Celiac disease

The following questions concern whether villous atrophy can be caused by milk and whether anemia can result from milk ingestion. The answer is yes: bovine beta casein enteropathy can cause both. See full explanation below.

Question:Does anyone know can a deficiency in lactase enzyme cause the villi to be blunted? My 3 year old son just had an endoscopy and it showed the villi are blunted.

My son has a lactase deficiency and has been gluten free for 18 months. We took him off lactose for the first 6 months after being diagnosed but then added it back and he seemed fine for 6 months.

So I am hoping maybe the fact that he was drinking a lot of milk caused the villi to be blunted and not ingesting any gluten?

Also, can that cause anemia?

My son is also slightly anemic. But we are very strict with his diet and I am pretty sure he is not getting any gluten ( i know its possible but I don’t think so… his diet hasn’t changed..)

Celiac antibody blood tests indicate he is not getting gluten?

So i am wondering if the lactose could be causing the villi to be blunted and the anemia???

Thanks,
S

Answer:
Dear S,

The most common cause of villous atrophy in people with celiac disease is unintentional gluten ingestion. This answer assumes no gluten is being ingested.

Cow dairy can cause an enteropathy similar to celiac disease. It is called Bovine Beta Casein Enteropathy. It acts like celiac disease, causing inflammation leading to villous blunting. The milk protein elicits the antibody reaction just like gluten does in celiac disease.

The resulting villous blunting would explain lactose intolerance, as the lactase enzymes needed to digest lactose are produced and release near the tips of the villi. If the villi are blunted, no lactase is being produced and milke digestion does not occur.

Bovine beta casein enteropathy is marked by diarrhea, failure to thrive, vomiting, atopic eczema and recurrent respiratory infections. It causes malabsorption of nutrients, just like celiac disease, so it can lead to nutrient deficiencies including anemia. 12% of those with bovine beta casein enteropathy are found to have celiac disease.

-John Libonati

Source: Gluten Free Works Health Guide: Bovine Beta Casein Enteropathy.

There are 36 Brain Disorders Cause by Gluten Sensitivity and Celiac Disease listed in the Gluten Free Works Health Guide.

How they are caused and treatment are presented. The people who follow the steps provided in the Health Guide DO recover…which is SO AWESOME TO SEE!!! :)

It’s all right here. Everything you need to fix yourself and maintain your health, and your brain.

Read more. >>> Gluten Free Works Health Guide: Symptoms Affecting the Brain

According to the Centers for Disease Control, as of 2006, 33.1% of women were choosing to exclusively breastfeed their newborn from 0-3 months of age. At the one-year mark, only 22.7% of women were still breastfeeding their baby (non-exclusively).

The American Academy of Pediatrics Committee, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Canadian Pediatric Society, the Pediatric Society of New Zealand, and other similar organizations in various countries worldwide have all made statements on infant feeding and the appropriate time to introduce solid foods into a baby’s diet. The current consensus is that solid food should not be introduced until at least the age of 4-6 months, if not later. Read More »

I was looking back at old drafts of posts that I’ve written over the years but never published, and I found this rant on the 1200 calorie weight loss myth. Since it’s the last day of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week  and the first day of National Nutrition Month, I figured it would be a good time to share it. (Editor’s note: Originally published March 1, 2014)

Not a week goes by that I don’t see a client who truly believes she/he needs to be following a 1200 calories diet to lose weight or be healthy. It seems to be the #1 nutrition myth.

Despite what the intertubes may say, a 1200 cal diet is not considered standard professional weight loss advice. Honest.There is, of course, plenty of bad advice and/or controversy out there, because that sells. There’s also a whole lot of standard nutrition advice that I heartily disagree with, but that’s another post. Take a  look at 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 »

Gluten in bread can wreak havoc on the body. (AP Photo/S Ilic)

If you’re sensitive to gluten, a protein found in wheat, and foods made from wheat, it can make you more susceptible to herpes. Herpes, a virus that forms blisters on the skin, mouth and genitals causes what are called cold sores or fever blisters. It is highly contagious and may keep coming back, causing repetitive infections. Read More »

A five year old Canadian boy, diagnosed with severe autism, was cured when the true cause of his mental disorder was found to be celiac disease and he was treated with a gluten-free diet and nutritional supplements.

