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[UPDATE: Recognizing Celiac Disease has been converted and expanded into our Gluten Free Works Health Guide.]

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 »

by John Libonati

Here are six important facts about celiac disease in the United States:

1. Doctors do not understand celiac disease. 97% of celiacs are not diagnosed. Diagnosis takes over 10 years on average and follow up treatment is poor.

2. Doctors do not understand nutrition. Medical schools do not teach it, so doctors generally do not look for nutrient deficiencies unless you are emaciated.

3. Most of the 300 health problems stemming from celiac disease are due to nutrient deficiencies.

4. Comparing symptoms with one another does not work in celiac disease because symptoms change over time and everyone absorbs or malabsorbs nutrients differently. You may absorb everything but vitamin B12. Another person will not absorb calcium or vitamin D. Even siblings sometimes have totally different symptoms.

5. Symptoms from nutrient deficiencies show up before intestinal damage occurs, but also after starting the gluten-free diet depending on the degree of damage and quality of diet.

6. Most celiacs do not realize how sick they really are. They think, “This is me. I’ve always been this way.” They end up spending thousands of dollars on lotions, salves, medications and surgeries when the root of their problem has been a missing nutrient or nutrients all along.

You need to understand gluten and how celiac disease affects your body if you want to be healthy.

You must be able to identify health problems and the nutritional deficiencies that cause them so you can add the missing nutrients to your diet and inform your doctor to help him treat you.

You need the book, Recognizing Celiac Disease.

Recognizing Celiac Disease teaches you everything about gluten, celiac disease, the health problems it causes and what you need to fix them.

Thousands of celiacs around the world are using Recognizing Celiac Disease…because it works.

“Having been dx with CD for one year, I reached saturation – almost overload point a few months ago. Then I read the summary of “Recognizing Celiac Disease” and felt it might encompass everything I had referenced across numerous articles and books – and more. I love being able to look in the index and go to detailed information in my struggle to ensure my nutritional requirements and deficiencies are being met and addressed.” – Reta McCallum, TX

Read how this one of a kind book is helping others at www.recognizingceliacdisease.com.

Order your copy of Recognizing Celiac Disease today. Review it and bring it with you to your next doctor visit. This way you can work with your doctor to make sure you get the best treatment possible.

Visit www.recognizingceliacdisease.com for more information and to see what others are saying.

Health Alert – Microbes Matter – Probiotics a.k.a. Good Bacteria in Your Gut

Strange as it seems, our well-being is uniquely tied to the condition of our colon, which is commonly unhealthy at diagnosis of celiac disease. To keep our colon healthy, we need to understand what happens there on a microscopic level.  Hundreds of varieties of intestinal microbe populations called “flora” live there, numbering in the billions.  To put these numbers into focus, dead bacteria make up about a third of each bowel movement.  Our resident microbes, whether beneficial or harmful, play a decisive role in nourishing or damaging the cells that form the intestinal lining.  Probiotic and prebiotic foods and supplements restore and feed our friendly microbes.

Probiotic flora inhibit colonization of pathogens by physically preventing them from adhering to the gut lining.  Other important functions are:

• Produce short chain fatty acids (SCFA)s.  SCFAs are important and necessary energy byproducts formed during fermentation of undigested carbohydrates in the colon by flora.  SCFAs nourish the colonocytes, the cells that line the colon. They also help absorb salts and water from stool.

• Produce a form of vitamin K and appreciable amounts of biotin.

• Reduce the presence of putrefactive enzymes.

• Protect against toxic substances.

• Contribute to normal bowel movements.

For these reasons, we need to use probiotics and prebiotics every day to improve our overall health and specifically our intestinal health.  This is especially important if fatigue, weakness, achiness, depression, foggy thinking and digestive problems continue while maintaining a gluten-free diet. 

(This Health Alert was taken from information found in Issue #9 – Microbes Matter of the Gluten Free Gazette.)  Celiac disease is a hereditary, auto-immune disorder estimated to affect 1% of the human population (3 million in the

US). Less than 3 % are estimated to be medically diagnosed, but numbers are expected to rapidly increase as diagnosis improves. Celiac disease is caused by the ingestion of wheat, barley, rye and oats and treated by removing these items from the diet. Signs, symptoms, associated disorders and complications can affect any part of the body and removal of the offending foods can result in complete recovery.  Visit Glutenfreeworks.com for more information.

You can definitely die from celiac disease, in a variety of ways:

1. Dehydration – Extreme damage to the intestinal lining can lead to death through dehydration.  In this case, the lining that is supposed to hold water in your body no longer functions.  The gut actually pulls water from your body.

2. Malignancies – Malabsorption of nutrients or consistent damage to cellular structures leads to cancers: lymphoma, leukemia, intestinal, esophageal, etc.

3. Pregnancy complications – Nutrient deficiencies can lead to cardiomyopathy in the mother or birth defects in the fetus from folic acid deficiency, protein deficiency, etc.

4. Immunodeficiency – A weakened immune system can allow common illnesses to become deadly – the flu for example.  Other illnesses normally fought off, are not.

5. Autoimmune diseases – Celiac disease, if not diagnosed and treated early, causes the body to react to other things in the body.  As the body tries to unsuccessfully attack and remove gluten (because the person keeps eating it), the immune system stays on a heightened alert and starts attacking other things.

6. Malnutrition – Any health problem that comes from malnutrition of any one or more nutrient that can lead to death can be caused by celiac disease.

Here are just 6 examples of how celiac disease can kill you.  It is a deadly serious condition caused by eating what is essentially a poison to susceptible people – people with celiac disease.

The gluten-free diet is the elimination of gluten from the diet.  That is only the first step.  The next step is determining any health problems that have arisen and treating them.  The final step is ongoing identification of health problems that arise in the future to determine how to treat yourself.

-John Libonati

John Libonati is Vice President and co-Founder of Gluten Free Works, Inc. He can be reached at john.libonati@glutenfreeworks.com.