Suzanne Frieder posted this link more than a week ago on the Los_Angeles_Celiac Yahoo! group - What You Need to Know About Celiac Disease and the Gluten-Free Diet. Thank you Suzanne! I watched it in pieces over time. (It’s 90 minutes - Yikes!) Apart from the length, this video has much to recommend it.

1. University of California at San Diego has assembled an world-class team in the new Wm. K Warren Medical Research Center for Celiac Disease. This video is a presentation by three members of this group, so it’s neat to see who’s working in the neighborhood.
2. There’s a fantastic picture of healthy villi in someone’s intestine, not a stained slide like you always see but practically 3-D. It looks like sea anemones! Dr. Kagnoff likens villi to shag carpeting, and it’s a good analogy.
3. Another very good chart diagramming the wheat family tree. Actually; really good visual aids, throughout.
4. About 68 minutes in, the question is asked of Dr. Harmon, “Greg, what’s the difference between gluten intolerance and celiac disease?” and he responds “That’s the million-dollar question!” I love this guy. He’s one of the few doctors you’ll ever hear say “we don’t know.” Give this man a cigar!
5. Susan J. Algert, Ph.D., R.D. / Nutritionist puts the number 20ppm in perspective when she likens it to “one penny in ten thousand dollars.”* These people have a knack for making things understandable.

*Wait - I just re-read that. Shouldn’t it be two pennies? Maybe she was talking about 10ppm.

Anyway, it may not be the most exciting video you have ever seen. (It is, after all, a very “plain-text” recording of a speech. Three speeches, actually, with a question & answer period after. No music, no dynamic editing or artistic lighting. We get spoiled here in Hollywood.) But it is informative and worth watching. Or listen in the background while you do other work!

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