I am writing this article in the hopes of helping those who
have been diagnosed with gluten intolerance but
who are still not feeling well,
as well as for those who need to be diagnosed or will be in the future.
I have the privilege to speak to many individuals on a weekly
basis who not only live locally to my clinic but also from across the
United States and internationally. Just a few days ago I had phone
consultations with individuals living in Shanghai, Philadelphia and Los Angeles
respectively. My clinic, HealthNOW Medical Center, is a destination clinic
and we treat individuals who live at a distance as well as though who live
locally, hence these particular calls. As a result of doing such consultations
as well as receiving responses to my lectures, books, blogs and videos, I have
an opportunity to speak to many people and hear their stories.
I often wish I had the ability to ‘beam them up’
utilizing the fictional technology from Star Trek – it would make travel
logistics a piece of cake and I’d be able to help more people faster. But, getting back to reality, I want to review with you the
most common mistakes and misconceptions that I run into with those who are
gluten intolerant. These issues are resulting in ill
health both currently as well as in the individual’s future.
Here’s the List of 10 Common Mistakes
1. People can be pretty convinced of their gluten intolerance based on their own experimentation, but later they negate their own
knowledge when a celiac test comes out negative.
Discussion: Firstly it must be known that
celiac testing is not highly sensitive. If it were we would be diagnosing more
than 5% of the celiacs in our country.
Secondly, a negative celiac test is not
only NOT an absolute that one doesn’t have the disease, but it in no way tests
for gluten sensitivity, a serious condition affecting likely 20 to 30 times the
number of people who have celiac disease.
Finally, one of the tests that we
utilize here at the clinic and one that has been established by other researchers to be quite
reliable, is the exact test that the person is now ignoring the results of.
Namely, eliminate gluten for 30 days from your diet and see how you feel. A
noticeable improvement in symptoms is a valid test.
Too often I speak to people who are quite
seriously ill who have ignored, sometimes for years, something they knew to be
the truth simply because an insensitive lab test didn’t corroborate their
gluten intolerance.
Don’t ignore the knowledge you possess
about your body. If you need a lab test to corroborate it and you are already gluten-free, there’s always
genetic testing for both celiac disease and gluten sensitivity. Entero Labs has
a nice test for both.
2. Some people discover they are gluten intolerant
by self experimentation or by actually receiving a gluten sensitivity or celiac
blood test that has positive results. Unfortunately some doctors have
antiquated data regarding these diseases and believe that an intestinal biopsy
needs to be positive in order to confirm a diagnosis.
Such doctors insist that their patients
reintroduce gluten into their diet for a minimum of 6 weeks and then schedule
an intestinal endoscopy and biopsy.
Discussion: It was once thought that a
biopsy was the ‘gold standard’ for celiac diagnosis, it is a tool of diagnosis, but in no way the 'gold' nor ultimate test. We now know that to be
untrue. When I say ‘we’ I am referring to those in the field who research or
who stay on the cutting edge of research. Unfortunately there are many doctors
who are not in this category and their lack of current knowledge puts their
patients at great risk.
I cannot tell you how many times I have spoken
to individuals who have reintroduced gluten into their diet, despite their
knowledge of how sick it would make them, only to, get extremely ill, sometimes
for months. Worse still, some patients initiated an autoimmune disease due to
the reintroduction that we couldn’t completely reverse.
I call reintroducing gluten ‘Russian
roulette’, perhaps you can now appreciate why.
One should NEVER EVER reintroduce gluten
once they know they are sensitive to it, regardless of any test result. There
is no test that is ‘worth’ risking your health over, especially not for a
biopsy that is very poor at identifying the presence of non-classical celiac
disease and gluten sensitivity.
That brings up some new terminology:
Classic celiac disease describes the
disease as it was originally discovered, to be primarily digestive in nature
and associated with destruction of the lining of the small intestine. We now
know, through research, that classical celiac is in the minority of most celiac
cases. Once again this data is not well known in the medical community,
explaining why we miss 95% of those who suffer from the disease.
Gluten sensitivity is an intolerance
to gluten that is not associated with the destruction of the lining of the
small intestine but it creates inflammation to the immune system and creates
many of the same diseases and symptoms associated with celiac disease.