Photo originally posted to Flickr as “Jack”

His autism was cured because he was never really autistic in the first place. He had celiac disease, an immune response to wheat, barley, rye and oats that damages the intestines leading to malabsorption of nutrients.

Gluten-restricted diets have become increasingly popular among parents seeking treatment for children diagnosed with autism.(1)

What if certain children who are diagnosed with autism actually have celiac disease?

Neurological disorders stemming from celiac disease have been widely documented in medical literature. Some of these conditions include poor balance, tremors, migraines, chronic fatigue, schizophrenia, epilepsy, apathy, depression, insomnia, behavioral disorders, inability to concentrate and anxiety.(2)

Many of these issues are due to nutritional deficiencies resulting from the intestinal damage that celiac disease causes. If caused by celiac disease, they improve once gluten is removed from the diet and the intestine heals and functions properly.

Genuis and Bouchard, researchers at the University of Alberta, recently published the case of the 5-year-old boy who had been diagnosed with severe autism at a specialty clinic for autistic spectrum disorders. After an initial investigation suggested underlying celiac disease and varied nutrient deficiencies, a gluten-free diet was instituted.(1) His diet and supplements were adjusted to secure nutritional sufficiency.

The patient’s gastrointestinal symptoms rapidly resolved, and signs and symptoms suggestive of autism progressively abated.(1)

This case is an example of a common malabsorption syndrome (celiac disease) associated with central nervous system dysfunction and suggests that in some cases, nutritional deficiency may be a cause of developmental delay.

Genuis and Bouchard recommended that all children with neurodevelopmental problems Read More »

Whether due to malabsorption from an undiagnosed syndrome like celiac disease, poor diet or defective activation of nutrients, many people are not receiving or utilizing the nutrients their bodies need to thrive.

The human body is tough. You can operate at sub-optimal levels for years or decades before a clinical symptom becomes apparent or is recognized as resulting from a deficiency.

Unfortunately, this recognition frequently comes only after symptoms have become so severe as to significantly impact your health.  Until that point, medications and surgeries are more likely to be used as treatments, neither of which correct the underlying cause of the deficiency.

In fact, many drugs exacerbate nutrient depletion.  So, while they may improve your symptoms in the short term, they can cause more harm than good in the long term.

Many prescription and non-prescription medications can deplete nutrients by any of these ways:

1. Preventing normal digestion and/or absorption, so nutrients cannot get into the body.

2. Interfering with nutrient transport and/or use in the body, so nutrients cannot Read More »

If you or someone you know has a child with a mental illness, behavioral problem or unexplained neurological issue, you must watch this video. It vividly illustrates how gluten and celiac disease can cause neurological illnesses and how removing gluten from the diet can improve or cure the child. [Note: The title says two videos because there were two videos originally, but Youtube removed them. A reader informed us about the one below. Originally posted May 2009.]

Eamon Murphy started exhibiting mental aberrations and problems eating at three months of age. By the time he was three, his parents were frantically trying to understand what had caused his developmental delay in walking and talking, and now his trances, seizure-like episodes and regression. After a determined effort by his mother and a series of extraordinarily lucky events, he was finally diagnosed with celiac disease…and Read More »

Candida albicans is a fungus present in our mouth at all times. It can cause a problem if it grows unchecked. This condition is called candida overgrowth or thrush.

This video describes the circumstances that causes it to grow and become a problem. A quick, simple remedy is provided that works.

A more in depth remedy that will help stop and correct candida albicans in the digestive system can be found in our Gluten Free Works Health Guide: Candida Albicans section.