How To Deal With Celiac Disease And Live A Better Life

A lot of Americans never seems to give notice to disorder called Celiac’s Disease. We have focused more attention to diseases such as Crohn’s disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Cystic fibrosis and other diseases because they made great headlines and medical attention, and in part because a number of celebrities have them.
We fail to see that this disease affects a lot of Americans and have some serious consequences if left untreated or undiagnosed.
Celiac or Coeliac Disease is an autoimmune disorder that predominantly affects the digestive system. It is known to many as Gluten Intolerance, Gluten-sensitive enteropathy or Gluten enteropathy because the digestive tract, specifically the small intestines, becomes extra sensitive to gluten in wheat and related grains.
The dominant cause for this extra-sensitivity is having a faulty gene that alerts the immune system to react in the presence of gliadin, although several factors play a part in the development of Celiac’s disease. The only treatment is removal of wheat and its products from the diet and lifestyle.
A person with Celiac’s disease is genetically wired to be extra-sensitive to gluten in wheat but the symptoms may not manifest immediately in some persons. The main response of the immune system is to produce inflammation. One may think it nasty at times such as when your ingrown is inflamed or when a wound swells and becomes infected.
The swelling is beneficial because its mechanism involves opening the pores of the blood vessels so more white blood cells pour in and fight the pathogens
Some Facts about Celiac Disease:
• It is estimated that one out of 133 Americans, translating to 3 million Yanks that cannot tolerate pasta, wheat bread and pizza. Think that three million is small? For comparison the numbers of Americans with Epilepsy is 2.8 million, while Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis is just 500,000, and those with Cystic Fibrosis is mere 30,000. So which is more?
• Still, 95-97% of those Americans with Celiac’s disease are not diagnosed.
• Another astounding fact is that 30% of the population in the United States has the genes that can cause Celiac’s disease.
• The numbers of people with Celiac’s disease are on the rise; the fact that many infants already have Celiac’s disease upon birth and lot of grown-ups who are asymptomatic has shown to be positive to CD.
• A reason that many people are still undiagnosed because most of them did not exhibit any classic symptoms associated with Celiac’s disease like diarrhea and bloating upon eating wheat.
• Bear in mind that the symptoms of Celiac’s disease has a wide range and has 300 known symptoms so a lot of cases became misdiagnosed. A misdiagnosis cost an average breadwinner some $5,000-$12,000 a year.
• Even the continent of Europe is not spared from this disorder. Celiac’s disease is one of the most common genetic disease among Europeans with 1 every 250 Italians and 1 for every 300 of the population in Ireland. Well, Italians has some reason to avoid pizza and pasta as well.
• Celiac’s disease is associated with increased morbidities and poorer prognosis for individuals who are undiagnosed. Some of these morbidities include Juvenile Diabetes, Primary Biliary Cirrhosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Intestinal Cancer and Schizophrenia.
• Being in the family of genetic disorders, Celiac’s disease is often found on children with Down’s syndrome and Turner’s syndrome.
• It also affects some portion of Hispanic, Blacks, Africans and Asians as well although they are minimal compared to those of Caucasian descent. Some reasons to be happy if you are Japanese, Mexican, or Indian and you can’t live without binging on Pasta Alfredo with Neopolitan Pizza.
• Some good news about Celiac’s disease is the introduction of improved methods in diagnosis. During previous years, it took 11 years to accurately determine the diagnosis of Celiac’s disease but recent advances in serology has clipped the time and it can be diagnosed now in much