Now that Thanksgiving is over, the next few weeks are likely to be filled with many treats of the food and drink variety. Following the gluten-free diet can be helpful in avoiding some of those treats; don’t view having to avoid these gluten-filled treats as a bad thing – view it as avoiding excess calories and fat and treat yourself to something that is gluten-free and worth a small indulgence. Those small indulgences can be a glass of red wine with dinner, a small serving of dark chocolate or even something non-food related like a new workout top, a book that has been on your “must read” list or some new tunes for your workout playlist.
If Holiday treats are unavoidable, try to practice smart portion control and (more…)
This is the article I wrote on Health and Wellness for the Autism Community Magazine.
I recently heard Rebecca Onie speak on TedTalk about the current healthcare system in the US. She poses the questions: “What if our health care system kept us healthy? What if waiting rooms were a place to improve daily healthcare? What if doctors could/would prescribe/facilitate diet and lifestyle change and improve health?” The work the patient needs to do is not done after the prescription is (more…)
May is National Celiac Disease Awareness Month, so it seems appropriate to share some medical facts about this autoimmune disease that just might shock you.
These facts come from Dr. Tom O’Bryan who is is a nationally recognized speaker and workshop leader specializing in gluten sensitivity and celiac disease. Dr. O’Bryan’s specialty is in teaching the many manifestations of gluten sensitivity and celiac disease as they occur inside and outside of the (more…)
For me, being happily gluten-free means eating many different kinds of foods—from meats to nuts—rather than just trying to replace bread products. This approach has sent me into the world of legumes, and I eat lots of beans. As a result, I’ve become more interested in the nutritional value of beans. More specifically, I began to wonder why beans are considered an “incomplete” protein.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never really understood the term: incomplete protein. I know we have to “complete” the protein with other food, but what does that mean, and how are we supposed to do it?
Clearly, it was time to do some research, and here is what I learned. (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?”
It is well documented that only a small minority of those with celiac disease are successfully diagnosed in a medical setting.
Gluten sensitivity, which we based on medical research and proposed in Recognizing Celiac Disease in 2007, has only recently been accepted as a true medical condition. So we decided to hold an informal survey to see just how people are becoming gluten-free? How are they finding out that gluten sensitivity or celiac disease are the cause of their health problems and are doctors diagnosing them or are they figuring it out on their own?
We posted this question to our GlutenFreeWorks Facebook friends and here are their answers. Were YOU diagnosed by a doctor? Leave your comments below!(more…)
I have had the opportunity to connect with Dr. Stephen Wangen, the founder of the IBS Treatment Center in Seattle, WA. Awhile back, at a CSA (Celiac Sprue Association) meeting I had the pleasure of helping Dr. Wangen with his book signing. He had flown in to Denver to speak on his books, Healthier Without Wheat and Irritable Bowel Syndrome Solution. There was a full audience of folks, just like you and I, who were able to ask personal questions and learn more about living with Celiac Disease, gluten intolerance, as well as exploring other areas such as food allergies.
Since that time, Dr. Wangen and I have had the chance to talk about what the IBS Treatment Center does to help people really understand their bodies and how food can be affecting them. He explores the possibilities of Celiac Disease, gluten intolerance and food allergies and helps people to develop a healthier lifestyle tailored to their specific needs. At the same time, Dr. Wangen has observed the emotional affects these conditions can have on people and understands that not feeling well emotionally has an affect on how people take care of their physical well being. What makes his practice so fantastic is the positive nature. Dr. Wangen helps people view the changes by looking at the benfits and the gains and focusing on what people can have, rather than on what they can’t. Here is what Dr. Wangen had to say when I asked him about his own experiences. (more…)
In the past few weeks, I’ve had the chance to ponder the question “What is healthy food?” It seems that many of us have very different perceptions. Maybe that’s what stands in our way some times, we think healthy food and healthy eating is not obtainable.
It would be so much easier if my brain did not crave things like salty chips or sweet cookies but the reality is, it does. Maybe it’s a combination of many years of being bombarded with advertising to make me think I want it or maybe it’s as simple as it satisfies something in my head. I didn’t take enough psychology in college to answer that. I do know if it’s around me (like it is now as I write; you wouldn’t believe what is at the end of the table at my sister’s house) I’m less likely to eat well.
In my older years, I have realized that if I allow myself a little rather than denying myself entirely, I can balance the cravings with (more…)
In Part 1 of this article about nutrient deficiencies in the gluten-free population, I posed four critiques and questions that I promised to answer in today’s part 2. Without further ado, here we go…
Critique #1 questioned the small sample size of the research. I can’t do anything about that, and there’s not much to be said about it, so let’s move on.
Next, I think it’s easiest to address critique #3: How did nutrient deficiencies in the gluten-free population compare to Americans as a whole? To answer that question, I pulled data regarding nationwide averages from the USDA’s Community Nutrition Mapping Project. If I amend yesterday’s table that showed the percent of the gluten-free population who are deficient in given nutrients, and add to it a column for the national averages, this is what you find:
Nutrient
GF Deficiency
Nationwide Deficiency
fiber
74%
92%
calcium
82%
69%
thiamin
59%
19%
riboflavin
25%
11%
B6
35%
26%
folate
85%
40%
B12
29%
20%
iron
41%
11%
These numbers change the perspective a bit, I think. It’s not simply that the gluten-free population is nutrient deficient. When you compare us to the national averages, it gets slightly more complex. In some cases, such as folate, riboflavin, thiamin, and iron, we’re two or more times as deficient (as a group) than the nation. However, in other cases, such as B12, B6, and calcium, we still have greater rates (more…)
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