Celiac Disease, the body's reaction to Gluten

Also spelled, coeliac disease

A disorder resulting from an abnormal reaction by the body's immune system to gluten,   It is an immune reaction, creating an allergic reaction to this protein.

What is Gluten?

Gluten comes, not surprisingly, from the Latin word for glue, and cookbooks define it as the protein-based substance that makes dough resilient and stretchy. If you're making bread, you want gluten in the dough, so that when it's baking the walls of the little air pockets formed by yeast expand but don't burst open. 

But if you're making cookies or a piecrust, you want to keep the gluten content of the dough and batter low. Otherwise, your results will be tough and gummy.

In the context of celiac disease, gluten refers to the protein of grains capable of provoking an autoimmune response. Other grains also contain protein, but wheat, barley, rye, and spelt contain varieties that aren't broken down by digestive enzymes. In wheat, the difficult-to-digest protein is gliadin; in rye, it's secalin; and in barley, hordein.

These proteins don't bother most people, but in people with gluten intolerance,  when they get absorbed into the walls of the small intestine, the immune system misreads the situation, views them as intruders, and unleashes a furious inflammatory response that damages tissue.

The inside of a normal, healthy small intestine is has  millions of fingerlike projections called villi that produce digestive enzymes and absorb nutrients. The misguided immune response triggered by the gluten proteins sometimes attacks these villi, so they lose their slender shape and become short and stubby, even flat.

When that happens, the villi produce fewer digestive enzymes and results in poor absorption of nutrients from food. Symptoms may include diarrhea, anemia, and weight loss.

More soon including a remedy other than the obvious - eat a gluten-free diet.   That is the first step.   Give you body a break and get relief.   

Gluten intolerance symptoms:

Some people with celiac disease may not have symptoms, but internally malabsorbtion and malnutrition can ruin health over many years. Both celiac disease and gluten intolerance can be made worse by emotional and physical stress including  infection, surgery, pregnancy and childbirth. Every individual with some level of gluten intolerance or allergy may experience different variations of  symptoms.  It is thus a challenge for medical practitioners to diagnose.  A nutritionist can test you for these allergies.

Symptoms can include: 

• Weight loss or weight gain
• Nutritional deficiencies due to malabsorbtion including. low iron levels
• Gastro-intestinal problems (bloating, pain, gas, constipation, diarrhea)
• Fat in the stools (due to poor digestion)
• Aching joints
• Depression (deficiencies often cause this symptom)
• Eczema
• Headaches
• Exhaustion
• Irritability and behavioral changes
• Infertility, irregular menstrual cycle and miscarriage
• Cramps, tingling and numbness
• Slowed growth in children.
• Decline in dental health
• Anemia
• Fatigue

Sometimes it is not diagnosed because the doctor is only looking for the gasto-intestinal symptoms. 

Undiagnosed for long periods of time, food intolerances have been found to contribute to diabetes, bowel cancer, anemia and osteoporosis.

In people with symptoms, judging whether there's a favorable response to a gluten-free diet isn't difficult: the turnaround from illness to health can be quite dramatic.

What foods contain gluten: The Complete List Of Gluten Free Foods

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-foods-contain-gluten.htm 

Diet for Celiac Disease:

http://www.gicare.com/diets/Gluten-Free.aspx

Celiac Disease and Elimination Diet:

http://www.foodintol.com/celiac.asp 

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