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Celiac Disease, and what is gluten?

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Blue Jeanz

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Registered: 04-2006
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
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Celiac Disease, and what is gluten?

This definition was found on Celiac.com

The standard definition: "celiac disease is a permanent intolerance to gluten that results in damage to the intestine and is reversible with avoidance of dietary gluten."

"Permanent": The effects of celiac disease may change from time to time. You may be sicker at one phase of your life than at another. For example, you may be sicker at age two, may seem to get better during the teenage years, may be sick again in your 20's (but with different symptoms), and then present with other symptoms when you are in your 50's. So there may be different phases, but it is a PERMANENT intolerance. You do NOT outgrow it; you do not go through phases where you don't have it anymore. (That used to be what was thought and TAUGHT in medical schools.).

"Damage to the intestine": There is definitely intestinal damage; without it you cannot define . For some people the damage is severe, for others it is not so severe. It is the cases which are not so severe that can be difficult to diagnose. If the damage is mild then the person interpreting the biopsy might not even think of celiac disease as being a possible cause of the damage.

"Reversible": The damage should be reversible by following a gluten free diet for life.

Encyclopedia definition of Gluten

Gluten - a mixture of proteins present in the cereal grains. It's what gives flour its characteristic chewiness and permits breads and cakes to rise during baking as the gases within expand and are trapped in the gluten superstructure. The hereditary disease called nontropical sprue (Celiac) is characterized by an inability to digest gluten. In this disease the gluten forms immune complexes that cause damage to the mucus lining of the intestine.

7/26/2007, 2:18 pm

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