Celiac Disease - How Many of You Are Familiar with Celiac Disease or Also Known as the Gluten Allergy?

Michelle Bernhardt

Sarah Burnett

Foundation of writing

4 November 2015

Celiac Disease

How many of you are familiar with celiac disease or also known as the gluten allergy?

More and more families are becoming more familiar with the disease. I am directly familiar with it because I among other members of my family have been diagnosed with celiac disease. This subject has been becoming well known as more diagnoses are coming out. It is estimated that 83% of Americans who have celiac disease are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed with other conditions. Six to ten years is the average time a person waits to be correctly diagnosed. (Source: Daniel Leffler, MD, MS, The Celiac Center at Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center) In my research paper you will read of the functions of celiacs disease. You also learn about the treatments and the side effects. You will read what exactly triggers the reaction and how people are test for this disease. You will also read on how people live everyday with celiac disease in the struggles they face.

Celiac disease is an immune reaction to the consumption of gluten. Gluten is found in wheat rye and barley.  When people eat gluten it attacks the small intestine. These attacks lead to damage on the villi. Villi are hair like fiber found in the small intestine, they serve in absorbing nutriment. This reaction brings inflammation that damages the small intestine's lining and prevents interest of some nutrients. Celiac disease is a genetic autoimmune disease it can be

Triggered at some point in your life by an emotional or physical stress (Demers). Celiac is not a virus nor bacterial infection therefore it cannot be “caught”, however you could pass it on to your kids through your genes. A small percent of people that have got celiac disease without the gene. (Mayo Clinic)

Celica’s disease was first detected in the 2nd century what causes of celiac disease or not found until the 20th century. In 250 ad. , Aristaeus of Cappadocia had talked about this unnamed disease in his writings. When describing his patients he referred to them as "koiliakos," which meant "suffering in the bowels" (misc).  Francis Adams translated these observations from Greek to English for the Sydenham Society of England in 1856. He thus gave sufferers the moniker "celiacs" or "coeliacs." In 1888, Samul Gee presented clinical accounts of children and adults with celiac disease at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in the United Kingdom. Gee stated, “To regulate the food is the main part of treatment. The allowance of farinaceous foods must be small, but if the patient can be cured at all, it must be by means of diet” (Kam) What Samuel Gee was saying was the children need to go on a diet. The diet consisted of no gluten at all.

According to Viktorfischer (he has his master’s degree in science), “Gluten refers to the proteins found in wheat endosperm (a type of tissue produced in seeds that's ground to make flour). Gluten both nourishes plant embryos during germination and later affects the elasticity of dough, which in turn affects the chewiness of baked wheat products. Gluten is actually composed of two different proteins: gliadin (a prolamin protein) and glutenin (a glutelin protein). Though "true gluten" is sometimes defined as being specific to wheat, gluten is often said to be part of other cereal grains — including rye, barley and various crossbreeds — because these grains also contain protein composites made from protamine and glutelins” (Viktorfischer).

Some symptoms and signs of celiac disease occurred differently in patients. According to Mayo Clinic start Rs classic signs of celiac disease are diarrhea and weight loss in the most people with celiac disease experience few or no symptoms at all. " only 1/3 of the people diagnosed with celiac disease experience diarrhea and about half of them experienced weight loss. 10% of celiac patients experienced obesity and 20% of celiacs disease patients experienced weight loss" ( Mayo Clinic).  According to mayo clinic, Additional signs and symptoms of celiac disease are:

• Anemia
• Loss of bone density or softening of bone
• Itchy, blistery skin rash
• Headaches and fatigue
• Nervous system injury
• Joint pain
• Acid reflux and heartburn

 Most the signs and symptoms do not occur in the patient for instance with my gluten allergy I only experienced diarrhea rash itchiness and anemia and occasionally heartburn. But on the other hand my mother occurs just blisters and headache

You can test for celiac disease with blood tests. It's important for you to understand before undergoing the celiacs disease test blood test or biopsy it is very important to continue eating a regular gluten consuming diet. If you stop eating gluten then get tested for celiac disease the results may vary it will become negative because your body has got used to the non-gluten diet this test result may say you do not have celiacs disease even if you really do. (Viktorfischer) Therefore if you started a gluten free diet before being tested for celiac disease you might need to undergo a gluten challenge. The challenges you eat gluten again. During the blood test they will measure the levels of certain antibodies if the antibiotic levels turn out to be high the patient has celiac disease. (Demers)