Symptoms

May is Celiac Disease Awareness month. One in 100 people have Celiac Disease and only 3 percent are diagnosed in the United States. Part of the reason for the low rate of diagnosis is the range of symptoms of the disease.

A new video on Youtube does an excellent job of showcasing the many symptoms of Celiac Disease.

For more information about Celiac Disease visit the following websites: Read More »

Magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the body, providing an indication of just how important this nutrient is for the body.

Magnesium keeps us moving, thinking and behaving normally. Magnesium is a cofactor for more than 300 enzymes involved in the metabolism of food components and many products such as protein synthesis. It balances calcium in the body to maintain normal muscle and nerve function and works in concert with calcium to keep bones strong. It keeps heart rhythm steady and supports a healthy immune system. Magnesium is required for parathyroid hormone secretion, helps regulate blood sugar levels and promotes normal blood pressure.1

Studies show that magnesium deficiency is common in those with celiac disease. Read More »

A new documentary produced by Gary Null, a natural health advocate and activist, takes aim at our modern medical establishment and the various ways it could possibly be contributing to chronic illness, neurological phenomenon and conditions, and specifically, Autism.

Null delves into the relationship between vaccines, food, environmental pollutants, the childhood Autism pandemic in America and what can be done about the increasing numbers. According to the Center for Disease Control, as of 2010, 1 in every 110 children will be diagnosed with Autism. Read More »

The traditional look of celiac disease was an underweight person. However, a large minority (39%) are now found to be overweight at diagnosis.

A woman with a history of struggling to lose weight is diagnosed with celiac disease. After starting the gluten-free diet she loses 50 lbs in less than a year…seemingly without effort. A middle-aged man who has never had issues with his weight is diagnosed with celiac disease, adopts the gluten-free diet and begins to pack on pounds and doesn’t know why. A young man loses over 20 lbs in less than 3 months and reaches his ideal weight after going gluten-free.

These are true stories – in fact the last one was mine. Read More »

As common at they are, gluten allergies and elimination diets are still, many times, viewed as fringe alternative health practices and often don’t receive the mainstream validation they deserve. When some estimates show that nearly 1 in 30 people suffer at the hands of gluten, one would think the intolerance to this protein would finally gain more acceptance in mainstream medicine and media. One man, doctor and author Mark Hyman, is working to do just that.

Hyman, an M.D. in the field of functional medicine, pioneers techniques that aide the chronically-ill in improving their health and quality of life by determining the underlying causes of illness and treating according to those causes, as opposed to much mainstream medicine that focuses on treatments that champion subsistence and reliance on a medication. Doctor Hyman is a blogger for The Huffington Post and in a recent article, cites gluten allergies and Celiac Disease (even latent Celiac) as the cause for many ailments and conditions never previously associated with the grain protein. Read More »

The debate about autism and the effectiveness of the gluten-free, casein-free diet continues – this time due to irresponsible reporting of the mainstream news media who seem to have chosen sensationalism over objective journalism when covering an important medical paper on gastrointestinal disorders in autism.

This week, a panel of medical experts led by Timothy Buie, MD at Harvard Medical School published a consensus statement on the Evaluation, Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Disorders in Individuals with ASDs (Autism Spectrum Disorders) in the medical journal Pediatrics. You can find the full paper here.

The panel covered 23 topics in a document that is 20 pages in length, dealing with the diagnosis and care of individuals with autism spectrum disorders and gastrointestinal issues. The panel based its conclusions on available information which they agreed was limited and incomplete.

The Key Topic

“Individuals with autism spectrum disorders who present with gastrointestinal symptoms warrant a thorough evaluation, as would be undertaken for individuals without autism spectrum disorders who have the same symptoms or signs. Evidence based algorithms for the assessment of abdominal pain, constipation, chronic diarrhea, and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) should be developed.”

Some of the other topics include recommendations for the banking of DNA samples, the complexity of diagnostic evaluation when ASD and gastrointestinal disorders present, the need for studies to determine the prevalence of intestinal permeability in neuropsychiatric manifestions of ASD, and the need for large studies to determine the effectiveness of the gluten-free, casein-free diet. Read More »

“I only cheat once in awhile. You know, like twice a week…”

Photo: Suite101.com

If you have celiac disease, you damage your body EVERY TIME you ingest gluten. That may sound bad, but it gets worse.

You can DIE from celiac disease in a variety of ways. None of them are fun. Some take longer than others. Some may not kill you per se, but rather they may stop you from enjoying life, make you suffer from chronic pain or limit your potential.

