CELIAC DISEASE
Celiac Disease – An Overview
Celiac disease is the most common genetic disorder in North America and Europe.
Celiac disease is an inherited autoimmune disease – a disorder where the immune system which protects the body against invaders sees gluten as an invader and the small intestine as the target. The brain, nervous system, bones and vital systems are deprived of nutrients when gluten is eaten or otherwise ingested.
Celiac disease is the most common genetic disorder in North America and Europe.
Celiac disease is not an allergy.
You need to have specific genes in order to develop celiac disease.
With celiac disease, gluten causes the body to attack itself. The body treats gluten as a foreign body and inflames the villi of the small intestine to protect the body from what it perceives as an invader. This process damages or destroys the villi. In some cases, the progress of the reaction is gradual. In other cases progress can be rapid and dramatic.
Villi are inside the small intestine. They have been described as tiny little fingers or hairs or like a shag rug.
The purpose of villi is to enable the body to absorb the nutrients we need to survive. Damaged villi cannot absorb nutrients from food. Ultimately, you eat food but don’t absorb the nutrients.
The intestine is responsible for making serotonin, a hormone relating to the brain and nervous system– which is why there are so many brain and nerve problems associated with celiac disease such as depression and brain fog.
As your body becomes malnourished, it seeks to take nutrients from your bones and your nervous system which leads to other conditions which are different for each person.
Research has shown that any amount of gluten can damage the intestinal villi of a person with celiac disease – even as little as l/8th of a teaspoon of gluten. As noted by Jules E. Dowler Shepard, to put it another way, approximately l/1000 or .05 percent of a slice of bread. For an idea of what that means, it may be helpful to watch a video from Jessica Hanson/Tasty Meditation.
Once the intestinal lining is compromised, proteins from food can get into the bloodstream. The body attacks the “invaders.” A reaction to formerly benign gluten results.
While there is no cure for celiac disease, as you will see in Treatment For Celiac Disease, and Gluten Intolerance, the vast majority of patients have control of the treatment by just eating a gluten-free diet - with no medications, surgeries or other medical procedures.
With a gluten-free diet:
Evidence suggests that the villi in your intestine start to grow back within a few weeks of not being exposed to gluten. The more severe the damage, the longer it usually takes to heal. According to Mt. Sinai hospital (NYC),this healing is thought to occur within 3 to 6 months in children. Recovery may take 2 to 3 years in adults.
Lactose intolerance is a common result from damage to the villi. When the small intestine is inflamed, it is not able to digest the natural sugar (lactose) in dairy products (which is why some people stop consuming dairy products after a diagnosis.) With healed villi, lactose tolerance may return.
There is likely to be a change in your weight because of a change in the amount of calories you consume as well as your body’s ability to absorb nutrients.
Bone density problems should start to improve on a gluten-free diet.
With celiac disease, there is a high risk of infertility. Once on a gluten-free diet, as you begin to absorb key nutrients, reproductive functions that may have been off-kilter should return to normal.
Some problems caused by celiac disease during childhood may not improve, such as a short height and damage to the teeth.
A person with celiac disease who follows a gluten-free diet has a life expectancy similar to a person without celiac disease.
Untreated, celiac disease can lead to severe complications that can affect multiple organs of the body, autoimmune disorders such as Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, infertility, miscarriage or to cancer.
The exact cause of celiac disease is not known.
Historically, when mankind moved from hunter/gatherer to agrarian, we selected and cultivated grains and crops that we were not actually designed to digest. We continue to eat food that does not agree with us.
There is no way to prevent the onset of celiac disease.
Celiac disease can develop at any age – from infancy to late adulthood – and every race and gender.
More women have autoimmune diseases than men, and this seems to also apply to celiac disease. Men appear to have more severe manifestations.
Since celiac disease is not a food allergy, there may not be apparent symptoms from consuming gluten, much less symptoms that show up right away. Some people have both celiac disease and celiac intolerance.
Osteoporosis is one of the most common complications of celiac disease. Approximately 75% of newly diagnosed patients with celiac disease have some degree of bone loss.
In a crowded auditorium of celiac patients, over 75 percent indicated they were told their symptoms were stress or depression related.
A study showed that 8 to 10 percent of diabetics will develop celiac disease, generally within 10 years of their diagnosis of diabetes.
Celiac disease does not go away.
Reactions to gluten are individual.
Allergic reactions are immediate, generally occurring within seconds or up to several hours. Celiac disease is not a food allergy in which the ingestion of gluten would be immediately followed by the beginning of symptoms. The complex immune reaction can take weeks or months, or, in some cases, even years to become fully operational.
If you have celiac disease, there is an increased risk that other members of your family also have it because celiac disease is hereditary. It is advisable for immediate members of your blood family to be tested.
Celiac disease is different than gluten intolerance (also known as gluten sensitivity)
There are a variety of diseases associated with celiac disease. See Other Health Conditions Related To Celiac Disease.
While celiac disease can be a lonely disease, support is available.
Symptoms Of Celiac Disease
People with celiac disease who ingest gluten can experience a wide variety of physical and mental symptoms. There are literally hundreds of symptoms of celiac disease. Symptoms a person experiences can change over time.
The array of symptoms helps explain why a diagnosis is usually so difficult – frequently involving a string of doctors.
