Home / About Us

About Us

“Improving lives by giving people the tools and information they need to manage their own health and work with their healthcare providers”

Meet the Founders

Cleo Libonati, RN, BSN, is a University of Pennyslvania graduate with nursing experience spanning thirty-five years in patient care, teaching and management positions. As a medical paralegal, she drafted Institutional Review Board (IRB) procedures for multiple IRBs responsible for protecting the rights of medical research participants. Her personal experience discovering celiac disease as the underlying cause of health problems dating back to childhood – and her resulting recovery – motivated her to author Recognizing Celiac Disease and create the Health Guide, the first medical references made specifically for people with celiac disease and gluten sensitivity. Cleo is the President of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Nursing Alumni Association, the oldest nursing alumni association in the United States.

John Libonati, BBA is President of Gluten Free Works, Inc. He publishes Glutenfreeworks.com, Recognizing Celiac Disease and the highly popular Gluten Free Works Facebook and Twitter pages. He has written dozens of articles on gluten and the gluten-free diet, has spoken to support groups across the United States and continually interacts with the gluten-free community. John is an Eagle Scout and fitness enthusiast who regularly lifts weights, competes in local running races and has completed ultramarathons as long as 100 miles.

What Is the Gluten Free Works Treatment Guide?

The Gluten Free Works Treatment Guide is go-to source of information on gluten, gluten sensitivity and celiac disease, translated into everyday language and formatted into a step by step process that anyone and everyone worldwide can use to help themselves and the people for which they care.

What Does the Treatment Guide Do?

The Gluten Free Works Treatment Guide provides accurate information gathered from medical journals around the world about gluten-related disorders, their symptoms, and the resulting nutrient deficiencies that cause ongoing health problems, so you can determine what is making you sick and how to take control of your health in order so you can get well and stay healthy.

The Gluten Free Works Treatment Guide Will Help You These Ways:

Gives you and anyone, anywhere in the world 24 hour access to accurate, usable medical information related to gluten sensitivity and celiac disease gathered from peer reviewed medical research from around the world.
Empowers you with the ability to treat gluten related disorders and the complications that stem from short and long term gluten exposure.
Helps you achieve optimal health and remain healthy by providing access to regularly updated information and resources including symptoms, nutrient deficiencies, dietary sources of nutrients, description of common medical treatments for symptoms, prevalence statistics and causes outside of nutrition or malabsorption.
Ultimately improves your life and reduces your health costs while enabling you to manage your own care and work with your healthcare providers.

How Did the Treatment Guide Come About?

The story begins in 2004, when the mother, son team of Cleo Libonati, RN, BSN and John Libonati, the publishers of Glutenfreeworks.com, were visiting the Philadelphia Celiac Sprue Support Group to attend a presentation. Cleo, a registered nurse, helped answer a number of questions during the Q and A session after the presentation. When members discovered Cleo was a nurse, they approached her afterward to ask about their symptoms. A crowd formed. She quickly realized that although these people were diagnosed, many were not receiving proper follow up treatment. Almost all had ongoing nutrient deficiencies that were causing their problems. Most did not realized how the other health problems they were suffering from were directly or indirectly caused by gluten.

At that time, John discovered that there was a large list of symptoms published by Dr. Luigi Greco in Italy. Dr. Greco was gracious enough to send John his full list of 156 symptoms. Cleo and John used this list and gathered medical research and case studies from around the world to expand the list to over 300 signs, symptoms, associated disorders and complications, and create Cleo’s groundbreaking medical reference, Recognizing Celiac Disease.

Recognizing Celiac Disease has sold thousands of copies to patients, doctors and other healthcare providers around the world, but it is a physical book which limits how many people can access it. Also, being a printed book, it was impossible to update regularly. We wanted to create a resource that patients, nurses and doctors anywhere in the world could use anytime of the day or night – and one that could be updated as soon as new research was published so people could remain up to date.

How Will the Treatment Guide Help Me?

Patients: Empower yourself by gaining a better understanding of how the damage gluten caused affects you even after diagnosis and adopting a gluten-free diet. Track and correct nutritional deficiencies and adapt your diet and treatment depending on how symptoms change.

Caregivers: Learn how gluten affects the people for which you care and how their various maladies may be connected to gluten and/or nutritional deficiencies and how to treat them.

Health Professionals: Keep up to date with the latest research about symptoms and treatments. The Health Guide provides you with information that you can use to treat your patients and give them so they can manage their condition effectively to obtain a positive prognosis.

Support Group Leaders: Gain access to information that will help your members and take the pressure off you to know everything while it gives your members information they can use to help themselves and each other.

Contact Us

Click here for contact information.

Gluten Free Works: TREATMENT GUIDE Get well and stay healthy living gluten free