Because of the difficulty in diagnosing microscopic colitis during regular colonoscopies, women in the risk group who also have the symptoms should consider undergoing colonic biopsies, which can be used to detect the condition more reliably. The good news is that microscopic colitis is considered a relatively benign condition, and most sufferers recover with treatment.

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This extremely preliminary finding suggests that corn may also be damaging to people with celiac disease, though far more study will be needed before any official announcements are made encouraging the avoidance of corn for those on a celiac diet. In the mean time, common sense must prevail. If you know that corn bothers you, don’t eat it. If you are diagnosed with celiac disease and following a strict gluten-free diet has not eliminated all of your symptoms, cut out corn for a couple of months and see if it helps.

One thing about it, cutting out corn, while a major nuisance, may actually lead to a more healthful diet. High fructose corn syrup is a staple in many of the high fat, high salt, highly-processed convenience foods so prevalent in the American diet. Cutting out those foods and replacing them with unprocessed or minimally-processed whole foods will definitely produce positive health effects, regardless of celiac disease status.

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Gluten Free for the Holidays, and Beyond

Dr. Sheila Crowe, a professor in the division of gastroenterology and hepatology in the department of medicine at the University of Virginia, recently joined the Consults blog to answer reader questions about celiac disease. Here, Dr. Crowe responds to questions about maintaining a gluten-free diet.

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Read more here…

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The classic symptoms of celiac disease are bloating, diarrhea, and vomiting. Weight loss and fatigue are common, as is failure to thrive and grow normally in children. However, not everyone who has celiac disease or gluten allergy shows these symptoms. Many may only suffer from fatigue and anaemia, and some have no symptoms at all.

In the case of small children, a red flag is the onset of digestive difficulties and failure to thrive shortly after the introduction of wheat products into the diet. In adults, an often overlooked symptom is an extreme fondness for products containing wheat– someone with gluten allergy symptoms may lapse rhapsodic about the taste of a relatively bland food like bread or pasta, and miss it or even crave it if they don’t eat it every day.

This may seem odd (and a bit cruel), but it’s actually part of the body’s attempt to protect itself. When a person with celiac disease or gluten allergy eats wheat, it causes an immune response and painful inflammation in the gut. The body’s response to inflammation and pain is to release endorphins, which produce a barely-noticeable-but-definitely-there “buzz”, to cover the pain; the same sort of buzz that a hospital patient gets from a dose of morphine, or a drug addict from a shot of heroin.

So, just as the heroin user and the hospital patient may become addicted to opiates, the person with celiac or gluten allergy symptoms becomes addicted to the small “high” that follows a meal containing wheat. It’s completely unconscious, of course– if asked, the person will say that they simply love the taste of the bread, pasta, or whatever– but it can be a strong hint of some sort of wheat intolerance or gluten allergy.

If some or all of these symptoms sound familiar, there are a few different ways to proceed with getting a more accurate diagnosis. These include antibody testing, endoscopic analysis, genetic testing, elimination diets, and challenge tests, which will be discussed more fully in other articles.

Your doctor can help guide you in determining your next step.

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