When it comes to understanding gluten and your health it is important to understand the nature of your specific health issue and also that gluten is being increasingly implicated in a growing number of chronic health problems: that there are compelling reasons for most of us, even those of us who appear gluten tolerant, to reassess our levels of gluten consumption.
There are some pundits who believe that within the next decade or so, more than 30% of the population will be on gluten free and fermentable sugar free diets.
Are you aware that the surface area of your stomach lining is about the size of a tennis court?
If someone is presenting with coeliac / celiac symptoms they may be sensitive in one small area of their stomach lining or they may be sensitive over the whole or a very substantial area of the stomach.
This in combination with other overlapping and often composite symptoms forms part of the explanation for the wide variations in sensitivity and the severity of illness observed between different patients ostensibly suffering from the same disease.
Another possibility is that some of the symptoms may be presenting for entirely separate health concerns: gluten sensitive or otherwise.
It is also possible to be gluten sensitive without any gut symptoms whatsoever.
The health problems may manifest themselves in other single or composite ways: in tiredness, depression, crankiness, fluid retention, mucus/sinus problems, eczema or mysterious aches and pains, the latter often with no clearly identifiable cause, or in complex, varying and overlapping combinations of these conditions.
These latter symptoms may be independent of gut damage but it is not unusual to find them in combination with the gut damage or Coeliac Disease.
Where there is damage to the gut lining total exclusion of gluten from the diet for life is the best and only solution.
If the problem has been long-term and diagnoses has been delayed for some reason and also depending upon the patient’s age a complete recovery may not be possible.
The adoption of a gluten free diet should alleviate the symptoms and improve the health going forwards but some of the long-term damage may be irreversible with problems with lactose intolerance or other fermentable sugars, for example, often remaining permanent.
The younger the patient at diagnoses and the shorter the time between contraction of the disease and diagnoses the better the prognosis for a full recovery, providing the strict maintenance of a gluten free diet.
In some other instances of non gut damaged gluten sensitivity total exclusion of gluten is probably still the best option but it may be feasible to manage the problem by controlling the degree of exposure to gluten.
Blood and skin prick tests have begun to replace the biopsy as they are more embracing and produce more reliable and consistent results than the biopsy. The tests also measure immune system response.
Care and skill is required in taking and evaluating or interpreting a biopsy and, in some instances, a biopsy taken from a healthy part of the gut can provide a misleading non diagnosis.
Paul Smith
glutenfreehealth.net
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