Can Cows Milk Contain Wheat, Rye, Or Barley?

[listinglily]

Subject: Milk???

Question/Comment: When my Dad hunted, the taste of the meat related to what

they fed on. Am wondering if the same is true for the taste of milk.

Sometimes it makes my stomach hurt and my sister recently had an episode of

diarrhea after eating a gluten free piece of cake that had been made with

milk. Both my sister and I have Celiac.

Does feed for milk cows affect the milk as to gluten free or not?

[Jestgar]

I know of no studies that have found gluten in cows milk. Many people find they are unable to digest milk when they are newly gluten-free.

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[burdee]

Subject: Milk???

Question/Comment: When my Dad hunted, the taste of the meat related to what

they fed on. Am wondering if the same is true for the taste of milk.

Sometimes it makes my stomach hurt and my sister recently had an episode of

diarrhea after eating a gluten free piece of cake that had been made with

milk. Both my sister and I have Celiac.

Does feed for milk cows affect the milk as to gluten free or not?

Cow's milk does not contain gluten. However, it does contain casein, a protein to which many people react with antibodies (allergies). You could have a casein allergy or a lactose intolerance. Intolerances do not involve the immune system, but rather an absence of digestive enzymes, such as lactase, in lactose intolerance.

If you're uncertain whether you have a casein allergy or lactose intolerance, try lactose free milk products. If you don't react to those, you may just have lactose intolerance. If you do react to milk products, try abstaining from all forms of dairy products (milk, cheese, cream, ice cream, etc.). If you are still uncertain request an allergy test for IgG (delayed reaction) as well as IgE (immediate reaction or anaphylactic) allergies like the ELISA test.

[Skylark]

Subject: Milk???

Question/Comment: When my Dad hunted, the taste of the meat related to what

they fed on. Am wondering if the same is true for the taste of milk.

Sometimes it makes my stomach hurt and my sister recently had an episode of

diarrhea after eating a gluten free piece of cake that had been made with

milk. Both my sister and I have Celiac.

Does feed for milk cows affect the milk as to gluten free or not?

Nope. Someone fed cows pure wheat and tested. No gluten came through the milk.

Gluten and casein are sister proteins and a lot of celiacs react to casein. You might also be lactose intolerant from having damaged villi. Burdee explained it well.

[lovegrov]

In addition to all this, no celiac group or expert in the world that I know of EVER lists milk as suspect.

richard

[dilettantesteph]

What about this expert?

https://www.celiac.com/blogs/4/Dr-Rodney-Fords-Blog.html

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My family has noticed better results with pasture raised dairy cows. Of course, that could be for all sorts of reasons unrelated to gluten.

[Skylark]

What about this expert?

https://www.celiac.com/blogs/4/Dr-Rodney-Fords-Blog.html

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My family has noticed better results with pasture raised dairy cows. Of course, that could be for all sorts of reasons unrelated to gluten.

Ford can blog anything he likes. His blog is not peer-reviewed and falls under the "random stuff on the Internet that is not science" heading. His incorrect assertions don't somehow magically negate the peer-reviewed studies on the lack of gluten in cow's milk. What IS in the peer-reviewed literature (that apparently Dr. Ford missed) is a nicely documented cross-reaction between cow's milk proteins and anti-gliadin antibodies in some people with celiac disease. The study was done by western blot so there is no question that the cross-reaction is to the cow's milk and not to gluten CC.

Edited to add: I've posted these studies on the board previously; I don't have time today to hunt them down again.

[IrishHeart]

These guys have done a great job explaining to you why it is not gluten you are reacting to but more likely, the lactose or casein. If I can add two more cents

Lactase, which is the enzyme that breaks down the sugar lactose, is produced in the tip of the villi. When the villi get blunted in celiac, sometimes the ability to digest lactose is decreased and you can become (temporarily) lactose intolerant. This may cause bloating, stomach cramps, diarrhea, etc. After you go gluten-free, the villi will heal and most people are able to tolerate dairy foods again.

