More here:Gluten and Its Association With Illness
By Ronald R. Parks, MD
It has been estimated that 8% of the population in the United States has some form of auto-immunity, and probably a much larger percentage has some form of environmentally related sensitivity illness. Autoimmune disorders occur ten times more commonly in gluten caused celiac disease than in the general population. In people with gluten triggered celiac disease, the mortality rate for cardiovascular disease was increased by 60%.
In people with autoimmune disease or severe gluten intolerance, there could be an association or increase risk of conditions: as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, primary biliary cirrhosis, type 1 diabetes and possibly many other inflammatory related illnesses -- which could include heart disease, cancer, skin disorders, and mental illness as depression and schizophrenia.
It is being found that celiac disease is just the tip of the iceberg, representing a much smaller percentage of the many diseases occurring outside of the bowel where there is the need to suspect gluten sensitivity. This has led to the association of gluten intolerance and triggered auto-immunity to many other conditions that occurred even in the absence of any bowel or celiac problems. This includes the many varieties of autoimmune disorders; and behavioral, emotional, learning, developmental, psychiatric, neurological, cognitive dysfunctions and constitutional problems -- such as diabetes mellitus type I, dermatitis herpetiformis, alopecia, Sjögren's syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, thyroiditis, auto immune hepatitis, psoriasis, irritable bowel syndrome and microscopic colitis.
It is felt that a number of autoimmune diseases or inflammatory conditions can be triggered by gluten in the diet. One example would be the common cause of hypothyroidism, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which is felt to be an autoimmune disease with gluten as a trigger -- thyroid autoimmune disease is one of the most frequent autoimmune diseases in our population. Celiac disease is the autoimmune condition that affects our intestines, destroying the absorptive micro-villi, which leads to malabsorption of food, diarrhea and severe related health problems -- when gluten is removed from the diet, this condition generally completely resolves.
http://www.macrohealthmedicine.com/glut ... lness.html
Joanna
