h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... and Cœliac disease

Is there any shadow of a possibility of a product being developed that could have a beneficial effect for long enough to sufficiently digest a meal?

I don't *think* so: it doesn't make logical sense to use a probiotic to treat coeliac disease.

Coeliac disease, as you know is a disease caused by an allergy to gluten, so gluten causes the body to destroy the gut and mean that you can't adsorb food.

Probiotics: well they're agents that encourage bacterial growth in the gut. They wouldn't affect the allergy to gluten.

Ah, disease yes, I knew that bit, but not the mechanism (both my [adult] kids found they have it, one quite badly).
Bugger.

You said gluten causes the body to destroy the gut. Presumably the gut repairs itself (to some extent) otherwise I suspect No1 Son wouldn't still be here & Dorty would be worse off than she is - ?

It doesn't cause the body to destroy the *whole* gut, just a very specific part of it, the 'villi' which are the little folds in the small bowel. So the gut doesn't burst but it does get to a stage where it can't adsorb the nutrients in the diet.

If you manage to exclude gluten from the diet they do regrow, and you can adsorb food again.

That makes sense, most instructive, ta.

It's been suggested to me that there are many more, worse affected, people in recent years and that a (the?) cause is a proliferation of hard wheat in western diets, so that mildly affected people have become sensitised. Certainly both kids were adult before they found out (within a year or so of each other & they're 11 years apart).

Something we noticed after moving here to NZ (2 years ago):
In UK there had been a recent, noticeable, increase in gluten-free foodstuffs on the shelves, whereas in NZ it was & is pretty much everywhere - many if not most cafes & restaurants have it on offer. Quite a few say all their stuff is (though No1 Son doesn't believe half of 'em do it properly, including an otherwise rather good Indian).

Yes, there's a big difference between properly gluten free, and actually not including gluten, different cooking areas etc.

I don't know about the incidence, it could be that we're all exposed to more wheat, or it could be that we're just better and diagnosing it!

We also get a lot of people who think that they are gluten sensitive but to be honest aren't, and they often claim to have coeliac disease. Though they wouldn't notice if the restaurant wasn't that great at keeping things gluten free.

Better at diagnosing it. Yea, that makes sense, too - makes you shudder at the thought of all those poor sods in the past with all sorts of conditions that are straightforward nowadays ... a sickly child, eh?

Anyway, I'm off for a MaltBeforeBed & it's not safe to post thereafter (or during).

Most instructive, Z. Thank you.



G'night

The main symptoms of coeliacs are often weight loss and malnutrition, that's not going to be as noticeable if you life in post war england where everyone had malnutrition.