Do Any Celiac Symptoms Correlate To Pesticide Effect?

[CCM]

I am a newbie to this, please point me in the right direction if answers on this topic already exist.

I have been dealing with celiac symptoms over the past year. My blood work and endoscopy came up negative; however, all my symptoms say "yes." Going gluten-free makes me feel much better. I am transitioning to that now, however, my GI doc suggested organic wheat first in case the chemicals were bothering me. Lo and behold, I am able to tolerate organic bread.

My questions:

Is there any research linking gluten sensitivity symptoms to the effects of pesticides?

Without the blood work or biopsies positive, can I still be diagnosed as gluten "sensitive" or "intolerant" (is there a difference between these two terms?) by the gluten-free diet alone?

If any one can recommend a good doctor in SLC, UT, by the way, that would help too!

Look forward to your responses.

[CarlaB]

Maybe you don't actually have celiac, rather have chemical sensitivities. If you had celiac disease, it wouldn't matter whether the wheat was organic or not.

[lightening16]

Hey

I hate to tell you this but wheat is rarely sprayed with any pesticides and if it is then it is for a fungal disease that is so toxic to humans ( the fungal wheat disease that is) that wheat that gets this disease and is harvested is actually considered toxic waste. They only spray for this when weather conditions are exactly right... once every 4-5 years at the most and only in specific areas not all .The only thing that might be sprayed on wheat would be herbicide that has fairly low human toxicity and sprayed very early in the season. So what I am saying is that pesticide residues in wheat are actually nil even when they are not organic.

[CCM]

I do have a past history of chemical sensitivity so that part would not surprise me, but the gluten sensitivity symptoms and the fact that I respond positively to a gluten free diet is all new to me. I am wondering if the chemical sensitivity is just the trigger my body needs to start me down that path. I also have not paid much attention to determining my exact symptoms after ingesting barley or rye. I pay more attention to wheat because the symptoms are most noticeable. So I have some work to do still.

I am wondering if I go gluten-free for a few days, would that have been long enough for me to handle any wheat organic or not, if I am just gluten sensitive...I don't understand whether or not folks find a certain personal threshold of tolerance...or are we just fooling ourselves and damaging our bodies anyway?

Would lightning16 please share where I can learn more regarding his/her comment about wheat and the pesticides/herbicide use? I would love to read more online.

Thanks so much for such quick responses.

[lightening16]

Hi again

My comments are from work experience and personal experience. I am not sure where you can read about this but I will look into it. I used to work for the Ontario government as a specialist in integrated pest management. So I worked with Traditional farmers, ecological farmers and organic farmers to find when pests would actually be in their fields. I have my masters in weed science and had many years training in agronomy. Currently, I work part time for a government agency that is involved in the registration of new products for use on crops. There are certain foods that I would rather consume that are organic and others that I would rather that they were grown by ecological farming practices over organic. OFten times organic also has "organic pesticides " sprayed on them as well. They are minerals such as sulfur and copper or naturally produced pesticides. Just because a plant produces the pesticide does not mean that it does have human toxicity.

Wheat is really not being sprayed often enough for there to be pesticide residues. If they spray it you want it to be sprayed as opposed to consuming grain infected with fusarium (which produces the DON toxin)

This is a site that helps predict when a Fusarium outbreak might occur Open Original Shared Link and here is a site that discussed DON

Open Original Shared Link

Hope this helps