Tag Archives: preventative medicine

Do You Understand Celiac Disease? Does Your Doctor?

I realized, in talking with a few people, that they did not understand what celiac disease was. Like most people they thought it was a disease you just had the misfortune to get and had no idea you could control the outcome by what you consume.

Yes, if you never consumed gluten you’d never develop celiac disease and very likely many other autoimmune diseases and diseases linked to malnutrition due to malabsorption.

To develop celiac disease: you will have one or two genes (HLA DQ2 and/or HLA DQ8), you need to be consuming gluten, and your gut biome will likely be in poor shape due to antibiotics, bad bacteria, parasites, poor diet, and/or, of course, gluten among others.

With celiac disease there is a destruction of your villi, the tiny hairs in the small intestine that absorb all the good vitamins and minerals from the good food we eat. They become flattened and shorn off like a twenty-year-old shag carpet and no longer have the absorption space up and down each side. Spread your fingers apart; there’s lots of absorption room up and down each finger; now make a fist: your villi are shot to pieces, worn down, and your body pays a huge price for not detecting intolerance to gluten sooner.

You can imagine how devastating this can be for the human body. All parts of the body need nutrition to function optimally. Just think what can happen to your eyes, brain, neurons, muscles, skin, heart, liver, blood, and on and on. Over 300 ailments, diseases, and symptoms are linked to gluten by major world research. Yet many of our doctors are not up to speed on what these maladies are or how to adequately test for intolerance to gluten.

I’ll leave it to you to read between the lines. All I can say is that my family and I (you can read my family saga in Toxic Staple), after a year on the gluten-free lifestyle, were basically going to the doctor’s office for health checkups, not sick visits. Everything that was wrong with us (including the 4 grandkids, 3 daughters, my husband and myself), and believe me there was plenty, began to clear up once gluten was removed. Most everything resolved.

If you have lingering sinus, cough, allergy, asthma, aches and pains, low energy, dull hair and weak nails, paleness, thinness or overweight, stomach issues (most any chronic issue, this is just a drop in the bucket) you need to consider that something is the root cause of your ailments. Gluten can be a huge trigger of illness. Throw in dairy too. Well over 50% of those intolerant to gluten also can’t handle dairy.

We all have choices to make. You can either eat to be sick or eat to be healthy. Your health lies in your own hands. You can become your own advocate by getting educated on the hazards of gluten and how to test for intolerance by reading Toxic Staple. As a driven grandmother I have spelled it out. You will know more about gluten than 90% of our doctors by the time you finish the book. Be sure to read the Endorsements from professionals at http://toxicstaple.com/endorsements/ saying doctors should read Toxic Staple.

A new wave of medicine is in the works. It’s all about addressing the trigger/s of what’s making you sick and not about managing and controlling diseases, once thought to be incurable, with drugs. I even see much of it as preventative medicine. I know that as long as I follow an absolute GF lifestyle and stay away from dairy my allergies, asthma, fatigue, dry skin, brittle nails and on and on will not return.

>>>

Disclaimer: http://toxicstaple.com/disclaimer/

For your copy of Toxic Staple: http://toxicstaple.com/buy-the-book/ paperback

https://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Staple-Gluten-Wrecking-Health-ebook/dp/B00I45HWWM paper or e-book

 

Testing Children And Adults For Celiac Disease And Gluten Intolerance

After a short talk on my journey in writing my book, TOXIC STAPLE, within 10 minutes of each other, two different people told me of their friend whose child had been diagnosed with celiac disease. I took a minute to explain that sometimes doctors neglect to inform them that other siblings and the parents should also be tested due to the genetic component of celiac disease. The general answer I get is “Oh, the child (or other children or themselves) was negative.” In which case I inform them that quite often not enough testing is given to detect an intolerance.

I can vouch for this myself with just about everyone in my family except for the grandchild that was very compromised and was off the charts positive for celiac. The rest of us all tested negative on the blood tests, and I had read enough to even request 3 tests. I hadn’t discovered the specialized stool test until a few months later. We were all positive on those. If we hadn’t done Dr. Fine’s stool testing I shutter to think how much more our health might have slipped down the tubes.

It seems mainstream medicine is setting the bar too high and too often they give only one test and by the time someone tests positive for celiac they have a full-blown case or near to it with very damaged villi (hairs that absorb nutrients)…..and quite compromised health.

Testing negative on blood testing to celiac disease or if positive on blood testing, but  negative on the endoscopy does not negate gluten intolerance which can also have devastating and degenerative consequences.

Be thankful you or your other children did not test positive for celiac disease (yet), but that is not the end of it until you make sure you have received enough testing to detect intolerance to gluten. It’s kind of like preventative medicine.

You will need to become your own advocate as few doctors are giving a panel of 4 blood tests, few are recognizing they should also be looking at the lower antibody numbers, and most of them are unaware of a very sensitive stool test that will pick up intolerance in nearly 100% of the cases.

If you can catch gluten intolerance before your body becomes so compromised, you are ahead of the game of life.

As always, please share my information with your doctor.

I spell it out in TOXIC STAPLE with research to back it up. The real story is not just about celiac disease, it’s also, and more so, about whether one is intolerant to gluten. It seems to be a progressively worsening continuum, according to some experts.

 

 

Type 1 Diabetes and Gluten: Exciting Research!

This most compelling study, “Remission without insulin therapy on gluten-free diet in a 6-year old boy with type 1 diabetes mellitus” was published in the British Medical Journal in 2012*. The boy did not have celiac disease, but nevertheless was put on a gluten-free diet after being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. He was able to survive nicely without insulin for 20 months while in the study.

Although he was negative for celiac disease I wonder what his test scores were, as too often the bar is set too high and the patient may not test positive for CD, but may be gluten intolerant and on the road to CD. According to some experts it is important to pay attention to the lower numbers on test results, as this could be a sign of things to come. Perhaps the pancreatic islet cells can be damaged the same way the villi can— without having celiac disease, but being intolerant to gluten.

It’s most interesting that the child responded to the GF diet. Numerous autoimmune diseases, as discussed in my book, Toxic Staple are linked to gluten, and patients sometimes manage their disease by removing this noxious protein with some amazing results.

The wife of one of my storytellers who had type 2 diabetes adhered to the GF diet along with her husband. Her diabetes normalized and she was able to get off her meds with the approval of her doctor (never stop taking your meds without consulting your doctor).

Do you suppose that detecting gluten sensitivity and adhering to the GF diet would be preventative medicine from developing T1D or any other autoimmune disease? I expect it would!

Don’t you think this info is headline news? I do, but it will take decades to be featured as such. Did you know it is recommended that those with type 1 diabetes be tested for celiac disease? Maybe they should be tested for gluten intolerance too.

The bottom line of this study suggests that more research is needed on the effectiveness of a gluten-free diet in aiding remission of T1D.

If you know someone with type 1 diabetes, especially if they are newly diagnosed, please introduce them to my book, Toxic Staple, and my web site http://www.toxicstaple.com and blog.

Refer to chapters 16 and 17 on traditional and cutting-edge testing to detect whether or not you are gluten sensitive. If positive pay strong attention to the GF lifestyle.

*Sildorf et al., BMJ Case Rep. 2012; 2012: bcr0220125878 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3387460/