You feel awful most of the time. You’re tired, achy, and it seems like you’ve either got diarrhea or constipation almost constantly. Maybe your skin itches and flakes, or you get unexplained rashes or hives. You may even throw up occasionally, for no obvious reason.

If you’ve sought medical help for your problems, you might have left the doctor’s office frustrated– feeling as if you weren’t being taken seriously. Perhaps the doctor threw out terms like irritable bowel syndrome or chronic fatigue syndrome, leaving you just as confused as when you came in. So you started looking online, and you found something interesting. Is it possible that you suffer from a food allergy or intolerance?

In short– yes. It’s very possible.

There are many types of food intolerance and allergies, and wheat intolerance is one of the most common. But all wheat sensitivity is not created equal. Broadly speaking, health problems related to wheat consumption fall into three categories:

1) Celiac (or Coeliac) Disease

Celiac disease is an immunological (allergic) response in the intestinal tract to a very specific protein contained in wheat and several other grains, called gliadin– a gluten protein. It has many other names, including gluten allergy, gluten enteropathy, gluten intolerance, and coeliac sprue. Over time, it can cause damage to the intestinal tract, but it can be effectively treated with a gluten-free diet. The bad news is, people with celiac disease have it for life. There’s no cure, and they don’t “grow out of it”. The good news is that much of the damage done to the body can repair itself after gluten is removed from the diet.

2) Wheat Allergy

Wheat allergy is also an immunological response to wheat. Unlike celiac disease, however, it includes allergic reactions to many different proteins found in wheat and related cereal grains. It can be gastrointestinal, but it can also be similar to hay fever, causing asthma-like respiratory symptoms, hives, rashes, contact dermatitis, cough, runny nose, and itchy eyes. Sometimes called “baker’s allergy”, wheat allergy may be exacerbated by exercising or taking aspirin, causing a very violent and dangerous– even life-threatening– allergic condition called anaphylaxis. Once again, avoidance is the key, though some wheat allergy sufferers are able to tolerate alternative gluten-containing grains such as barley and rye.

3) Wheat Intolerance

Confusingly, celiac disease is sometimes called “gluten intolerance”. However, wheat intolerance generally refers to a non-allergic negative reaction to eating wheat. Wheat intolerance is not usually as violent or acute as wheat allergy, and can be a lot harder to diagnose because the symptoms may manifest many hours after the consumption of wheat; even up to a couple of days later. Though poorly understood, it’s still an immune-related response, but one which affects a totally different part of the immune system than that which causes a ragweed sufferer to sneeze or someone with a peanut allergy to go into anaphylactic shock. Avoidance is still the main approach to solving the existing problem in individuals with wheat sensitivity, but there’s good news– with careful management, some people may be able to build up a tolerance for small amounts of wheat over time.

If you think you may have a form of wheat sensitivity, there are a range of testing and treatment options, which we will cover in future articles– along with some great tips and recipes for living gluten-free… with style.

Technorati Tags: celiac, coeliac, wheat allergy, wheat intolerance

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While it’s extremely anecdotal and certainly doesn’t apply to all Red Lobster locations, I recently had a lovely eating experience at a Red Lobster in Missouri. After years of not going because of the limited selections available for someone who can’t have dairy or wheat (and, oh, how I miss those cheesy biscuits!), I found myself there with my dairy-allergic mother for an informal family affair. The waitress, whose sister has wheat allergy symptoms, took as good care of us as she would have done for her sister, and we had a delicious, enjoyable, and stress-free meal.

For these reasons, I’m going to recommend that readers patronize Red Lobster (with the caveat that any new restaurant should be approached cautiously), because any national chain who is at least trying to help its customers stay safe and healthy deserves all the encouragement we can give it.

Just don’t be tempted into indiscretion by the biscuits!

Now, a team in Argentina is working on a methodology which will largely eliminate the need for biopsies in celiac diagnosis. They hope to prove that a simple serology test (using a small blood sample from the patient) is sufficient in the vast majority of cases to provide a definitive diagnosis of celiac disease.

