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Gassy and Bloated and Squirt…Oh My! A Tale of Gluten.

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October 21, 2008
	Dr. Gary Huber : Head Medical Ego

I don’t want to alarm you but good scientific studies are showing us that 30% of the general population already has a medical condition that often goes undetected for years.  This condition can lead to autoimmune diseases like:  rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, eczema, diabetes, Graves disease, and more.  This insidious villain exists in every home in America and it can easily be stopped IF you know how, where and what to look for.  This evil doer is named . . . WHEAT!!!  More specifically I’m talking about gluten sensitivity and Celiacs disease.  This topic can get very complex and get convoluted very quickly so allow me offer a few definitions to guide our discussion.

Wheat, rye, and barley all contain a naturally occurring protein called gluten.  Gluten is a combination of 2 proteins; gliadin and glutenin.  For the purpose of our discussion we can use these terms interchangeably so wheat = gluten = gliadin.  Gluten has the ability to make your intestines become “leaky.” The cells that make up the lining of the intestines tend to pull away from each other when repeatedly exposed to gluten, allowing gaps to develop that allow certain food proteins to slip past our natural defenses and into the blood stream before they are fully digested. This creates inflammation and food allergies.  Celiacs disease is the full blown end result of this process and causes our bowel lining to erode away leaving us ill equipped to absorb nutrients from our food. The result of all of this bowel inflammation is a series of immune events that lead many Americans (1 out of every 12 and rising) to face an autoimmune disease like those mentioned above. The symptoms can be as mild as having gas, or can be extreme such as severe diarrhea, spasm and cramping, and other bowel complaints.

Review: wheat = gluten which leads to intestinal inflammation that in the most severe form = Celiacs disease which is an autoimmune disease and leads to any and all other forms of autoimmune disease. And just to be perfectly clear, so that there is no confusion, wheat or gluten is = bread, crackers, bagels, cereal, toast, pretzels, Twix bars, donuts, spaghetti, pasta, pizza crust, flour tortillas, cookies, cake, pie crust or any food item that has flour as its base.  But has it always been this way? No. Why is it more common now?  Excellent question, Scooter. Why isn’t it diagnosed more easily since it is so common?  Lets discuss that. 

The wheat of today is not the same stuff our grandparents ate. Today’s wheat has been genetically altered and hybridized, leading to a product that contains 50% more gluten than the wheat of 10 years ago. This has been in the name of “agricultural and manufacturing progress” so that the grain is more stable, easier to work with and have longer shelf life. Wheat has also been added to unlikely food items such as spaghetti sauce and ice cream as a thickening agent and is used in hundreds of other products which serves to boost your general consumption of this “super gluten.”

What else is different today that sets us apart from our ancestors?  Toxins. We are exposed to more toxic elements, at higher concentrations than ever before. A child born today will have over 300 synthetic compounds in its body on the day of his birth.  Our bodies are assaulted by toxins in our water, air, food, clothing, vaccines, cleaning and grooming products that challenge our immune systems daily, resulting in an over active immune system that is less and less stable. We gobble down Tums, Pepcid, Mylanta, Nexium and an assortment of other agents to ease the stress of our acidic lives. The lower pH in our stomach from these products leaves us ill equipped to breakdown the onslaught of gluten, which has become an irritant instead of a simple food product.  So we are left with the perfect storm: a fragile immune system, stress hormones, gastric vulnerability and a pile of gluten that never ends. 

There is good news. We now have better stool tests than ever before to detect the earliest presence of this gluten sensitivity. Food manufacturers are becoming sensitive to the demand for gluten free foods and are producing safe options in record numbers. By removing gluten from your diet you are likely to experience the following: less joint pain, fewer headaches or resolution all together, resolution of diarrhea and/or constipation, less irritability, improved blood sugar management and much more. The long term health benefits are endless. If you have ever been diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Crohns or ulcerative colitis, inflammatory bowel problems or ANY autoimmune disease of any kind then you need to get a stool test for anti-gliadin antibodies (IgA). If you have had a blood test in the past that was reported as negative then please disregard it. Blood tests are horrible at detecting gluten sensitivity or Celiacs disease. Blood tests are not sensitive enough to reliably pick up gluten disease and only detect it when the disease has reached near total destruction of intestinal villi. DO NOT rely upon a blood test. If a blood test shows positive then consider it reliable but these tests can not rule the disease out if they are negative.

This can be a complicated issue to unravel so if you are struggling for answers then talk with your primary care physician or gastroenterologist about getting a stool test or go to EnteroLab.com. Contact a qualified dietician that can assist you with identifying and removing gluten from your diet. Even if you have no symptoms at this time it would be wise to reduce your intake of gluten to avoid bowel inflammation.