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What is Celiac Disease? And what does it have to do with Gluten?
Who is affected by Celiac Disease?
Celiac Disease is not a Fad
Rising Awareness of Celiac Disease – and Gluten

Disclaimer: Please be aware that I am not a doctor or certified dietary consultant, but just a person sharing information based on research and personal experience.

What is Celiac Disease? And what does it have to do with Gluten?

Celiac disease (or coeliac disease in British English) is a life-long autoimmune disease. It is hereditary and linked to a specific genetic pre-disposition. In addition to the genetic infrastructure, celiac disease (like all other autoimmune diseases) requires a trigger which activates the autoimmune process for the first time plus the availability of gluten in the patients’ diet. A trigger that causes celiac disease to unfold and for the body to become gluten-intolerant can be many things. Prominent examples are virus infections, antibiotics, pregnancy or stress – it’s different for everyone.

Once celiac disease is “activated”, the patients’ immune system attacks itself when the gut comes in touch with gluten. (For symptoms of celiac disease, see the Diagnosing & Treating Celiac Disease Section). In this sense, celiac disease is not an allergy. Even if gluten is considered an allergen and even if people with celiac disease are intolerant of foods containing gluten, our condition is attributed to a different category.

The autoimmune reaction within the body only stops when we stop ingesting gluten. If they want to reach optimum health, a person with celiac disease can never eat gluten again. As is the case with all autoimmune diseases, there is no cure for celiac disease.

Although research on a possible vaccine against celiac disease is underway, and scientists are exploring the relationship between the time-frame during which gluten is introduced into a (genetically predispositioned) baby’s diet, there is currently no known treatment to inhibit the breaking out of celiac disease in a patient.

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Who is affected by Celiac Disease?

Celiac disease affects one in 100 people: one percent of the total population. It affects people from all walks of life, shapes, sizes, ages and lifestyles.

A large part of the world’s population carries the genetic pre-disposition for celiac disease, but most of them will never develop celiac disease. (For example, there are no known cases of celiac disease in my family other than my own.) Chances for children whose parents have celiac disease to develop the condition themselves are one in ten.

Depending on the geographic region, the number celiac disease patients can be higher – like in Ireland – or lower – like Japan. This shift in distribution is due to the lack of genetic predisposition in people who live in those areas and not because celiac disease is not diagnosed there.

Overall, there’s still lots of work left to do in terms of diagnosing those affected as we have only reached the tip of the iceberg. Many celiac disease associations claim that for each diagnosed patient there are currently nine patients who have no idea they are affected.

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Celiac Disease is not a Fad

Celiac disease was first described in 250 A.D. by Aretaeus of Cappadocia, who characterized his patients as “koiliakos” (suffering in the bowels), a term that was later adapted to the word celiac/coeliac. In 1888 Samuel Gee first described a “coeliac affection” in children he treated. In 1950 Dutch paediatrician Willem Karel Dicke identified wheat as a root cause for certain digestive issues in children. His discovery was based on research conducted during WWII, where he studied the reasons behind the improved health of children. His patients’ symptoms improved during the war, but declined again once the war ended and wheat products were once more abundant. He eventually pin-pointed the reason for the improvement in his patients’ health: lack of wheat products. For a long time, celiac disease was understood as a condition that almost exclusively affects children.

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Rising Awareness of Celiac Disease – and Gluten

Overall, awareness of celiac disease has been on the lower end. But, at least in my observation, diagnoses have risen as of late, some feel exponentially. This fact has lead to a variety of – for lack of a better word, let’s call them – conspiracy theories, some of which say that gluten has been artificially increased in wheat kernels throughout past decades, e.g. by genetic manipulation or encouraging certain breeds. Books have been published on the subject, leading to a true gluten-scare which was embraced and popularized by celebrities and health-gurus who then propagated the gluten-free life-style as the healthiest of all possible options out there.

My stance is the following: yes, we are eating more gluten than ever before in history. But we are also eating a lot more of everything than ever before! Sugar, fat, carbohydrates, vegetables and meat – you name it, we’re stuffing ourselves with it! At least in the West, we’re overfed! Also, we’re probably also leading more stressful lives than our ancestors and ingesting more antibiotics and other medication. And yes, gluten is also added to bread and pasta in the form of powder in order to make it fluffier, more manageable and to increase the final products storage life. Of course, all of these developments could explain why more people are affected by celiac disease, because – at least in some – the ridiculously high gluten-levels ingested and the inhuman demands of modern life that tortured them over the course of many years could theoretically push them over the edge.

glutinous-bread

But I’m not scientist. Yet, I find the more rational explanation for the increased number of people affected by celiac disease to be higher awareness of celiac disease and improved diagnosis methods, such as the discovery of celiac-disease specific antibodies to account for the increase in diagnoses throughout the last twenty years.

I also don’t think gluten is the devil. I firmly believe that people who have neither celiac disease nor non-celiac gluten sensitivity or a gluten allergy can happily munch away on as much glutinous matter as they want to without having to fear any consequences whatsoever. There is a reason why wheat and its grainy siblings are such a popular staple today and why they have been throughout history in many cultures across the world. Wheat, rye and barley have important nutritional qualities, such as a high fibre content, and it would be wrong to ostracize them from our lives merely because some of us have guts and immune systems that don’t agree with them.

Now, whether it’s necessary to add more gluten to industrially manufactured products or to eat gluten at every meal is the subject of an entirely different discussion…!

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