Conservative estimates of gluten sensitivity put its incidence at 20% of the
population, making it much more prevalent than celiac disease. An intestinal
biopsy would never be positive in an individual with gluten sensitivity.
3. Individuals try the gluten-free diet, find it difficult and instead decide to limit their inttake, thinking that less
gluten is bound to help.
Discussion: Unfortunately, whether you have
celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, gluten consumption must be of a zero
tolerance policy. I like to tell patients that consuming gluten is a
qualitative factor not a quantitative one. In other words, ANY gluten is
problematic.
It does make intuitive sense that more of
something is bound to create greater harm than less, but with gluten intolerance
that doesn’t happen to be the case. It doesn’t require much gluten to begin the
cascade of inflammation that can in turn create one of the over 300 diseases
and conditions associated with it.
4. A person does not exemplify the classic symptoms
of celiac disease (see point #2 above for a definition) and therefore gets no
cooperation from their doctor to be tested for it.
Discussion: This scenario can result in
many different repercussions. An individual can highly suspect gluten
intolerance based on observing their body’s reactions to it, but due to having
no classic digestive symptoms their doctor refuses to test them and, worse yet,
talks them out of the idea that gluten could possibly be a problem!
This one frustrates me because the person
knows, without question, that gluten is the culprit but they allow a clinician
who is operating from a dated knowledge base to refute it, and as a result they
damage their health even further.
I truly cannot tell you how often I hear
such stories. And these individuals feel completely adrift and helpless because
they literally don’t know where to turn for help. I’m glad when they find our
clinic and we can validate what they know to be true and really get down to
work to improve their health.
5. There are some individuals who cannot ‘feel’ the
effects of cheating and due to this they continue to cheat and eat gluten.
Discussion: This is a tough one because it
is human nature to avoid things that make us feel bad but it’s more difficult
if there are no obvious effects.
Someone who has been diagnosed as gluten
intolerant IS having a reaction to gluten and it is shortening their lifespan
and moving them closer to disease, each and every time they cheat.
In the past here at HealthNOW we have used laboratory
testing to ‘show’ patients that their immune system was registering their
cheating and thereby hopefully convince them that damage is being created.
Fortunately a fairly new lab test by Cyrex Labs will go a step further. This test will
reveal if an autoimmune disease is being created as a result of consuming
gluten and what part of the body is being targeted.
We can’t ‘feel’ diseases in the making, so
this test will be a wonderful asset to educating patients about what they may
be causing for themselves as a result of their lax diet.
6. Some people ‘cheat’ expecting something dramatic
to occur within a few hours and when it doesn’t they think they are okay to
cheat occasionally.
Discussion: This really is a point of poor
education on the part of the doctor, their patient or both. We put in a lot of
time with our patients to ensure that they understand that a reaction to gluten
can occur within hours or up to 8 or more days of ingesting it. We do our very best to ensure
that patients understand that a headache or rash (as an example) that appears four days after a gluten ‘cheat’ is a reaction to that dietary indiscretion.
Not only that, but we strive to ensure they understand that the damage goes way beyond the symptom that they feel. It
goes deeper, to the degree that they are likely creating a degenerative or
autoimmune disease by their lax diet.
7. I hear too many stories from people who actually
received a positive blood test for celiac disease but who were then told by
their doctor that the test was not ‘for sure’ and instead the doctor decided to
concentrate on a different disease the patient had rather than implement a
strict gluten-free diet.
Discussion: The above may strike you as a
little unbelievable, I only wish it was. I don’t know if certain clinicians
just don’t feel comfortable asking their patients to follow a diet that perhaps
they themselves wouldn’t want to follow or what exactly the issue is. But the
above scenario has come up often.
To add insult to injury the disease process
that the doctor has decided to focus on rather than the celiac disease is often
a disease CAUSED by gluten!
I remember distinctly a young adult woman
who was told by her endocrinologist that they were going to focus on her
diabetes rather than her celiac disease because it would be ‘too much’ to
address both. There is strong research evidence for the correlation between
celiac disease and diabetes, not to mention the fact that untreated celiac
disease is known to increase the risk of death from all causes.
8. Individuals with known gluten intolerance let
‘peer pressure’ cause them to cheat.
Discussion: You might think that I’m only
talking about children here but I’m not. As a matter a fact I often find my
younger patients to be quite disciplined. Adults, however, do at times suffer
from ‘not wanting to be different’ or ‘not wanting to be rude’ and they solve
their dilemma by cheating.