The severity of intestinal symptoms is directly related to the amount of intestine that is damaged. Severity of symptoms varies from time to time and among people. For instance, symptoms can last for two to three days or for months -- and can come and go. You could also have celiac disease and no symptoms at all.
Untreated celiac disease ultimately leads to malnutrition, which in turn can cause multiple other health problems.
Following is a list of Celiac Disease symptoms, grouped by category:
Digestive tract symptoms, such as:
Abdominal bloating
Abdominal cramping and pain
Anemia
Chronic diarrhea
Constipation
Diarrhea
Gas-ishness (Flatulence)
Vitamin deficiency
Vomiting
Weight loss
Behavioral
Anxiety
ADD
Behavioral changes
Depression
Dysthymia (a feeling of melancholy)
Fatigue
Loneliness/Isolation
Loss of interest in activities
Memory Loss
Night Terrors
Panic Attacks
Suicidal Thoughts
Oral
Bad Breath
Gum Disease
Mouth Ulcers
Swollen Gums
Tongue Sores
Tooth Discoloration or Loss of enamel
Female Specific
Breast Tenderness
Early Menopause
Hormonal Level Swings
Swollen Bladder/Cervix
Intestinal
Acid Reflux
Loss of Appetite
Joint/Muscle
Ataxia
Bone or Joint pain
Leg Cramps
Muscle Spasms
Swilling in hands and/or feet
Tingling numbness in the legs
Mental
Brain fog
Irritability
Lack of focus
Skin
Dandruff
Bruising
Headache
Peripheral neuropathy
Dark circles under the eyes
Flakey skin around the eyes
Hives
Skin cancer
Skin Rashes (some that can look and feel like poison ivy such as Dermatitis Herpetiformis. A person with Dermatitis Herpetiformis has a 99% chance of having underlying celiac disease.)
Sun sensitivity
Vitamin deficiencies such as low calcium
NOTE: A large portion of people with celiac disease may not experience any symptoms at all. These individuals are classified as having “silent” celiac disease.
If you have unexplained symptoms
Check the Celiac Disease Foundation’s Symptoms Assessment Tool
to learn if you have an increased risk for celiac disease. If you do:
It is advisable to see your physician to discuss the possibility that you have celiac disease.
Please do not stop eating gluten before you see your doctor. The first step in the diagnosis process is a simple blood test. The test needs gluten in your system. If you do not eat gluten before the test, talk with your doctor about a genetic test.
Symptoms of Celiac Disease In Children
For a list of common symptoms that can show up in children, click here.
Treatment For Celiac Disease
The only treatment for celiac disease is to not ingest gluten – ever – for the rest of your life – or until a medical treatment comes along.
For information about where gluten is and is not, click here.
Other Health Conditions Associated With Celiac Disease
Celiac disease affects every system in the body. Untreated celiac disease can lead to the development of large variety of conditions. Following is a list of some of the most common. For a more complete list, see beyondceliac.org
Anemia
Dermatitis herpetiformis (itchy skin rash)
Diabetes – Type 1
Epilepsy
Heart Disease
Infertility
Intestinal Cancers
Migraines
Miscarriage
Multiple Sclerosis
Osteoperosis
Short Stature
HISTORY OF CELIAC DISEASE
Celiac Disease was first described by Arataeus of Cappadocia in the second century AD. He found that people were coming to him with severe weight loss and that they were not absorbing their nutrients. Arataeus named the condition “koiliakos” after the Greek word for abdomen: “koelia” and described it as follows:
“If the stomach be irretentive of the food and if it pass through undigested and crude, and nothing ascends into the body, we call such persons coeliacs.”
When the word was changed into Latin, it became celiac (spelled coeliac in European and other countries.)
In 1888, Samuel Gee, in “On The Coeliac Affliction,” described diet as therapy. He fed children a diet of only Dutch mussels, three times a day, for eight months plus water. Children were not allowed any other food. They recovered until mussel season was over. When they went back to their regular diet, they started getting sick and wasting away with weight loss, diarrhea, and not absorbing anything. After three months, Gee tried to put them back on a mussel diet, but the children wouldn’t accept it.
In 1924, British Physician Sidney Hass treated children who were wasting away with an undiagnosed illness. He recommended a banana diet which succeeded in helping 8 out of 10 children. The diet intentionally excluded bread, all cereals, crackers, and potatoes.
Dr. William Dicke, a Dutch pediatrician, was the first to recognize the correlation between bread, cereal and celiac disease. Between 1940 and 1950, with World War II, there was a shortage of bread and wheat which caused the children to eat only bananas, fruit, meat, milk and potatoes. Children who had been wasting away began to get better. Symptoms reoccurred after the war when bread was reintroduced to their diet.
Noticing this fact, as a test, Dr. Dicke removed bread from their diet. The children got better. This was the beginning of removing gluten from the diet as the treatment for what we in the U.S. today call celiac disease.
Until we learned what we know today about celiac disease, doctors thought celiac disease was a childhood disease and that people could grow out of it. As we now know, anyone at any age can get celiac disease – and you never grow out of it. If your physician says that you will be able to eat gluten again one day, it is time to find another doctor. To learn how, click here.
For additional information, see:
● Treatment For Celiac Disease
● Other Health Conditions Associated With Celiac Disease