Could This Be Celiac Disease?

Posted by John Smith on December 7th, 2018

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that causes damage to your small intestine when gluten is consumed. According to the Celiac Disease Foundation, celiac disease affects 1 in 100 people around the world. Furthermore, an estimated two and a half million Americans have undiagnosed celiac disease and are at an increased risk of health complications.

When you suffer from celiac disease, your immune system attacks the villi in the small intestine when gluten is consumed. The villi help to absorb nutrients. When the villi become damaged, you are at risk of developing nutritional deficiencies. In addition to nutritional deficiencies, celiac disease can cause other serious health issues, including multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, infertility, epilepsy, type I diabetes, anemia, migraines, intestinal cancer and other autoimmune disorders.

The symptoms of celiac disease

The symptoms of celiac disease often vary from person to person. Additionally, the symptoms are different in adults than they are in children. The most common symptoms experienced are digestive disturbances, including diarrhea, nausea, bloating, flatulence, acid reflux, heartburn gas, vomiting and constipation. In addition to this, sufferers often experience weight loss.

There are several symptoms that are not associated with the digestive system. For example, sufferers may experience the anemia due to an iron deficiency, osteoporosis which is loss of bone density due to calcium malabsorption, mouth ulcers and damaged dental enamel, joint pain and an itchy and blistery skin rash. Celiac disease can also damage the nervous system and result in numbness and tingling, cognitive impairment and balance issues.

In children, the symptoms of celiac disease can be different than adults and include vomiting, swollen belly, failure to thrive, chronic diarrhea, muscle wasting, poor appetite, short stature, delayed puberty, learning disabilities, seizures, ADHD, headaches and lack of muscle coordination.

Diagnosing celiac disease

Many celiac disease sufferers do not even know that they should avoid gluten because the damage to the small intestines is slow and the symptoms of celiac disease can mimic a number of other issues. For this reason, it can take years for a proper diagnosis. There are a couple of blood tests that can help diagnose celiac disease – genetic testing that looks for human leukocyte antigens is used to rule out celiac disease and serology testing looks for specific antibodies. If these tests show a celiac disease possibility, you will need an endoscopy, which allows the doctor to inspect the small intestine and look for damage.

What is gluten and how can you avoid it?

Gluten is the protein that is found in wheat, rye, spelt and barley. In addition to these grains, gluten is found in a number of products, including:

• Baked goods
• Soups
• Cereals
• Salad dressings
• Pasta
• Sauces
• Food colorings
• Beer
• Potato chips
• Candy
• Processed foods, including lunch meats
• French fries
• Meat substitutes
• Distilled vinegar
• Natural flavors
• Lipstick
• Herbal supplements
• Medications
• Vitamins
• Playdough

As you can see, gluten can be found in almost any type of product, which means that you have to be very careful and read labels to help prevent you from accidentally ingesting gluten. If you do accidentally consume gluten, you can experience any of the symptoms listed above.

How to improve your health if you suffer from celiac disease

The most important thing to do when trying to recover from celiac disease is to avoid all forms of gluten. This will require you to read every label of every food product, cleaning supplies and cosmetics. In addition to looking for wheat, rye or barley, you should avoid:

• Brewer's yeast
• Durum
• Spelt, Dinkel, faro or farro
• Bulgur
• Graham flour
• Kamut
• Malt
• Hydrolyzed wheat protein
• Matzo
• Modified starch
• Seitan
• Semolina
• Triticale
• Spelt
• Fu
• Farina
• Emmer
• Atta
• Einkorn

Although gluten-free foods have increased in popularity, there are still many products on the market that contain gluten. Because gluten inhibits your ability to properly absorb vitamins and minerals, you will need a medical food that is formulated to provide nutritional support.

Detoxing and healing the gastrointestinal tract takes time. A detox program will include whole foods, purified water and digestive enzymes. These along with medical food formulated to provide support will heal the damage caused by gluten and improve your overall health and well-being.

Millions of Americans unknowingly suffer from celiac disease. If you have the symptoms of celiac disease, visit your doctor and ask for blood tests. If your doctor believes you have a gluten sensitivity, remove all gluten from your diet, follow a detoxification program that uses digestive enzymes and medical food that is formulated for nutritional support and drink plenty of pure water to help flush all gluten from the body and heal the digestive tract.