Gluten Free Diet Handles Sugar Cravings

Root Cause Medical Clinic 

Patient Testimonial 

Since the doctors discovered I shouldn't be eating gluten the changes in my health have been dramatic. First of all my sweet tooth is gone. This is big because I always needed some sugar in the afternoon. Now I have more energy and no desire for sugar, breads or other starch.

I am also sleeping through the night. When I came to the clinic I was waking up every hour all night long. I am so happy with how I feel now. 

C.C.

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I hope you found this helpful. I am here to assist you to improve your health. Our destination clinic treats patients from across the country and internationally. 

If you’d like assistance I’m happy to offer you a free health analysis. Call 408-733-0400.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

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!”

Gluten Free Diet and Weight Loss

Root Cause Medical Clinic 

Patient Testimonial 

I used to look 4 months pregnant all the time. I never had a flat stomach in my whole life. I am only in my 30s and when I started to gain weight I exercised and tried to eat well but I couldn't lose the weight. When I started on this program I was a size 14 - now I'm a size 6.

Finding out I was gluten intolerant changed my life and my health. I am not bloated, I have a flat stomach and I just feel "clean" inside. 

J.W.

_______________________________________________________________

I hope you found this helpful. I am here to assist you to improve your health. Our destination clinic treats patients from across the country and internationally. 

If you’d like assistance I’m happy to offer you a free health analysis. Call 408-733-0400.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

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!”

The Gluten Doctors

Hello! 

The Gluten Doctors are a group of several doctors consisting of M.D.s and Certified Clinical Nutritionists. We have been in practice for over 30 years and specialize in the area of digestive problems and specifically gluten intolerance and celiac disease.

For more information on our clinic, Root Cause Medical Clinic, please see our website at: www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com.

Gluten - The Basics 

Subclinical gluten intolerance is possibly the most undiagnosed condition that close to 50% of the population suffers from. Current research shows that only about 3% of gluten intolerant individuals ever find out that they have it. 

Do you know if you are gluten intolerant? If not, your odds are close to a flip of a coin. Gluten intolerance is frequently found to be the cause of many undesirable health conditions. The extent (and intensity) of conditions an individual may experience is vast. Some of these are listed below. In addition to acute conditions, the long term effects of gluten intolerance on general health can lead to more serious and avoidable degenerative conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer and arthritis.

Why are there so many different types of symptoms?

After you eat, food is broken down into small particles that the body can use as fuel. This is what should happen to gluten, but this does not occur for those who are intolerant to it. Those people are missing a digestive enzyme which breaks down gluten proteins. While these proteins are not broken down, they are still small enough to be absorbed by the small intestine. The immune system of a gluten intolerant individual sees these gluten proteins as something it needs to attack and destroy, in very much the same way it would attack a virus or bacteria. Just like civilian casualties or the innocent bystander, this attack also damages and destroys nearby healthy cells.

The result is that the lining of the small intestines gets damaged and erodes. Like a fly screen that gets torn and allows bugs to pass, over time the damage opens paths for the gluten proteins to enter the blood stream where they can travel to any cell in the body. The type of symptoms you experience depends on which tissues react most negatively to it. That is why some people get constant skin lesions, while others just get headaches. Strange but true. 

Even though it is common for gluten intolerance to be thought of as an allergy, the effects are quite different. An allergen is usually met with a histamine reaction, where the body tries to flush the foreign matter away. The effects of gluten intolerance are closer to an autoimmune disease, where the body’s immune system attacks itself. This explains why symptoms can be quite severe, and why gluten intolerance is such a serious problem. One common example of gluten intolerance is called celiac disease, where the small intestine is so severely damaged that it cannot absorb food properly, and can lead to malnutrition and even death.

How can gluten intolerance be treated?

Since the symptoms of gluten intolerance vary so much from individual to individual, so does the treatment. The most critical treatment that all sufferers need, though, is life-long avoidance of gluten. Gluten intolerant people possess certain genes that recognize gluten as foreign matter, and this cannot be changed with today’s medicine. 

