Celiac Disease: What Is It?
Posted on | February 28, 2010 | 8 Comments
As my first official article, I would like to discuss exactly what celiac disease is. Most people have heard of eating “gluten-free” and know people with celiac disease can’t have the everything bagel with cream cheese from dunkin donuts. But most people don’t know exactly what it is in detail. In a short sentence, celiac disease is a genetically predisposed auto-immune disorder. It not only effects the gut, but the whole body. One is usually born with the genes for this condition. For some, the celiac trigger is turned on from birth. For others, decades later.
It is a very odd condition, this is why. With most illnesses for example, people need to be cured with a cycle of antibiotics (bacterial infections) or be put on hormonal therapy (hypothyroidism). In other words, one has to be put on some form of pharmaceutical assistance. With celiac disease on the other hand, all one has to do is simply eliminate gluten from one’s diet. As soon as that happens, the body begins to heal itself.
Isn’t that awesome? The only solution to the problem is to simply avoid the culprit. But it isn’t as easy as it sounds. I’ll explain myself in a bit.
First I want to explain what gluten is. Gluten is a protein that is found in wheat, barely and rye. Despite what most people think, It is NOT found in oats. The whole topic of oats will be discussed in a future article. When a person with Celiac Disease ingests gluten, the body’s immune system reacts to the protein as an intruder. This usually occurs in the small intestine. During the process of the immune system doing “its thing”, the small intestine is also damaged and becomes inflamed.
On a microscopic level, the villi of the small intestine are being destroyed. This is a big problem, since one needs healthy villi to be able to digest and absorb nutrients properly. Now I know some of you are asking what the heck is villi? Well, villi are small “hair like fingers” that are attached to the small intestine’s wall. Their primary job is to absorb nutrients (vitamins, minerals, etc) and release certain digestive enzymes that are responsible for breaking down certain macronutrients such as proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Lactose Intolerance is a very common with celiac disease since the enzyme lactase (which breaks down the sugar lactose) is produced at the tip of a villi. The top part of the villi is usually the first to be destroyed.
Now you can see where the problem can occur when there is no villi present. The normal process of digestion is interrupted. This is one of the main reasons why celiac disease if not treated or diagnosed properly can lead to some serious health problems.
If one chronically has his/her immune system always responding and causing inflammation, this can cause a series of other health problems and conditions to occur. Examples of other medical conditions to occur are leaky gut syndrome, hypothyroidism, malnutrition, depression and osteoporosis. There is even a possibility that with long-term chronic inflammation of the small intestine, cancer can develop.
I guess you can say that Celiac Disease is a “door opener” for biological drama, and drama is not cool.
On the topic of going gluten-free, it is not an over night process. For some people it is a smooth transition while for others it is psychologically stress-full. Gluten can be hidden in lots of processed food and even used as fillers for certain supplements. Most companies now are becoming celiac aware and are making their products celiac-friendly, which I am so grateful for. I give a lot of credit to the people who were diagnosed ten years ago for this condition since it wasn’t as easy to handle as it is today.
I would also like to mention that it is very common for celiacs to have other food allergies and food intolerances. One of the most common proteins to be of problem is casein. This has to do with the molecular structure of casein being very similar to gluten (a topic for another day.) In case you are wondering, casein is a protein that is found in all dairy products.
Celiac Disease in itself is still being researched and there is still a lot to be learned. What’s really cool is that most celiacs are very positive about the situation. Being diagnosed with celiac disease usually encourages one to focus on his/her diet and health. Most have a change in mood and feel brand new once one is gluten-free for some duration of time.
I have been gluten-free for around 3 years and I feel awesome, how about you?
Comments
8 Responses to “Celiac Disease: What Is It?”
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March 5th, 2010 @ 8:49 pm
Yeah man…when I learned more about this in nursing school, I was really into it because I knew someone that had this. Props to you and doing what you do man. Keep it up. I’m supporting you all the way…also on your DJing too!!
March 6th, 2010 @ 1:54 pm
Thanks Neil, that means a lot. It is about time I got this website up and rolling. And regards to my music hobby, that is on hold right now.
April 6th, 2010 @ 8:11 am
Interesting website, you’ve got quite the challenging intolerances. While avoiding gluten & dairy myself, I’d not know what to do when I couldn’t eat eggs. Still wondering if my own intolerance to dairy is just for cow’s dairy (there’s very interesting research on types of casein, look up A1 versus type A2) or for all casein but not for whey (regardless of origin).
Also wanted to comment on your remark how oats do not contain gluten. There’s 2 reason people still have problems with oats. The most often quoted reason is contamination but it may just be that the protein in oats (gliadin?) is very similar to gluten, just like how you mention that casein is similar.
May 4th, 2010 @ 6:17 pm
Hey Espi,
Sorry for responding so late lol. When it comes to protein, the meats are my best friend.
There is a possibility that you might be able to tolerate goat dairy products. I tried to go that route but it turns out anything dairy related triggers an automatic IgE antibody response.
Yeah oats are weird, they do not contain gluten but I still seem to react to them mildly. Other gluten-free grains like rice, corn, buckwheat, etc I can have without any problems. The protein in oats I believe is called Avena Sativa.
May 4th, 2010 @ 7:58 pm
I sort of self-diagnosed myself as Celiac as well. I have been 3 years gluten-free and 2.5 years of that grain-free. I’m doing much better completely grain-free, to the point where I can have some dairy and a lot of eggs now. I have dealt with intolerance to eggs, but that has gotten better since I have healed a lot.
Oh, and oats for me were one of the hardest to digest grains, so even if they don’t contain gluten, they’re pretty horrible on a damaged digestive system.
May 4th, 2010 @ 9:28 pm
Yeah people always respond differently to oats. That is awesome how you diagnosed yourself, you must feel great now.
Its a good thing you can have dairy, milk proteins are very healthy if one’s immune system doesn’t go crazy.
July 20th, 2010 @ 5:08 pm
Hi. I started a diet of Dairy & Egg free and it didn’t help my symptoms. I then started a diet of Dairy, Egg & Gluten free and my symptoms have improved considerably. It has now been almost 3 months – what do I do? Do I try eating dairy or should I not risk it? I just want some cheese or ice cream LOL!
July 20th, 2010 @ 9:16 pm
Danielle,
It seems from what you are telling me that gluten was the problem. I would reintroduce eggs and dairy one at a time and see how you feel.