Are You Suffering from Celiac Disease or Gluten Intolerance?

Have you had an upset stomach or felt bloated after eating wheat bread? If this happens quite often, then you might be suffering from a form of food allergy known as Celiac disease.

Those suffering from Celiac disease, also known as gluten intolerance, cannot digest gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye.

When someone with Celiac disease eats gluten, an autoimmune response is triggered, provoking the body to attack itself and destroy healthy tissues, especially the villi in the small intestine.

All nutrients are absorbed in the intestine through the villi, and if this delicate mechanism is damaged, it can cause all sorts of problems such as chronic diarrhea, gas, bloating, reflux and constipation.

More serious concerns include malabsorption of nutrients (leading to malnourishment) and the “leaky gut syndrome,” wherein undigested proteins and plant toxins called lectins enter the bloodstream to wreak havoc on the immune system.

Celiac disease can also manifest in ways having nothing to do with the digestive system. Other people experience fatigue, joint pain, mouth ulcers, bone pain, and abnormal menstruation and infertility in women. That is why many doctors tend to misdiagnose it or mistreat it. One study has shown that it takes an average of 11 years for patients to receive a correct diagnosis. (Read more about the symptoms of Celiac Disease at Mercola.com.)

A decade ago, it was believed that Celiac disease affected only one out of every 10,000 Americans. But a 2004 report estimated that as many as one in every 133 Americans have Celiac disease. That’s roughly 2 million people!

Celiac disease is believed to be inherited to some extent. The nature of a person’s gluten sensitivity may stem directly from the chemical nature of gluten, but is mostly due to a reaction that occurs in the immune system of individuals who have certain genes that recognize gluten as a foreign protein, and therefore, toxic.

Why Is Gluten Toxic for Some People?

Early men were hunter-gatherers and humans as a species only began consuming grains 6,000 years ago, when agriculture was discovered. It is believed that man’s shift from a hunting and gathering lifestyle allowed the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt to flourish. These two civilizations were among the first to cultivate grains.

The gluten-rich grains that we eat today are actually domesticated and are genetically hybridized versions of what originally were wild grasses. Wheat, barley, rye and oats are genetic derivatives of wild grass, which may explain why eating a wild plant may be toxic for certain people.

For Dr. Joseph Mercola, the prevalence of Celiac disease provides more evidence that modern humans have not evolved mechanisms to cope with foods that are rich in starch and sugars.

Dr. Mercola explains that a diet high in grains causes more serious problems than Celiac disease because 65 percent of Americans are overweight and 27 percent are clinically obese. Why? Because of an addiction to sesame seed buns for that hamburger, French fries and a Coke.

Mercola believes that it’s not the fat in the food that we eat but the excess carbohydrates from our grain-rich and sugar-loaded diets that is making people overweight and unhealthy, leading to epidemic levels of chronic illnesses such as diabetes.

Gluten intolerance can be treated very easily by eliminating gluten and most grains from your diet. If you’re suffering from Celiac disease or simply want to get healthy, then the No-Grain Diet will work wonders for you.

Gene Turns Carbohydrates into Fat; Cure to Obesity Found?

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley have discovered a gene which regulates a process in the liver that converts carbohydrates into fat.

This study offers new clues as to how the body metabolizes carbohydrates and how they contribute to obesity.

The research team, led by Professor Hei Sook Sul of UC Berkeley’s Department of Nutritional Science and Toxicology believe that the gene, DNA-PK (DNA-dependent protein kinase ), is critical to a metabolic process scientists have been trying to understand for 20 years.

Your blood glucose levels – the digested form of carbohydrates – go up after you eat a carb-rich food like pizza and wash it down with soda. That spike in blood glucose triggers the secretion of insulin, which helps different cells in your body use glucose for energy.

Glucose in the liver that isn't used up for energy is converted into fatty acids, which then circulate to other parts of the body, primarily to fat tissue.

The process of converting excess glucose into fatty acids occurs in the liver. Scientists have been unable to determine the exact molecular pathway involved prior to the discovery of DNA-PK.

What they did know was that insulin binds to receptors on the liver cells and activates protein phosphatase-1 (PP1), the first molecule of the insulin-signaling pathway inside the liver. Sul's lab had previously shown that upstream stimulatory factor (USF) is needed to activate certain genes, such as fatty acid synthase (FAS), which converts glucose to fatty acids.

The link between PP1 and USF was a mystery until a UC Berkeley graduate student in comparative biochemistry finally connected the dots in Sul’s lab and discovered that DNA-PK, which is regulated by PP1, signals the activation of USF and the process of converting glucose to fatty acids.

The research team determined that DNA-PK acts as a signaling molecule in the chain reaction that begins when insulin binds to receptors on liver cells. This helps explain why untreated Type 1 diabetics, who cannot produce insulin, may experience significant weight loss because without treatment, they have problems making enough fat.

This insulin-signaling pathway is also disrupted in Type 2 diabetes because the body still produces insulin, but the cells have become resistant to its effects.

After the researchers were able to identify DNA-PK, they tested the gene in mice fed with a diet containing 70 percent carbohydrates but with zero fat. A typical lab mouse diet is composed of both fat and carbohydrates. The researchers then disabled the DNA-PK gene in half the mice while the other half served as the control group of normal mice.

They discovered that the DNA-PK disabled mice were leaner and had 40 percent less body fat compared to the control group of normal mice because they had a problem converting carbs into fat.

The DNA-PK disabled mice were resistant to high carbohydrate-induced obesity and had lower plasma lipids, which can lower the risk of cardiovascular disease.

DNA-PK could potentially play a role in the prevention of obesity associated with the over-consumption of high-carbohydrate foods or carbohydrate addiction, such as pasta, rice, soda and sugary snacks if it is possible to create medication based on the gene.

However, this will only be another quick fix. Yes, such a pill may help you avoid getting fat from carbohydrates but the bottom line is: you’re still eating carbs and carbohydrates have been linked to almost all age-related diseases.

If you want to get fit and maintain your ideal weight, it doesn’t involve waiting for a magic pill. You have to make the necessary lifestyle changes because there are no shortcuts to good health.