Is It Possible Our Immune Systems Can Mis-Take Substances As Gluten?

[Tidings]

Something's been bothering me for the past couple days as I read so many postings in these threads that describe multiple sensitivities and allergies, above and beyond gluten intolerance and Celiac Disease...

Will try to put my question into words, sounding it out as I go, and hope my question is not too obtuse... First, an example of something similar. I've heard that we should never microwave foods in soft plastic containers because molecules of plastic can get into the food and we can ingest them, AND our body "sees" the plastics as "estrogens"; and if this is done with some frequency, it could actually lead to cancer, such as breast cancer. In other words, under certain circumstances, our body "sees" similar substances as one and the same.

Okay. Now I've also heard about "Leaky Gut Syndrome" and how our intestinal linings can become too permeable and allow food substances and microorganisms and the like into our bloodstream, where they can cause problems like autoimmune responses and toxic reactions.

So now I am wondering if some of the frequent problems we all seem to have with various foodstuffs and chemicals and substances could be related to LEAKY GUT SYNDROME and a FAULTY RESPONSE on the part of our body's IMMUNE SYSTEM, whereby we "feel glutened" even though we have not actually ingested ANY gluten? In other words, we experience the same discomforts and side-effects AS IF we had ingested gluten, but we have not. Instead, maybe we have ingested something that has managed to "FOOL" our immune system into thinking it is GLUTEN/gliadin, so the familiar gluten-reactions/complications ensue.

Personal Example:

I seem to have an "allergic" reaction (i.e., I get many of the same creepy, painful, dysfunctional side-effects as if I had eaten gluten) when I ingest GELATIN, MSG, CARRAGEENAN, WHEY, MALTODEXTRIN, PECTIN, etc. etc. But am I "really" allergic to these things, or am I having a Leaky Gut Syndrome episode, whereby my Immune System is hyper-reactive and goes into full-swing, fighting against minute particles of foods or other substances that have entered my blood-stream?

Don't know if my question is clear or makes any sense, but am still perplexed by SO MANY food and chemical sensitivities in myself and others, and it makes me wonder if there could be MORE going on than medical science/Celiac patients presently suspect?

Just a thought--and a very tangled one at that!

P.S. Will continue to monitor my reactions to these substances but am beginning to suspect that the TRUE GLUTEN REACTION *always* involves my intestines & digestion & skin, whereas these "pseudo-reactions" to other substances usually involve my eyes, head, heartbeat, etc. Maybe it is a case of having Leaky Gut Syndrome because of the Gluten intolerance, and until the Leaky Gut *heals,* I will continue to have these "allergic reactions" to other substances. Thanks for your patience and indulgence as I muse & muddle my way through this stuff!

[cassP]

i hear ya- it's very confusing- and i think you're right when you theorize about our body's going into hyperdrive with our immune system-

i think with an autoimmune disease like Celiac, you're body can just be hypervigilant sometimes-> it's weird, because SOMETIMES i have digestive reactions OR allergic reactions to different foods and sometimes i do not.... i believe that there are SOME foods that my body reacts to 100% of the time, and other foods where my body just freaks out like 10% of the time. i think for some of these reactions- there's a real science to it, whereas other reactions i have MAY JUST BE my body being hypervigilant or Stressed ... when we're stressed, our body's can become flooded with Cortisol and Histamines... so it makes sense...

OY, sounds like im rambling now.... hard to form all the thoughts in my head into coherent theories. im not so sure our bodies are confusing other substances for gluten- but rather our bodies are sometimes reacting in a paranoid fashion- expecting more foods to be enemies like gluten.

idk... hope my rambling made sense ????

[mushroom]

Something's been bothering me for the past couple days as I read so many postings in these threads that describe multiple sensitivities and allergies, above and beyond gluten intolerance and Celiac Disease...

Will try to put my question into words, sounding it out as I go, and hope my question is not too obtuse... First, an example of something similar. I've heard that we should never microwave foods in soft plastic containers because molecules of plastic can get into the food and we can ingest them, AND our body "sees" the plastics as "estrogens"; and if this is done with some frequency, it could actually lead to cancer, such as breast cancer. In other words, under certain circumstances, our body "sees" similar substances as one and the same.

Okay. Now I've also heard about "Leaky Gut Syndrome" and how our intestinal linings can become too permeable and allow food substances and microorganisms and the like into our bloodstream, where they can cause problems like autoimmune responses and toxic reactions.

So now I am wondering if some of the frequent problems we all seem to have with various foodstuffs and chemicals and substances could be related to LEAKY GUT SYNDROME and a FAULTY RESPONSE on the part of our body's IMMUNE SYSTEM, whereby we "feel glutened" even though we have not actually ingested ANY gluten? In other words, we experience the same discomforts and side-effects AS IF we had ingested gluten, but we have not. Instead, maybe we have ingested something that has managed to "FOOL" our immune system into thinking it is GLUTEN/gliadin, so the familiar gluten-reactions/complications ensue.