Many people find that while eliminating gluten from their diet makes them feel better, they still continue to experience problems. Damage to the small intestines and the intestinal immune system is universal in gluten intolerant individuals. This results in being susceptible to intestinal infections and parasites, which can cause ulcers and digestive problems in addition to many other diseases. The symptoms of these infections are often cyclical, which means you can feel bad and then feel good before cycling into feeling bad again. This cyclical nature also makes diagnosis of problems difficult. 

Therefore, while ceasing to eat gluten can relieve some of the problems, diagnosing and treating infections is critical to resolving all the problems. Just like recovery from the flu, recovering from the effects of years of consuming gluten requires time and care. Another important aspect of a good treatment program should address restoration. Lastly, since this is a genetic condition, it is highly recommended that relatives also seek diagnosis. Simply put, the condition does ‘run in the family’, and is always shared by at least one parent of a sufferer.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

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!”

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theglutendoctors/
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Future Blog Posts

Happy New Year, friends!

If you are searching for current and up to date articles written by The Gluten Doctors, please visit Root Cause Medical Clinic! There, you will find gluten free and vegan recipes, various articles written on gluten sensitivity and related health issues, in addition to extremely helpful videos!

Have questions about your mysterious symptoms? Consider scheduling a free consultation!  Although we're located in the heart of Silicon Valley, California, we do treat patients from across the globe.  Feel free to reach out!  We are definitely here to help.

Does Gluten Affect More Than the Gut?

The word “gluten” may be better known these days, but sadly that hasn’t translated into better diagnosis. Over 90% of those suffering from celiac disease remain undiagnosed. We will discuss why this occurs, below, but the unfortunate result is so many continue to eat gluten, unaware it is shortening their life and condemning them to ill health in the interim. A large study that compiled data from seventeen different research studies concluded that those with celiac disease were risk of early death from all causes, especially from non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer.

Non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) or gluten sensitivity also suffers from under-diagnosis. It is too young a condition to know precisely its incidence, but The Center for Celiac Research estimates six percent of the U.S. population suffers, or eighteen million people. Other researchers feel the number is likely much higher and we agree based on our clinical experience.

According to Dr Fasano, the increased incidence of celiac disease in our population likely stems from the affects drugs, toxins, GMO foods, and pesticides inflict on our microbiome, the one hundred trillion organisms that give strength to the immune system and the gut itself. He states the decrease of Lactobacillus organisms, a friendly organism found in the gut of healthy individuals, can trigger celiac disease.

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease of the small intestine where the lining is damaged, compromising its ability to absorb nutrients. Celiac is associated with a leaky gut and inflammation that can lead to further autoimmune diseases along with other conditions including infertility, neurological problems, osteoporosis and cancer. The “classic” symptoms associated with celiac are bloating, diarrhea, abdominal pain and extreme weight loss.

Gluten sensitivity (NCGS) is caused by a negative reaction to gluten but is not an autoimmune condition like celiac disease. NCGS can be associated with digestive symptoms, such as IBS, but its “extra-intestinal” symptoms are also very common including fatigue, headaches, brain fog, tingling of the extremities, schizophrenia and autism.

The nervous system can be the first system affected with a reaction to gluten and sometimes it’s the only system. Some researchers have contended the link is so strong that if gluten issues were being discovered today for the first time, they would be categorized primarily as neurological and only secondarily as digestive. 

Medical journal, Lancet Neurology (2010), stated, "MOST patients with neurological manifestations of gluten sensitivity have few gastrointestinal symptoms." 

Journal Pediatrics found children suffering with celiac disease were more likely to develop neurological disorders, at a rate of 51.4%, as compared to control subjects at only 19.9%. The neurologic disorders found included headaches, learning disorders, ADHD, cerebellar ataxia (unstable gait), developmental delays and hypotonia (low muscle tone).

The tremendous failure to diagnose both celiac disease and NCGS may very well stem from the great variety of symptoms associated with both conditions. The “classic” gluten condition manifests symptoms within the digestive tract. This is true and untrue. Celiac disease was classically associated with digestive symptoms but today’s celiac may or may not have those complaints. Therefore, when the symptoms presented are of a non-digestive nature, the suspicion of gluten as the root cause goes way down – hence a missed diagnosis.

