and family members I have celiac. Others get told I have an allergy to wheat! That is much easier to explain and I don't end up rambling on about gluten to explain what it is and the fact it is in everything!

Monica

[CeliaCruz]

File this under "I might be overthinking this..."

I think Kathy Griffin, the comedienne, is a Celiac. She is always making diarrhea jokes in her routines and constantly refering to having reactions to stressful situations by "shi++ing [her] pants". In her reality show "My Life on the D List" she at one point confesses that she always gets "the shi+s" and that all of the women in her family get "the shi+s". Plus she's Irish and has fair skin. C'mon, I have a point, right?

[moonunit]

Just a quick update on the Keith Famie thing -- I've actually been e-mailing back and forth with him in the last couple days. He's not sure whether the gluten-free cookbook/Elisabeth project would be do-able, but he's been asking questions about how the whole celiac dealie works (like, are some wheat products better/worse than others, things like that).

He seems very cool and down-to-earth, and hopefully we've gotten some decent info to someone who gets more airtime than most of us do, just in case he finds himself in a position to use or share that info!

You know, I've noticed that people in general don't seem to be turned off by hearing about celiac disease, or squeamish or even bothered by it. It's just that they're utterly ignorant (in the "not knowing anything about" way, not in the "dumb" way) about the disease. I know I was until recently. I hope we can keep getting information out there, slowly but surely, until one day it'll be more like diabetes -- everyone knows what it is and tries to be understanding and accommodating. That time will come!

[ms-sillyak-screwed]

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[ms-sillyak-screwed]

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[StrongerToday]

I heard that Dr. Kelch, who is quite the head honcho at the University of Michigan Hosptial is on a gluten-free diet as well!!

[angel-jd1]

I think some of the celebrities with celiac disease [are here] on this site, lurking and looming reading about and discovering many of the things we have. Remember if 1 out of 200 people have it un-DX what do the numbers say? But they the celebrities are hidden in silence afraid of what will happen to their career. They might have an agent, a family member or someone who they confide their secrets with. And they might me here posing as a Celiac.

zip2play -- said it best...

This is a hidden disease no one want to talk about no-less admit to.

I've have celiac disease a little over 5 years (perhaps longer and I didn't realise it)... I thought back today of how I found this site and never signed up to joined until a couple years after. I would come to this site anonymously and read the posting and learn from all the stories and info posted here. Perhaps that is what many of these celebrities are also doing? Plus I think many of the doctors and their staff come here too...

Isn't your brother a famous band member? I remember you posting about that some time back (his wedding drama). Possibly you could convince him to get tested, we could all HOPE He has it, and he could be our famous celiac spokes dude haha

Then celiac could be ROCK AND ROLL COOL!!

-Jessica

[Jnkmnky]

I get mad when I see someone like Montel Williams doing SOMETHING positive about perscription drugs as a result of his struggle with MS because he's being a help to others by using his celebrity for something other than buying new houses and cars. I get mad because no one has stepped foward for celiac disease. We need a spokesperson. But fame and money are more important to those "famous" people who have it. For me, any celebrity out there who may be lurking, wasting the opportunity to be useful to millions of people, sickens me. The only time they're going to "come out" and discuss it, is when there's a PILL to push and they can get PAID to be spokespeople. It makes me sick to no end. It's just not *COOL* yet, to have celiac disease. More people have to suffer while we wait for cultural approval of this horrible disease. Shame on any "celebrities" who ARE here. My child suffered longer than he had to and it wasn't due only to poor doctors... it was also due to a lack of awareness. Awareness could have made up for the lack of knowledge of our doctors.

[cultureslayer]

There is only one solution. *I* must become famous so that I can support autoimmune disease awareness (sorry, but they seem to come as a package deal anyways so might as well make awareness the same).

I've never understood why there aren't doctors that specialize in the treatment of autoimmune diseases instead of sending patients to a range of specialists that only understand the symptoms. Rheumatologists are the closest thing we've got, and most of them are all about arthritis.

[Canadian Karen]

I SO agree, cultureslayer!

I have often lamented how there is not a doctor who they can send you to to tie all of these diseases together! One doctor for your thyroid, one doc for gastro, dermatologist for DH, rheumy for arthritis..... If only there was one doctor who understood the whole package put together!

Karen

[cultureslayer]

The frustrating thing is that I'm a grad student...

at the UNC medical school! If anyone should be able to find "the" doctor I should. When I made an appointment with an endo they gave me a diabetes doc because "he's the only one that sees thyroid patients" and I got so mad I cancelled my appointment which I had waited for 2 months for and am now starting to regret cancelling. Oh well, maybe I can try to find someone that knows the head of rheumatology and immunology and can help me get an appointment there with an immunologist before I leave in May.

Part of my problem is that I've seen my mother take too much BS from doctors so I'm a bit demanding, especially since I have just enough medical knowledge to be dangerous. I have VERY high standards for myself and those around me, and finding a doctor that will either measure up or give up and write a script for what I ask is difficult.

[Canadian Karen]

Once you become a doctor, be loud, VERY LOUD! to educate the rest of the doctors about celiac disease!!!!

Karen

[cultureslayer]

Sorry, I want to be the "other" kind of "doctor." You know, the one that gets to lock themself in a lab and be all asocial and everyone just thinks that's normal?

I'm too outspoken and interested in alternative medicine to make it through med school without getting kicked out. Just never been a good follower (although I can make an exception for a guy that's really carving it on a sportbike 'cause that's a joy to watch). The strange thing is that about 3 years ago my dog developed a gluten intolerance after a botched stomach surgery. Her untimely death at 5 years old (complications of the botched surgery, her stomach twisted inside her chest again and there was too much damage from the first time to fix it) was probably a strong contributor to me developing it.

[Canadian Karen]

Now THAT'S irony!

Karen

[cultureslayer]

Now THAT'S irony!

You'd think that my grandmother dying or my aunt being thrown in the looney bin might have bothered me, but as long as I had Auster she was all I needed. It was definitely an intolerance, since she was okay with gravy mix that had been thinned down a lot with corn starch, but she had multiple immune issues (autoimmune scarring of the cornea and a bladder problem as a pup, lots of WBCs in the urine but all the cultures were negative) so I'll never know.

When she was x-rayed at the emergency clinic parts of her intestines were as large as her stomach. The vets didn't understand how she could be alive, much less pretty normal, given her films. It was then that I realized that alternative medicine and diet were my "medications" of choice. I'm going to buy all the same supplements that I used to giver her (suggested by an incredible naturopathic vet) and see if it helps).