Better Understanding Of 'gluten Free'

[ammaestro]

I have a few primary questions that I would greatly appreciate some help in understanding:

1. Can a celiac individual safely eat any wheat product, as long as they're marked 'gluten-free'? The larger question therein may be, is celiac a wheat, or a gluten-sensitivity/intolerance?

2. Is celiac a condition that one can 'grow out of'? My instincts suggest and from what I read i expect the answer is no, but I had a pediatrician tell me this when I was about ten years old, and have been eating liberally (largely a non-celiac diet) ever since, which I now believe has caused chronic immuno-issues my whole life.

3. Related to the previous qu, can one be considered celiac with main/chief symptoms of some chronic fatigue and a compromised immune system.? My 'M.O' has always been getting lots of pesky flu and bronchial infections that can last well beyond the norm in duration. I generally don't have any chronic stomach difficulties, or what seems to be commonly known as 'leaky bowel'.

Thank you in advance. Andrew Meyer

[Skylark]

1. A celiac cannot safely eat anything derived from wheat, rye, or barley. Celiac is a gluten sensitivity, and it is almost impossible to remove all the gluten from anything derived from gluten-containing grains. The only exceptions are grain vinegars and alcohols where the final product goes through multiple distillations, and even those bother super-sensitive celiacs. If you're in Europe looking at codex wheat starch breads, they're generally a bad idea. At this point the old codex 200 ppm limit is not considered safe for all celiacs and Europe has a proposal to revise the gluten-free limit to 20 ppm.

2. It is possible, but very rare. Have you considered having the blood tests and endoscopy to see what's going on? It's definitely possible that the long-term onslaught from gluten could have caused other health issues. Celiac does all sorts of bad things to our bodies.

3. Yes, celiac can cause fatigue, other autoimmunity, and immune compromise. You might also ask your doctor about hypothyroidism, as many celiacs have autoimmune thyroid disease. Hypothyroidism causes fatigue and it can cause immunosuppression, along with quite a few unpleasant symptoms.

[mushroom]

1. Celiacs have different levels of tolerance to trace amounts of gluten. Gluten free means that it tests to less than x parts per million of gluten. There is no test which tests for absolute zero gluten, about as low as they can go is less than 5 ppm, but they are trying to establish a standard in the U.S. of less than 20 ppm. Most celiacs can tolerate this small amount of gluten, but some cannot. These are the hypersensitives who react to products that are made in shared facilities or on shared lines (which are cleaned thoroughly before gluten free products are run). You do not sound like one of these, so anything marked gluten free is probably okay for you.

2. No, it is a myth that you can grow out of celiac. Doctors used to state this because after childhood celiacs often have a "holiday" period before it hits them again. There have been 1 or 2 isolated instances reported of people "recovering" from celiac disease, but since you are obviously still reacting you should not assume you are one of these extremely rare individuals.

3. Celiac is so hard to diagnose because it comes in so many different guises. Some people have only neurological symptoms, I too used to get every bug going around and they would last for two to three times as long as everyone else and I would also develop secondary infections. I did not have the fatigue but so many do report that. Leaky gut may not cause gastric distress, as I understand it, but allows the penetration of foreign proteins into the blood stream which causes the immune system to go bananas!