My advice here is to explain to the person
urging you to cheat that gluten is like rat poison to you. This works well for
those people who say, “Come on, a little won’t kill you…”. Ask the person how
they would feel if you offered them ‘just a little’ rat poison. Would they take
it? After all, it’s just a little.
You get my point. I’ve been doing this for
over 20 years and patients report that this example does seem to communicate
well to others. Feel free to utilize whatever talking points work best for you,
but PLEASE, don’t let peer pressure damage your good health.
9. Some people have close relatives whom they know
have celiac disease or other autoimmune diseases and they don’t get tested for
gluten intolerance because they’re ‘afraid to find out’ or they don’t feel too
badly or they just don’t know the strong correlation between gluten intolerance
and autoimmune disease.
Discussion: There’s a saying that goes,
“What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Unfortunately that’s not true for gluten
intolerance. Deciding not to get tested doesn’t diminish or slow down gluten’s
degenerative effects.
Gluten isn’t something you can hide from. If
gluten intolerance or autoimmune diseases are a part of your family tree I
would highly suggest that you get tested for both celiac disease and gluten
sensitivity and if negative, confirm the accuracy or inaccuracy of that test
result with a 30 day gluten elimination diet.
It is that important that you know for sure
to give yourself the opportunity of not following in the genetic predisposition
that is present in your family tree.
10. Patients eliminate gluten due to a gluten
intolerance diagnosis, but after initially feeling much better they begin to feel
poorly again and don’t know what to do to correct the problem.
Discussion: This may be the last point on
our list but it certainly is not the least important. In fact, when I’m talking
to individuals who know they have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, this is
one of the most common complaints that I hear.
Unfortunately the medical profession’s sole
treatment strategy for celiac disease is gluten avoidance, period. I wish that
was enough, but it isn’t in the vast majority of people.
Why? The secondary effects created by a
gluten intolerance simply do not remedy themselves when gluten is removed from
the diet. Gluten has a devastating effect on the body’s immune system and in
order to normalize that immune system there are several factors that must be
addressed, the most common of which follow:
a.
The presence of pathogenic (disease-causing)
organisms. These can be bacteria, parasites, amoeba, etc but they must be
discovered and treated in order to remove excess stress from the immune system and
to allow vital healing of the small intestine.
b.
An imbalance of the good bacteria or probiotic
population in the small intestine. These probiotics (or microbiome) account for
the strength of the immune system and supporting their restoration to a
healthy, robust level is critical for the immune system as well as the
prevention of disease.
c.
Cross-reactive foods can be part of the
patient’s diet and these foods can mimic the effects of gluten thereby
preventing healing and causing gluten-related symptoms despite a gluten-free
diet. These foods are often temporary irritants while the body is healing but
we have found some patients who require permanent elimination of some of these
foods.
d.
Hormonal imbalance created by the stress on the
body that gluten creates is something that must be normalized through natural
means in order to regain mental balance, increased energy levels and normalized
weight, just to name a few.
e.
Toxic elements including heavy metals and poor
detoxification abilities of the body are also a potential hurdle that needs to
be addressed when restoring health to someone who is gluten intolerant.
f.
Enzyme and vitamin deficiencies should be
evaluated and treated as they are discovered.
Basically, the stress on the body that gluten has created must be diagnosed and handled in order for the
individual to regain their optimal health. Addressing these secondary effects
is not complicated. It takes the knowledge of what they are, how to correctly
test for them and how to effectively treat them, but this is not difficult.
However, the lack of a widespread awareness of these factors results in many
individuals continuing to suffer despite maintaining their gluten-free
lifestyle.This just isn’t fair and it’s
something I am passionate about remedying.
Need Help? We're Here for You!
If you felt as if I was describing you above, you are not alone. As I mentioned earlier, adrenal fatigue/exhaustion is almost epidemic. If you would like assistance and don’t have a clinician whom you feel can assist you, consider contacting us for a FREE Health Analysis. We are a Destination Clinic and treat patients from across the country and internationally. We would be delighted to help you as we have been doing so for over two decades.
I look forward to hearing from you.
To your good health,
Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP
IFM Certified Practitioner
Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”
Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”
