"Gluten Is a Quiet Culprit"

My friend Janet sent me this excellent article about celiac disease. The highlight:

While the cause is not well understood, researchers know [celiac disease] is linked to gene variations known as HLA-DQ2 and/or HLA-DQ8. . . . It's also possible for a person to just be gluten-intolerant or have a wheat allergy without having the genetically linked celiac disease.

And this is both good an bad news - there's a pill in development but it's a long way off:

Two companies are looking into a pill, a supplement to help celiacs metabolize gluten, but that'll take at least another six to eight years to develop . . .

http://www.alternet.org/story/66176/

October 27, 2007
East Bay Express
Stomach Pain in a Slice of Bread: Gluten Is a Quiet Culprit
By Kathleen Richards
[. . .]
Chances are you know someone who has celiac, but even better that they don't know it. Although the numbers vary, researchers estimate that celiac affects about 1 in 133 Americans, and that a staggering 97 percent are undiagnosed. A large-scale study in 2003 estimated there were about fifteen thousand diagnosed celiac patients. This year, that number is expected to exceed one hundred thousand, said Michelle Pietzak, a pediatric gastroenterologist, assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at USC's Keck School of Medicine, and one of the authors of the 2003 study. For each person diagnosed with celiac, another 140 will seek medical attention for twelve years before receiving a diagnosis, Pietzak said.

The disease has only recently gained attention in the United States. Last November, CNN anchor Heidi Collins became a spokeswoman for the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness. Articles in The New York Times, Newsweek, and Time have helped raise its profile. And in 2004, the National Institutes of Health convened its first meeting on celiac. Yet there still hasn't been much of an increase in diagnoses, said Elaine Monarch, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Celiac Disease Foundation.