Want to read more about the proposed new testing procedures? Click here…

A simple fecal test for an enzyme called fecal elastase can give your doctor a good idea of whether your pancreas is functioning well, and might be a good idea for people with celiac disease or wheat intolerance who also suffer from frequent diarrhea. Lipase supplements are available over the counter and online; just make sure to do your homework and choose a reputable brand, since nutritional supplements are not regulated in the same way as drugs and food.

In the case of celiac disease, not everyone who has the genetic predisposition to the disease shows symptoms. Some develop the reaction to gluten later than others; some never develop it at all. Dr Fasano wants to know why. He thinks that the expression of symptoms may be tied to changes in the person’s gut bacteria, which can happen naturally throughout their lifetime. Some research has shown that such changes have the power to affect gene expression in the host. While it has yet to be scientifically proven, it follows that treatment with probiotics might prevent the original expression of celiac symptoms in some patients.

Does this mean you should run out and buy some probiotics today? Well, it depends on what results you’re expecting. The only treatment for celiac disease is a gluten-free diet. You can’t take probiotics and then start eating wheat, expecting everything to be okay. In the case of wheat intolerance, which is not an allergic or autoimmune response, probiotics may increase a person’s tolerance… or it may not.

One thing about probiotics, though– they’re perfectly safe, and fairly inexpensive, so there’s no reason not to give them a try. Many people have reported that they feel generally better after taking probiotics, so it might be an experiment worth trying, even if you don’t intend to change your eating habits and gluten consumption afterwards.

Their basis for this claim is the assumption that everyone who goes gluten-free is immediately replacing foods containing gluten with expensive, highly processed gluten-free look-alike products which have no dietary fiber, fewer vitamins and minerals, too much sugar and salt, and chemical preservatives.

Perhaps, in modern western culture, that isn’t too much of a stretch; as a society, our eating habits are appalling. But I’d like to think that those of us who’ve been hit over the head with wheat intolerance and other food allergies and intolerances are, as a group, a little more thoughtful about what we put into our bodies. If you have wheat intolerance and your body weight is a concern, when you cut out foods containing gluten and replace them with fresh vegetables, fruits, and gluten-free whole grains… you WILL lose weight. You WILL feel better than you did when you were stressing your body by running gluten through it almost every day. Why on earth wouldn’t you feel better?

If you don’t have any problems with wheat or gluten, do you need to go gluten free? Well, of course not! (Though you still might want to think about the fruits/vegetables/whole grains thing. Seriously.) Would it hurt you to cut out foods containing gluten? Obviously, it depends on how you replace them. Eat foods that are better for you than the wheat-y stuff you ate before, and you’ll be healthier. Eat stuff that’s worse for you than what you gave up, and you’ll be less healthy.

It’s really not rocket science, folks. Eat healthy; be healthy. If that means gluten-free for you, then go for it, and don’t let the ‘experts’ tell you differently.

Celiac.com has put together a resource list of wheat free recipes, free of foods containing gluten, just in time for Easter and Passover. Need a recipe for gluten-free matzoh? This is your place. Gluten and dairy-free challah? They’ve got it. Delicious desserts safe for people with wheat intolerance? Check.

Read more here…

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The chain already employs 135 in-store dietitians, but in some areas, that means there may be only one in an entire county. By utilizing a sharing program between larger and smaller outlets, Hy-Vee hopes to remedy that situation, and position itself as a valuable source of diet-based medical information.

A recent trip inside a Hy-Vee store in Columbia, Missouri revealed a well-stocked selection of gluten-free and dairy-free foods– especially for a store in a mid-sized midwestern college town. A large circular binder hung by a chain nearby for customers to use, clearly labeled “Gluten-Free Product List”. In addition to gluten-free offerings, several spelt products were also available on a shelf one aisle over.

If you live in an area with a Hy-Vee store, it’s worth checking them out; this is a company who is very obviously trying to get things right. By patronizing businesses like Hy-Vee, we can reward them for their efforts to help us, and encourage other companies to follow in their footsteps.

Technorati Tags: celiac, gluten-free, wheat intolerance

If you would like to express your concerns to the company, you can email Jeff Smisek, Chairman,  president and chief executive officer of Continental Airlines at jeff.smisek@coair.com.