Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease triggered by gluten. Its symptoms are more complex and far-reaching than many people understand, extending far beyond the gut. In this section I'll try to empower patients to better understand the process of identifying, diagnosing and treating celiac disease.
Despite the growing gluten-free diet craze, many people remain surprisingly uninformed or misinformed when it comes to celiac disease. In this lesson I’ll try to dispel the most common celiac disease myths. Think you know better than to subscribe to these common myths? Jump down to the quiz: Take The Quiz! (I really hope regular
Some people with celiac disease don’t seem to heal on a gluten-free diet. In the past, a good percentage of these individuals may have been diagnosed as having refractory celiac disease. We now know why many of these people weren’t healing. Recent research found that many gluten-free grains were still cross-contaminated with gluten. For these
A small but frustrating percentage of people with celiac disease can’t seem to get better despite maintaining a vigilant gluten-free diet. In the past, these people were diagnosed with refractory celiac disease (RCD). Today they will be diagnosed with non-responsive celiac disease (NRCD), and a smaller subset of these individuals will be diagnosed with refractory
If you have celiac disease and you don’t strictly adhere to a gluten-free diet, you greatly increase your risk for two serious cancers falling under lymphoproliferative malignancy (LPM): non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and T-cell lymphoma. We’ve known that celiac disease and cancer have a strong association, but the evidence is becoming more specific and more compelling. Recent
In an allergic reaction, your immune system over-reacts to a foreign substance the human body usually ignores. In an autoimmune disease, your immune system reacts to normal cells or tissues that it usually ignores or accepts. This is why a peanut allergy can trigger a severe reaction via anaphylactic shock while celiac disease can do damage without any evident, tangible reaction after eating gluten.
With increasing awareness of celiac disease and the necessity of a strict gluten-free diet for celiac disease patients, today researchers are often more empowered to finance and conduct comprehensive research on celiac disease and how it relates to other chronic conditions. A recent study found a strong correlation between celiac disease and asthma: read on to discover how these conditions are related and how the lead researcher on this study thinks vitamin D may be involved.
Recent research ties infant infections to increased celiac disease risk. But why? In this post Sarah discusses different reasons and ways our gut bacteria population changes and what consequences may result because of these changes.
The genetic connection with celiac disease may surprise some people because a celiac disease diagnosis was pretty rare prior to this generation. But it was there, even if it wasn’t diagnosed or even if people didn’t discuss their undiagnosed symptoms openly (symptoms like flatulence and diarrhea aren’t often casual conversation topics at family reunions). You
Did you know that 40% of people diagnosed with celiac disease suffer from reduced bone mass, with 26% of them having full-blown osteoporosis? The main reason for this is because of nutrient deficiencies, more specifically deficiencies of calcium and vitamin D. Untreated celiac disease leads to damage of the proximal intestine (or duodenum), where these
Recent research suggests that celiac disease increases your risk for developing atherosclerosis, a leading cause of heart disease. However, the same research suggests that a strict gluten-free diet appears to mitigate this risk. Discover how celiac disease increases your risk and why I believe this risk may also be greater for people with a non-celiac gluten sensitivity.
