Celiac disease awareness month

Celiac disease is an heriditary autoimmune disease. It is a serious condition that can develop at any age, after eating food containing gluten. It affects people differently and is difficult to diagnose.

How does it work ?
Gluten triggers an immune reaction in the small intestine. It hurts the villi, which causes a malabsorption of nutrients, diarrhea, anemia, weight loss…
There is no cure for this illness, except following a strict gluten free diet.

History of the celiac disease
We could find traces of documentation about celiac disease dating back to the first century AD. The greek doctor Aretaeus of Cappadocia described a link between the ingestion of some grains and patients’ aches.
In 1888, Samuel Gee, wrote a modern description of the disease. He tried different diets but they were all unsuccessful or insufficient. In 1950, Willem Karel Dicke is the first to finally observe a positive effect by suppressing food with gluten.

And today ?
Recently, more people have complained from a gluten « hypersensibilty ». This was not backed up by any scientific research but had the benefit of developping a « no gluten » trend which made life easier for people with celiac disease. It is now easier and more comfortable than ever to find gluten free food and live with celiac disease. Today 80% of Americans with celiac disease are still not diagnosed.