The result is continued illness for these individuals, while never receiving a correct diagnosis. Gluten problems are genetic in nature, at least celiac is confirmed as such; many believe NCGS may be as well. As soon as one family member is not diagnosed correctly the result is other family members too having to suffer. A proper diagnosis made, on the other hand, spreads correct health knowledge to more and more family members, creating increasing health throughout the family tree.

“Classic celiac” typically presents with bloating, digestive pain, diarrhea and extreme weight loss, yet many of “today’s celiac” do not manifest in that way. When you add the varying picture of the disease with the poor diagnostic rates, you understand why there was a need to alter the diagnostic criteria. 

In 2010, the American Journal of Medicine published the “4 out of 5” rule, stating simple rules were an improvement over complicated algorithms. The American Journal of Medicine was also the same publication giving bona fide recognition to gluten sensitivity (NCGS) as a “real” condition. Based on the findings from more than a dozen of the world’s top celiac researchers, celiac diagnosis was to be henceforth based on the presence of 4 out of 5 positive findings. 

The specific findings are:

1. A positive celiac blood test
2. Typical symptoms of celiac disease
3. Symptoms showing improvement on a gluten-free diet.
4. A positive genetic test.
5. A positive intestinal biopsy.

The big alteration of the new criteria was intestinal biopsy no longer was held up as the “gold standard” for diagnosis. Most doctors have felt a positive intestinal biopsy was mandatory; many still do unfortunately. The new criteria have made it clear that is no longer the case, something that should allow more for more accurate diagnosis. 

It has been frustrating and upsetting to meet countless number of patients who had the first 4 criteria positive, as mentioned above, but were yet told by their doctors they were not suffering from celiac disease due to a negative biopsy. Of course once they did change their diet, appreciating they did have celiac, they one for one, began to feel much improved!

Those suffering with either celiac disease or non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) typically notice improvement upon beginning a gluten-free diet. When improvement doesn’t continue or reverts, it doesn’t a gluten-free diet isn’t beneficial, but it points to the presence of other factors that are inflicting stress on the digestive tract, immune system, and other affected organs, causing problematic symptoms to remain.

The reason for this is something we call the secondary effects of gluten, a name we coined when writing our first book, “The Gluten Effect”. The secondary effects include food reactions (over and above gluten), intestinal infections, cross-reactive foods, toxicity and hormonal imbalance. Their presence reduces the effectiveness of a gluten-free diet through putting stress on the effectiveness of the immune system, gut and any other affected organs or systems. Addressing such effects requires additional customized therapies, but they are mostly natural in nature, requiring no scary drugs or surgery. 

There isn’t an organ or system of the human body that gluten doesn’t potentially affect, according to research. Gluten isn’t the cause of all disease, but the sheer number of potential adverse reactions gluten can incur warrants ruling it out as a causative agent when health is malfunctioning. 

Laboratory testing is always the best first step, but what if your doctor doesn’t comply or your insurance doesn’t cover or you just can’t afford it? In that case, there is nothing wrong or dangerous in following a strict gluten-free diet for 6 weeks and evaluating how you feel. You do need to be strict, however. Adopting a “mostly” gluten free diet is a waste of time. Unfortunately it’s either gluten or no gluten – “low” gluten is fairly worthless. When considering a lifetime of food, a few weeks without a substance that could be adversely affecting your health, is most certainly worth it.

No one ever suffered from a lack of consuming gluten. Human evolution is 2.5 million years long and for 99.9% of that time we ate no gluten. Humans are unable to properly digest the complex protein known as gluten, even if celiac disease or NCGS is not present. It makes you wonder if any of us should be eating it. As Dr Alessio Fasano has been quoted as saying: “We are not born with the destiny to develop autoimmune disease. We are also not born to deal with gluten.”

Gluten, taking the form of celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, can affect the human body in many ways beyond digestive symptoms. I wish to drastically decrease the numbers of those suffering such that more of us can lead healthier, more productive lives. Get tested and if you can’t for some reason, try a strict gluten-free diet for 6- 8 weeks.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Consider contacting us for a FREE phone consultation – call 408-733-0400.

To your fabulous health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP
Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Author of “The Gluten Effect”