Personal Example:

I seem to have an "allergic" reaction (i.e., I get many of the same creepy, painful, dysfunctional side-effects as if I had eaten gluten) when I ingest GELATIN, MSG, CARRAGEENAN, WHEY, MALTODEXTRIN, PECTIN, etc. etc. But am I "really" allergic to these things, or am I having a Leaky Gut Syndrome episode, whereby my Immune System is hyper-reactive and goes into full-swing, fighting against minute particles of foods or other substances that have entered my blood-stream?

Don't know if my question is clear or makes any sense, but am still perplexed by SO MANY food and chemical sensitivities in myself and others, and it makes me wonder if there could be MORE going on than medical science/Celiac patients presently suspect?

Just a thought--and a very tangled one at that!

P.S. Will continue to monitor my reactions to these substances but am beginning to suspect that the TRUE GLUTEN REACTION *always* involves my intestines & digestion & skin, whereas these "pseudo-reactions" to other substances usually involve my eyes, head, heartbeat, etc. Maybe it is a case of having Leaky Gut Syndrome because of the Gluten intolerance, and until the Leaky Gut *heals,* I will continue to have these "allergic reactions" to other substances. Thanks for your patience and indulgence as I muse & muddle my way through this stuff!

Yes, I think you understand completely, that the leaky gut is at the root of all evil. That is why the first thing you have to do is to heal the gut. The elimination of gluten is the first step in all this; then probiotics seems to be the next. Various people have different ideas about what else to do, but it should include the elimination of all the things that are currently leaking through and creating havoc besides gluten. These things will react in your body in a way that is unique to you because we are all different.

Sometimes people report that they can occasionally eat a food without reacting. The reason you may not react every time, as I understand it, was explained to my husband by a very good allergist. My husband had an anaphylactic reaction after eating some raw fish. He asked the allergist if he was "allergic" to that fish. The allergist told him that it all depended at what level of the gut the fish is absorbed, i.e., as I understand it, how well it had been digested before it got into the bloodstream. So some of these times when you don't react to a substance it has all been digested properly and has not leaked through the gut wall.

[Skylark]

You really are allergic to these things you're reacting to, in the sense that your body is making sets of antibodies to them. The only things gliadin antibodies have been documented to cross-react to are casein and aveenin (oat protein). Your reactions to carageenin, gelatin, MSG, and other foods would be mediated through different sets of B cells. Inflamed muscosa has a lot more antibodies and proteins tend to be digested poorly so there are lots of allergenic fragments of foods around to react to. "Leaky gut" can also play a role, letting peptides into the bloodstream where they shouldn't normally be.

Things got a lot better for me when my gut healed. I even stopped reacting to shellfish, which had bothered me for a long time.

I'm sorry to say it, but you're not likely to lose the MSG sensitivity. That's a small enough molecule that you will continue to absorb it after healing.

[cassP]

1st- skylark & mushroom's post just above just explained a lot for me- thanks, makes more sense now.

2- i HATE hate HATE MSG! it almost bothers me more than Gluten!!!! altho it's not as long lasting as Gluten's effects, i really dont appreciate looking like im 5 months pregnant for the rest of the day

3. some things i LOVE to help heal the gut: Ghee!!! (contains Butyrate which helps the small intestine cells to work better)... & L-Glutamine, which helps heal the intestines.... an alternative doc told my mom to take the L-Glutamine at night- so it can coat the intestines overnight.

[Tidings]

Lots of great answers here. Thanks. Plenty of "food for thought"--hopefully none of it will cause an allergic reaction. LOL.

Skylark wrote: "The only things gliadin antibodies have been documented to cross-react to are casein and aveenin (oat protein)."

Thanks for this info. Am really going to have to take seriously the need to refrain from dairy (cheeses) and oats. Actually have avoided oats ever since becoming aware of Celiac disease, several years ago, but only found out this past week or so that OATS/AVENIN contain gluten and I was taking the "CALMS FORTE" to help me sleep, fairly often.

Refraining from cheese will be harder than almost anything else. We love pizza, quiche, eggplant parmesan, etc. Where can we find nondairy cheeses?! Are there other types of cheeses that don't have casein or as much casein, like goat cheese?

Also just discovered a couple shampoos occasionally used have WHEAT PROTEIN (guess that means GLUTEN) in them. (So frustrating to realize there's so much gluten/wheat out there that we're unintentionally glutenizing ourselves, even when we work so hard to avoid gluten...)

[Tidings]

Just wanted to add that what got me started on my tangled thinking in the original post in this thread was this: I noticed that MANY of the substances that "set me off" are THICKENERS, like CARRAGEENAN, WHEY, PECTIN. Then I wondered if their chemical composition is similar to that of GLIADIN/GLUTEN? (Too bad I never took Chemistry or Molecular Biology in school, maybe I'd have fewer (or more) questions about all this.)

Anyway, the fact that many of these substances that cause me problems (like elevated eye pressure and high blood pressure, chest pains, irregular heartbeat, etc.) ARE "thickeners" might still be relevant, but might be unrelated to Gluten or Celiac disease. Maybe they are literally "thickening" my already-overly thick blood. Whatever they do, it's important to avoid them and always very upsetting when they're unintentionally ingested. I do know that MSG is especially deadly to eye-cells (as is Aspartame), and it's super-critical to avoid these.

Thanks again for your input, folks. Very much appreciated.