Celiac Sprue – When Bread Is Poison
by Ernest Stanley, M.D.
Gastroenterolgist, Three Rivers Endoscopy Center, PA, gihealth.com

You may think that you feed your gut. Actually, your gut feeds you. Most of the food you eat would be as deadly as poison if it got directly into your bloodstream. Your gut can best be described as a very elaborate food “disassembly” plant. Except for dietary fiber – nut husks, bran, celery strings and such – your gut disassembles virtually everything you eat into smaller components that your body can use.

Your gut converts the crisp fat in your breakfast bacon into smaller fatty acids. It turns the protein in your dinner lamb chop into smaller amino acids. It changes the large carbohydrates in your mashed potatoes into sugary glucose. Then it passes these much simpler nutrients to your blood system.

To maximize absorption of nutrients into your bloodstream, the walls of your small intestine are normally covered with microscopic hair-like projections called villi and even smaller microvilli. Villi contain special cells which enable absorption of nutrients into your body. Each square inch of intestine contains about 10 billion microvilli. This increases the surface area for food absorption dramatically. In fact, if your intestinal interior were smooth, it would present only about 6 square feet of absorptive surface. Instead, because of these villi, it presents about the same surface as a football field!

We usually think of bread as the “staff of life,” but for people with celiac disease, some grains have just the opposite effect. Celiac disease (also known as celiac sprue and gluten-sensitive enteropathy) is a hereditary allergy to gluten – a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye. When susceptible people eat foods contains any of these three grains, an allergic reaction occurs which results in inflammation and destruction of the delicate intestinal villi. This is called an “autoimmune reaction” – one in which the body mistakenly attacks itself. With shortened villi, the surface is reduced to about the size of a basketball court or smaller, and the intestine cannot absorb nutrients properly. The consequence is poor absorption (so called malabsorption) of your food, vitamins and minerals. Thus, even though an individual with celiac disease may be eating normally, their body may not be getting enough nutrition.

Celiac disease is a very old disease and may have been first described in 250 A.D. A clear understanding of the cause did not occur until 1952 when a Dutch pediatrician noted that afflicted children gained weight during a famine when wheat was not available.

The problem is that symptoms can range from severe to none. In severe cases children may present with diarrhea, weight loss and failure to thrive. In adults the symptoms are often much more subtle – though the gut inflammation may still be severe. The symptoms may include occasional diarrhea, abdominal bloating, gas, fatigue, or simply intolerance to milk products. People with an itchy, blistering skin eruption affecting the knees, elbows, buttocks and back, called dermatitis herpetiformis, almost always also show evidence of gluten sensitivity on intestinal biopsy. Poor absorption of iron, folic acid, or both, can cause anemia; and failure to absorb calcium, vitamin D, and other nutrients can lead to osteoporosis. Recurrent sores in the mouth (apthous stomatitis) may be the only symptom in some patients.

Can Celiac’s Live A Normal Life?
The good news is that celiac disease is much more detectable now, thanks to more accurate blood testing, and can be almost completely cured with a change in diet. Following a strict gluten-free diet for the rest of one’s life requires enormous dedication and relentless detective work to uncover hidden sources of gluten. But when gluten is totally eliminated from the diet, improvement usually starts within days, and the small intestine is often completely healed (meaning the villi are restored) within three to six months.

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Editor’s Note, from Dr. Vic Shayne, Nutrition Research Center:
GLUTEN-FREE, SUPPORTIVE SUPPLEMENTS
FROM NUTRIPLEX FORMULAS:
CellPower, DetoxFormula, CalMag Balance, Fish Oils, CodLiver Oil, GreenNutrients, FlavoC

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