Dr. Jon LaPook just wrote a very detailed article about celiac disease on mega blog The Huffington Post. Dr. LaPook is a gastroenterologist
at Columbia University Medical Center who is also the Medical
Correspondent for CBS Evening News with Katie
Couric. Be sure to check out the discussion below the article and feel free to join in.
Here is the link to the article:
Why Common Foods May Hurt Your Health
Thank you, Dr. LaPook for writing such a fabulous article! And thank you, Huffington Post for helping out with celiac disease awareness!
[air kiss]
HIGHLIGHTS
I really liked the detailed list of celiac disease symptoms:
Diarrhea, abdominal pain, bloating, gas, distention, weight loss, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, failure to thrive in infancy, vomiting, short stature, iron deficiency with or without anemia, poor performance in school, delayed puberty, infertility, recurrent miscarriage, osteoporosis, vitamin deficiencies, fatigue, tooth discoloration and dental enamel defects, skin disorders, elevated liver enzymes, Down syndrome, Sjogren's syndrome, aphthous ulcers (canker sores), arthritis, depression, nerve and balance problems (peripheral neuropathy and cerebellar ataxia), irritability in children, seizures, and migraines. Patients with other autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes and thyroiditis are at increased risk for celiac disease.
Added to this:
-Half of patients have atypical symptoms
-It takes an average of more than four years for a correct diagnosis in those where the diagnosis is not missed altogether.
-Blood tests confirmed by biopsy are still referred to as the method of detection. I found this interesting considering the recent JAMA report confirming gluten sensitivity without a positive biopsy. Perhaps at this point it is easier to steer the conversation away from gluten sensitivity until more studies have been done?
-General practitioners actively looking for celiac disease increased their rate of diagnosis by 43 fold.
And I really liked the call to action. It was mentioned that if you sent the article to 100 friends the odds would be that one of them would have undiagnosed celiac disease. You could help to spread the word. So, did you?
