Gluten and Food Intolerance
Celiac disease is underdiagnosed in the US, in part because many medical schools still teach that it is a rare disease. The symptoms can be severe or subtle, or even non-existent until Celiacs age and get early onset osteoporosis and a higher prevalence of colon cancer. This can be avoided by proper testing at the proper time, followed by strict avoidance. Proper testing requires a minimum of five blood markers. The proper time requires that the patient has been eating gluten daily for 6-8 weeks prior to the blood draw. The gold standard remains a biopsy taken from the upper part of the small intestine showing damage to the structures there, which also requires 6-8 weeks of gluten ingestion prior to an upper endoscopy, and that the biopsied tissue is removed from an area with damage.
Celiac disease is genetic, and the genetics can be present without any active presentation of disease. If someone in your family is diagnosed with celiac disease, everyone in your family should be assessed for genetics as well as disease markers.
If you have difficulty digesting wheat or gluten, and do not have celiac disease, this is called non-celiac gluten sensitivity, or NCGS. If you have NCGS, you may have more pronounced symptoms from eating gluten than even a person with celiac disease! This does not mean that you need to avoid gluten for the rest of your life, it means that your body is trying to tell you something. All symptoms are just the body’s method of communicating. Listen to your body and look for a source of the symptom.
Frequently, NCGS is a symptom of dysbiosis, gut bacteria being in the wrong place. This can be Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO), or it is close cousin, IMO, or Intestinal Methanogen Overgrowth. SIBO and IMO cause food intolerances frequently by a mechanism aptly named leaky gut. When we grow excess bacteria in our small intestine, the bacteria create a massive quantity of gases, just by breathing. The small intestine does not have the mechanisms required for expanding and contracting with the respiration of too many microbes. This causes the small intestine walls to develop leaks which allow less digested food to be absorbed into the blood stream. Our immune system is constantly looking for foreign bodies and reads undigested food as such. The immune system then goes into overdrive trying to kill the food. And then we feel yucky when we eat otherwise healthy foods. Healing your gut can allow your body to stop absorbing less digested foods and giving your immune system time to reduce the number of antibodies out looking for these larger food molecules will allow your body to fully digest and enjoy foods again.
Find a health care provider willing to help you heal instead of just restricting foods!
The information available in this article is intended for educational use only.
It is not intended as a substitute for medical advice from a medical professional who has learned the totality of your health history.
Consult a trained medical professional if you are seeking medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Dr. Roz Donovan and Roz Donovan Medical Services, LLC are not liable for any risks or issues associated with using or acting on information on this site.