The first ever Gluten-Free for Life Expo will be held in St Petersburg on March 24, 2012 from 11:am to 4:pm at The Coliseum, 535 Forth Avenue N. The Gluten Intolerance Support Group of Largo presents this one-of-a-kind expo to provide information on the Gluten-Free lifestyle. The group’s goal is to increase awareness of Celiac Disease and Gluten–Intolerance and provide education and resources for the Gluten-Free Community.
Cleo Libonati explains the connection between gluten, nutritional deficiencies and health
Cleo Libonati, RN, BSN will be presenting “Identifying and Correcting Nutritional Deficiencies in Celiac Disease.” While many people recognize the need to remove gluten from the diet, the other side of getting well – how to identify and correct nutritional deficiencies – is less understood by patients and professionals alike. Cleo has spoken to medical schools, nurse practitioner associations, dietetic associations and gluten free support groups across the country where her presentation consistently receives rave (more…)
Gluten-free shamrock sugar cookies are buttery good, easy to make and a charmin’ St. Patrick’s Day cookie.
You will need a small (about 3/4-inch diameter) shamrock cookie cutter to use as a stencil on your cookies. If you can’t find this type of cookie cutter you can make your own stencil by tracing and cutting a shamrock shape on a plastic kitchen mat (available at most stores in housewares.)
I just learned of a new study being conducted by The National Foundation for Celiac Awareness (NFCA) and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Massachusetts to better understand the attitudes and beliefs of family members of persons with celiac disease.
More information on the study and how you can get involved follows:
Celiac disease occurs in 10% of first-degree family members, such as a parent or sibling, and up to 20% of second-degree family members, such as an aunt, uncle or
Imagine having the power to speak your mind. While you may be thinking to yourself that you already do speak your mind, I am talking about the power to tell every doctor in the world one thing. We asked our Facebook followers the following:
“If you could tell every doctor on the planet one thing, what would it be?”
After 19 comments, the top three things that would be said to every doctor in the world were: listen to their patients, trust what patients are saying and know more about food allergies.
Listening to your patients
Such a simple idea: listening. It is amazing that many doctors do not listen to their patients, or pretend to listen. Patients spend much time listening and mulling over what their doctors say, so why can’t doctors return the favor? Facebook follower Jenn Rheaume said, (more…)
Just last week BioLineRx, a biopharmaceutical development company announced successful pre-clinical testing of a potentially revolutionary treatment for celiac disease. This new treatment may help celiac disease patients reduce their gluten toxins to create an overall healthy body for all celiac disease patients.
Jerusalem, Israel – February 21, 2012 – BioLineRx (NASDAQ: BLRX; TASE: BLRX), a biopharmaceutical development company, announced the publication of pre-clinical results demonstrating that BL-7010, an orally available treatment for celiac disease, reduces gluten toxicity (the negative effect of gluten on the patient’s body). The research was published in the February edition of Gastroenterology.
The findings indicate that BL-7010 (previously called P(HEMA-co-SS)) reduces digestion of wheat gluten, thereby decreasing its (more…)
The FDA opened a 90 day comment period on gluten in medications. One of the things we learned from 1 in 133 is that when we make it clear how many people care about gluten labeling, movement happens. Let’s give the message that we feel this is important!
Gluten in Medications:
We know that most packaged foods on the grocery shelf in the U.S. will have straight-forward labeling, at least for ingredients containing wheat. However, this is not the case for medications, and finding accurate and timely information is much more challenging.
Standard prescription labels include only the active ingredients. So if your (more…)
In light of the recent article by Huffington Post entitled “Famous and Gluten Free?” it seems like the perfect time to update my article on celebrities who have been diagnosed with Celiac Disease to include those who are also gluten sensitive, wheat intolerant, or those who choose to eat gluten-free foods.
The term gluten free is being used in the media quite often. Sometimes it is use appropriately and other times the gluten-free diet is touted as a ‘fad diet’, ‘weight-loss diet’, ‘dangerous diet’, etc. Jeopardy recently used gluten free foods as a category.
It is also apparent that TV shows want to get in on the action and openly ‘mock’ the disease and perpetuate the ‘fad diet’ aspect. Gossip Girl, 2 Broke Girls, and Man Up are the recent offenders and it seems (more…)
This is a quote that a lot of people are hearing these days. What happens after your doctor says these words? Here is a synopsis of my journey; if any of this sounds familiar, give it some serious thought…there may be a very simple answer.
I first heard these words while I was barely concious, in a bed at Methodist Hospital in Houston. I had become so weak and debilitated by my undiagnosed and untreated celiac disease that my life was in danger. The symptoms over twenty years included gastrointestinal problems, fibromyalgia, irritability, bone pain and more. The good news was that I finally found out what was wrong with me; the better news was finding out that the disease is completely manageable through dietary changes alone.–no medications, no surgeries, none of that stuff. Just don’t eat grains that contain the gluten protein, mainly wheat, barley and rye. That sounded really good to me.
Not so fast. While still in the hospital, I was really still very sick, and not really able to process the information. After a couple of days (in which I was already improving), it dawned on me that (more…)
There are a number of nutrient deficiencies associated with Celiac and other autoimmune disorders. These occur not only BEFORE diagnosis, due to flattened villi and malabsorption, but AFTER diagnosis as well. It’s up to us to choose healthy, naturally gluten-free foods (like fruits, veggies, lean protein and brown rice) in order to feel the best we can. Even then, we may still have deficiencies.
I was diagnosed about 5 years ago. Although I have experienced dramatic improvements in my health, sleep quality, and energy level, I have still been dealing with some “weird” symptoms that I wasn’t sure were going to go away. These include eye floaters (which I’ve noticed for about 2 years now), shakiness and rapid pulse especially during the first half of the day, and carbohydrate intolerance. (Eating high carb meals have been giving me headaches). So…. I was VERY excited when I heard that Gluten Free Works was going to be offering NUTRITION TESTING. I couldn’t wait to try it out.
When I got my results back, I was AMAZED at how many nutrient deficiencies I still had after being Gluten-Free for this many years. I came up deficient in:
VITAMIN A (this explained the eye floaters) CHROMIUM (I had never heard of chromium before now, but this explained my problem with carbs. I have since read that a deficiency in Chromium leads to DIABETES… so I’m glad I figured this out now, rather than later ;) SELENIUM (had never heard of that one either) (more…)
On December 13, I posted a question on the Glutenfreeworks Facebook page to ask people who had adopted a gluten-free diet if they no longer needed medications they had been taking. The response was incredible. Dozens of people described how they no longer needed drugs, some of which they had been taking for years or decades.
Here is my post and their responses…
“I gave a presentation to a group and mentioned a friend who had been on Zantac for 20 years. I went on to say that once she went gluten-free the acid reflux disappeared. A woman in the audience stood up and said the same thing happened to her – she had been on it since she was 10 (I’m guessing she was in her mid to late 30s.).
My question for you is what medication (of any kind) were you on, before you went gluten-free, that you no longer need to take and how long did it take before you did not need it anymore?”