Sara Sarkin has a gardening blog and posted the following explanation of celiac disease there. I copied it and put it on my Facebook page, hoping that some family members who seem to live their lives on Facebook would pay attention. Despite this, one of them subsequently gave me a gift card for "Subway".
This is what celiac disease is: Many people, not only those of us with celiac genes, develop an immune response to gluten, more specifically to gliadin, the form of gluten found in wheat, rye, barley and other grains. Once the body has developed antibodies to gliadin, ingesting gliadin prompts an immune-system attack, just as it would for a pathogen. Additional antibodies may develop against tissue transglutaminase, an enzyme found in many parts of the body, an autoimmune response. Microscopic amounts of gluten trigger this immune reaction. There is no safe amount of gluten. For me, gluten (gliadin) is poison.
Eating gluten free has become a bit of a fad and that's not a bad thing but it does make it more difficult for those of us with celiac disease to be taken seriously in restaurants, grocery stores etc.
Sheila W[/quote]
Gluten Obviously Poisons The Brain
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