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Dr. Kenneth Fine also gave a speech at the Greater Louisville Celiac Sprue Support Group in 2004 about the Early Diagnosis of Gluten Sensitivity: Before the Villi Have Gone. [I say "also" because I first heard him on the Nourishing Wellness show a few weeks ago and blogged about it, below.]
Similarly, Mara (from Sophie’s Produce) recently shared with us Gluten Sensitivity Confirmed by Genetics and Blood Tests in IBS, where Scot Lewey cites Predictors of clinical response to gluten-free diet by Wahnschaffe, et. al, and concludes,
- “The next questions may not be does NCGS exist but exactly how common is it? Is it one in ten or closer to one in three?”
The problem with getting excited about the Wahnschaffe article is that if you go onto PubMed and do a search on “gluten free diet” you’ll get even more articles like, Is a gluten-free diet necessary in patients with potential celiac disease? by Biagi, et. al, where they basically conclude that no, it’s not.
There is no overwhelming proof that anyone but celiacs would significantly benefit from a gluten-free diet. Obviously, I Believe with a capital “B” in Non-Celiac-Gluten-Sensitivity - 66% of my household is gf and 0% has celiac. But you can’t throw around numbers like 10% or 33% (or even 50% or more!) of the general population without supporting data. It starts to sound crazy.
The wheels of scientific discovery grind very very slowly. Leaps of faith are not part of the program.
On the other hand, the Biagi article is dangerous. My husband, for example, had almost every symptom of celiac disease except for the tTg part (and he’s been tested up the wazoo.) My kids’ gastro-doctor once told me that Ari’s Hodgkins’ lymphoma of 1999 was most likely a result of his gluten sensitivity. We thank God every day that Ari is still here. Yet Biagi would still be recommending he eat wheat, and “monitoring” him for celiac! (If chemo and radiation didn’t “trigger” the auto-immune reaction, nothing will.)
I think if you have even a suspicion that you or your child is gluten sensitive, you should get tested for celiac disease. Get tested as thoroughly as you can - I wasn’t particularly fussed, and now I regret not getting the genetic test, and the IgG antibody test- and if your genetic test comes back HLA-DQ2 or DQ8 positive get re-tested for antibodies every decade or so just on principle. I think everybody should be tested, really, but if you suspect something, get tested well.
If you have celiac disease, obviously, you’ll go gluten-free. Not only will your health improve, but it’s seriously detrimental to your health to continue eating gluten. Period. End of discussion.
If you don’t have celiac but you have the genes, with or without anti-gliadin (gluten) antibodies, obviously, you’ll weigh your options. Probably a lot will depend on if you feel any symptoms, and how bad. How easy it is for you to go gluten-free. Maybe you’ll try going gluten-free for a while and see if it actually makes a difference in your life.
I think just having an awareness of gluten, and the extent that it permeates the typical, off-the-shelf American diet, leads to healthier choices.
One day ten years from now they’ll do a study on self-diagnosed “non-celiac-gluten-sensitive” people. You get to choose today whether you’re in the “control” group that continued to eat gluten (what might happen to them?) or the “change” group that took the leap of faith and went gluten-free.
For the benefit of science & all mankind, of course.
February 27th, 2008 at 4:27 am
The scary thing is how many Doctors who should know better give terrible advice.
I have been gluten free [actually grain free as I have problems with maize and other grains too] for about 10 years since the coeliac diagnosis .
Late last year i had to have biopsies to rule out colo-rectal cancer [much more common in coeliacs] and it was found that my gut was in remission . One of the doctors said-that is really good new, it means you can eat wheat again!!!
February 27th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
It is scary. How many, less knowledgeable people might he have said that to before you? It’s not just that they don’t know, that’s understandable. It’s that they don’t know that they don’t know, and they go around talking anyway.
Good for you that you have done the research & taken control of your own health!