In an interview with Dr. Stefano Guandalini, Director of the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center, he answers the question: In general, how long does it take for lactose intolerance secondary to celiac disease to resolve?

[Kjas]

The others are right, this is likely a casein or lactose intolerance.

I have found milk here where I live (not the USA) with gluten added to it - utter cheap crap that they call milk which is only sold at gas stations. But I don't think it's possible for the gluten the cows eat to make it through into the milk.

However, I have discovered that after I could not have normal commercial dairy products, that I could tolerate organic pasture fed dairy products. Too much of it will still make me sick, but it's nice to know I can have it on the occasion if I really want it.

Maybe just give the dairy a rest for a few months, get tested and then try again. Or you could find some organic pasture fed dairy and see if that makes a difference, if you really can't live without dairy.

[mushroom]

Skylark, can you clarify something for me on gliadin digestion? I have been doing some reading of the cleavage of gliadins and lectins by enzymes (excuse my layman's language when I make mistrakes in scientific terminology here - I am just commenting on my current level of understanding ) into what I have seen characterized as oligopeptides. Most lectins seem to be quite resistant to cleavage and many seem to pass through uncleaven (especially in a leaky gut) while some gliadins are also more resistant than others to cleavage.

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Although the adaptive immune response is often considered to be the primary trigger of the flattened mucosa that characterizes Celiac Sprue (Sollid, 2002), other hypotheses of Celiac Sprue pathogenesis have been presented (Deem et al., 1991; Tucková et al., 2000; Novák et al., 2002; Maiuri et al., 2003). Regardless of the primary mechanism, the essential prerequisite is the initiating role of the digestive-resistant intact gliadin peptide fragments, which must persist in the intestinal lumen to have deleterious effects.

So are these gliadin fragments characterized as gliadin still, i.e., gluten, or are they an oligopeptide that is just not compatible with the human digestive system to have such deleterious effects? I guess what I am asking is, what is this "stuff:" classified as when it makes its way through the leaky gut and into the blood stream?

I am asking this because I have read of lectins in dairy and in the flesh of beef cattle - Dang, I have been looking for that citation forever now - must be in Nevada). So we have these gliadin peptide fragments in the intestinal lumen - are they crossing into the blood stream? And what are they called at that point if they do? Presumably researchers are no longer classifying them as gliadin and therefore gluten?

[Skylark]

Those are are mammalian lectins in beef and milk, Shroomie. There are human lectins in your body too. They are mostly involved in cell-cell adhesion and immune response. People don't usually react to bovine lectins, unless they are unlucky enough to be ultra-sensitive to lectins.

Cow digestion is wildly different from human. Cows can fully break down plant proteins and fiber through fermentation in special stomachs and cud-chewing. They even have the bacteria to break down cellulose. This is why gluten in milk is such a non-issue. Cows and other ruminants are amazing plant-digesting machines. Humans are arguably not very good at digesting plant material. Most of the fibrous material simply passes through us and we tend to incompletely digest plant proteins and many plant sugars like raffinose and sorbitol.

I'm not sure what you are trying to ask about the gliadin.

• 
  
  
• Gluten = The elastic and insoluble protein fraction of wheat, largely a baking term. It is a mix of various prolamin and glutelin proteins and gives dough its elasticity.
  
• Gliadin = The prolamin protein part of gluten, about half of it. There are alpha-, beta-, gamma-, and omega-gliadin. Alpha-gliadin is the source of the most problematic peptides, but celiacs can also react to peptides from beta- and gamma-gliadin.
  
• Gliadin peptides = partly broken-down gliadin; papers usually specify which particular gliadin they are working on.
  
• Gliadin oligomers or oligopeptides = gliadin peptides with a repeated amino acid sequence, PQPQLPY in the paper you cited.
  
