Press Release Author = Lani K. Thompson/Clan Thompson
Industry = Healthcare
Press Release Summary = Not everyone who gets better on a gluten free diet has
celiac disease, according to Dallas doctor, Kenneth Fine. That's because celiac
sprue is just the tip of the iceberg.
Press Release Body = 20% of Americans have an auto-immune problem - and "it's almost
certainly related to gluten sensitivity", Dr. Kenneth Fine told those who attended
his "Intestinal Health.and Beyond" Conference in Dallas, TX. That's because there's
an increased risk of other auto-immune diseases developing in a person with celiac
disease when the diagnosis is made later in life.
Dr. Fine's lecture was called "Early Diagnosis of Gluten Sensitivity Using Fecal
Testing: Report of an 8-Year Study". In it, he discussed the spectrum of gluten
sensitivity vs. celiac disease, the shortcomings of blood tests and biopsies for
gluten sensitivity, and how stool testing has overcome these shortcomings and
revealed the problem to be more extensive than previously known.
Celiac Disease is an autoimmune disorder. Patients can't eat wheat, rye, oats, or
barley or ingredients derived from them. When they do, it causes damage to their
small intestine. Symptoms vary widely, as do their severity. Some people don't have
any symptoms. Others experience diarrhea, fatigue, unexplained weight loss,
depression, and more. There is no cure, but the disease can be treated with a gluten
free diet. However, not everyone who gets better on the gluten free diet has celiac
disease, said Dr. Fine. "Celiac sprue is just the tip of the iceberg of gluten
induced disease".
"We now know, not only is there this spectrum of change in the intestine and in the
symptoms, but.we can actually identify people who seem to be gluten sensitive but
never have the villous atrophy" that is seen in full blown celiac disease. Blood
tests help, but they are not 100% reliable. That's because Celiac Sprue is really
the end disease and it is only in the end stages of this disease that doctors have
100% reliability of the tests currently used to diagnose it. In fact, each of the
two blood tests that are commonly used to make a diagnosis are only accurate 59% of
the time.
As a young researcher, Dr. Fine discovered that 64% of people with microscopic
colitis have celiac-like genes and most of the others had another set of genes never
before reported in an inflammatory condition associated with gluten sensitivity.
When the small bowel biopsies were examined, they were abnormal in 70% of the
patients.but it was not celiac disease. There was no villous atrophy and, when they
looked at the blood, there were no more antigliadin antibodies than there are in the
general population.
"You have to get inside the intestine to see what's going on immunologically," Dr.
Fine said. The best way to do this is through fecal analysis. Fecal analysis is
superior to blood testing because it is more sensitive to the presence of the
offending proteins, and it is less invasive.
By comparing test results of untreated celiacs with patients who have microscopic
colitis, symptomatic and asymptomatic people, Dr. Fine was able to show that "at a
minimum, 29-30% of the general population and 50-75% of people with irritable bowel
syndrome, microscopic colitis, perhaps other forms of inflammatory bowel disease and
autoimmune disease" have the antigliadin antibodies in their stool.
Unlike other tests for gluten intolerance, Dr. Fine's stool test is not invasive and
it's more sensitive than other tests, too. It can help identify gluten sensitivity
before significant intestinal damage is done, before autoimmune diseases can
develop, and before gluten intolerance becomes full-fledged celiac sprue.
Dr. Kenneth Fine is the Medical Director/Director of Operations for EnteroLab.com
Reference Laboratory. You can visit him online at www.EnteroLab.com or
www.finerhealth.com.
Lani K. Thompson is one of the partners of Clan Thompson, a company that publishes
Celiac SmartLists - software programs that list thousands of gluten free products
available in US and Canadian stores. Download a free demo at www.clanthompson.com.
Web Site = http://www.clanthompson.com
Contact Details = Lani K. Thompson
42 Green St.
Bridgton, ME 04009
email: lani@clanthompson.com
2022