Celiac disease is a deadly serious condition caused by eating what is essentially a poison to susceptible people – gluten proteins in wheat, barley, rye and oats.

Here are just 6 examples how celiac disease from gluten ingestion can kill you: Read More »

Saving a life means more than just keeping a person from dying. It means helping them get well.

While practicing medicine as a registered nurse, Cleo Libonati regularly saved people’s lives. Now her book “Recognizing Celiac Disease” is doing the same for people across the country and around the world.

Here is a letter telling how one family credits the book with saving their lives…

————————
Dear Cleo,

I have been “sick” most of my life (I turn 40 in July) with random things, too many to list here. I have been really sick the last 10 years, but started feeling as though I was “dying by the inch” in 2004. I finally broke down and went to my primary when premature ventricular contractions were occurring every 5-10 seconds that felt as though my heart was going to jump right out of my throat. I had many other random multiple sclerosis type symptoms, but the severity of the PVC’s were what scared me the most, that is until 2006. I began to have many gastro symptoms that kept me in the bathroom several times a day with alternating elimination problems, I couldn’t keep food down, and pain in the left side of my swollen, hard, tender abdomen every time I ate. I had an EGD and colonoscopy on 2/15/07. The three days before the test were the best I had felt in 4 years. Since I worked in Oncology and was used to seeing patients doing prep for them, I put myself on clear liquids 2 days before the Go-Lytely. So, I was gluten-free without knowing it for 3 days prior to testing. Read More »

About 20% of people with untreated celiac disease have chronic constipation instead of the classic symptom of diarrhea. As the rate of diagnosis improves, constipation is becoming recognized as a common symptom of celiac disease.

Constipation is a common problem in the general population of the United States. According to the National Institutes of Health, about 4 million people have frequent constipation. It is one of the most common digestive complaints in the United States, resulting in about 2.5 million doctor visits and 92,000 hospitalizations annually, although most people treat themselves. This high rate of constipation results in annual laxative sales of over $735 million in this country.

This article will discuss the following topics:

1. How to recognize constipation.

2. Natural remedies that have been shown to help constipation.

3. How to induce a bowel movement.

WHAT IS CONSTIPATION?

Constipation involves problems with stool formation, consistency, and evacuation. It is characterized by one or more of these features:

· Hard, dry stool or soft, putty-like stool.

· Difficult defecation.

· Infrequent defecation, less than one bowel movement per day.

· A feeling of incomplete evacuation following bowel movement.

Constipation can give rise to many different ailments including indigestion, a white coated tongue, bad breath, gas, hemorrhoids, hernia, body odor, depression, fatigue, headache, insomnia, and varicose veins.

The three main causes of constipation are abnormal bowel motility, malabsorption and dysbiosis. Each one, or all three together can cause constipation.

1. Abnormal bowel motility is altered peristalsis, where food passes through the intestine too slowly, due to ineffective muscle action of the intestines. It may take the form of spastic colon or atonic colon.

· Spastic colon is characterized by a spasms, (irregular and excessive muscle contractions of the intestinal walls), so that the muscles resist stretching and thereby decrease the diameter of the inside of the intestine. This restricts the passage of food.

Hard, dry stools are produced as the colon absorbs too much water from the slowly advancing stool. Spasms can result from magnesium deficiency, chronic stress, lack of exercise, lack of water or lack of fiber in the diet.

Spastic constipation is associated with variable degrees of abdominal pain or distress, erratic frequency of bowel action, and variation in stool consistency. Read More »

If you have been diagnosed with celiac disease, are following the gluten free diet yet are still sick, you may find this true story very helpful…

A few months ago, I was visiting the office of a celiac disease support organization. A woman in the office started asking me questions about her symptoms. She was diagnosed with celiac disease and following the gluten-free diet. She was suffering from peripheral neuropathy and a host of other health issues. We looked up her symptoms in our book “Recognizing Celiac Disease”and noticed trends that pointed to certain nutrient deficiencies. Symptom after symptom pointed to low folic acid, low thiamin, and low omega-3 fatty acids. When we looked up Thiamin Deficiency, she said she had almost every symptom listed.

At that point she said she couldn’t possibly have nutrient deficiencies. After her latest endoscopy with biopsy, her gastroenterologist told her that her villi in her small intestine had recovered and she was absorbing normally.

But, was she truly absorbing normally? Read More »