• Gliadin 33-mer = a particularly immunogenic 33-amino acid stretch of alpha-gliadin with oligomeric repeats that is difficult to digest. Once deamidated by TTG is picked up particularly well by T-cells with DQ2.5 for antigen presentation.
  

All the interest in partial digestion is becasue the immune system only presents peptides between 8 and 30 amino acids long as antigens. Proteins that are fully digested are not antigenic. The gliadin 33-mer is about the biggest thing a T-cell can present.

Heaven only knows what bits and bobs of partly digested gliadin make it to blood. They only have to get to the lamina propria to trigger celiac disease. I doubt a study has been done on it, since leaky gut is barely recognized in medicine. The length probably depends on the degree of intestinal permeability.

[mushroom]

Thank you, Skylark, that gives me a lot of thinking and reading to do. No wonder I am having trouble getting my increasingly feeble brain around it. I am afraid it has seen its best days What is the significance of the gliadine 33-mer - its length or some other characteristic? Is it a problem for people who don't have DQ2.5?

As for what makes it into the bloodstream through a leaky gut, I was just thinking of the blanket statement that no gluten makes it into cow's milk although it does in human milk (and am understanding I think from what you said that animals as well as plants manufacture their own lectins??? and that cows are better suited to digesting gliadin than we are), and wondering if gluten in any form makes its way into the human bloodstream through the leaky gut? Or is it partiallly digested unto something that is unrecognizable as gliadin. because I realize that gluten is such a loose term it is hard to define. And is it only breastfed babies drinking breastmilk that get glutened from human to humant contact? I know we have had a couple of threads on here about gluten in semen, and I wonder about blood/plasma donations and bone marrow transplants and other organs??? It is all such a conundrum trying to understand the ramifications.

[dilettantesteph]

I wonder about blood/plasma donations and bone marrow transplants and other organs???

I know that I was on a bone marrow donor list, and with my diagnosis of celiac disease, I was taken off. I don't know if there would be a problem if the recipient had celiac disease.

[lovegrov]

If you need a blood transfusion or a transplant, I'd say gluten is the least of your worries, Mushroom. Seriously, I can't imagine this is a problem.

richard

[Skylark]

Thank you, Skylark, that gives me a lot of thinking and reading to do. No wonder I am having trouble getting my increasingly feeble brain around it. I am afraid it has seen its best days What is the significance of the gliadine 33-mer - its length or some other characteristic? Is it a problem for people who don't have DQ2.5?

As for what makes it into the bloodstream through a leaky gut, I was just thinking of the blanket statement that no gluten makes it into cow's milk although it does in human milk (and am understanding I think from what you said that animals as well as plants manufacture their own lectins??? and that cows are better suited to digesting gliadin than we are), and wondering if gluten in any form makes its way into the human bloodstream through the leaky gut? Or is it partiallly digested unto something that is unrecognizable as gliadin. because I realize that gluten is such a loose term it is hard to define. And is it only breastfed babies drinking breastmilk that get glutened from human to humant contact? I know we have had a couple of threads on here about gluten in semen, and I wonder about blood/plasma donations and bone marrow transplants and other organs??? It is all such a conundrum trying to understand the ramifications.

As far as the 33-mer, here are a few free papers to read, since you're working on really digging into the science.

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Right, animals manufacture their own lectins. We just don't accumulate them for self-defense the way plants do. In mammals lectins are signaling proteins.

And right again, cow digestion is totally different from human so gluten in milk isn't a concern. Celiac reactions to milk are very common, and they are what lead to the testing of milk and subsequent discovery that anti-gliadin antibodies can cross-react with milk protein.

As for the rest of your questions, you still seem confused about what the immune system responds to when you say "unrecognizable as gliadin". I think the papers I gave you will help. You may also need to read a little more about digestion and general immune function. The rest of your questions have no answers, but once you understand celiac better you may be able to make some guesses.