Every so often stories come up about new treatments for celiac disease — most of the time they only talk about treating symptoms and not getting to underlying reasons of the disease. This is always a bad idea as people will continue to do damage to their bodies but not immediately feel the effects of the damage. The article does talk about the possibility of preventing celiac disease which is something that should be talked about, but there is always a rush to find a cure or an ongoing treatment for people with celiac disease that I find disturbing.
As I’ve said so many times before, I feel very lucky to have been diagnosed with celiac disease as it has taught me more about food and where it comes from than I would have ever learned otherwise. It changed my overall health (nearly overnight) and has been the single most important event in my life (in terms of my health). I do occasionally indulge in the plethora of gluten-free goodies that come across my desk, but I try to eat a naturally gluten-free diet most of the time. I can’t imagine ever wanting or needing to find a cure for celiac disease. I’m also a believer that grains in general are one of the root causes of most modern disease and that adhering to not only a gluten-free, but a grain-free diet would benefit just about everyone, not just those with a celiac disease diagnosis.
I’m always amazed at how resistant people are to a gluten-free diet when first presented with the option. I have relatives who have had digestive problems for years and have had various diagnoses for so many different ailments — all of which require a lifetime of some pretty horrific medication. Yet, they always balk at the thought of changing their diet. Go figure.
All of this being said, take this article with a grain of salt and hope that people will opt for better nutrition over a quick pharmaceutical fix for their problems. Doesn’t that just simply make more sense? Two articles that I really liked a few months back were, “Would You Pop a Pill to Eat Gluten Again?” and the follow-up post titled, “More About That Celiac Disease Pill“, both by Hilary Davidson of Gluten-Free Guidebook. She goes on to express much of what I am saying here.
Celiac research is a necessary thing, but looking for a quick fix to mask problems associated with the disease should be avoided. Doing so will only hurt more people in the long run. I just hope that more people learn to turn to nutrition as an answer to their health problems and not go searching for a new pill to take.
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Here’s an excerpt from the WebMD article:
Research Shows Blocking a Protein May Reverse Celiac Disease Symptoms
“We have identified one mechanism by which people lose tolerance to gluten,” says author Bana Jabri, MD, PhD, an associate professor of medicine and pathology and co-director of the Digestive Disease Research Core Center at the University of Chicago. “IL-15 may be a critical element that drives the loss of tolerance to gluten, and we can now think about pathways to block it and potentially develop therapies for celiac disease.”
Medications that block IL-15 are being developed for other inflammatory diseases, including RA.
The new research also shows that retinoic acid, a vitamin-A derivative found in acne treatments such as Retin-A and Accutane, may be complicit in the onset of celiac disease.
“Vitamin A in these patients is a bad idea,” she says. “Patients at risk should be careful about using retinoids.” This may even include topical retinoids if they can enter the bloodstream, she says.
Those two molecules act together to promote inflammation, she says. “The vitamin A derivative seems to fuel the IL-15, but if you block IL-15, retinoids are OK,” she says.
