Could a Virus Cause Gluten Sensitivity?

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This interesting tidbit is from a website called Top News You Can Use. It is fascinating and I think quite hopeful to think that gluten sensitivity could be caused by a virus. Next thing you know, they find a cure for that virus or at least something to limit its effects and life improves drastically for millions of us.

Virus Infections Linked with Gluten Intolerance

A new research has suggested that Virus infections may be a contributing factor in onset of gluten intolerance (coeliac disease).

The experts reveal that gluten intolerance may usually show no symptom, and people may not know that they are hit by the disease if their symptoms are mild or uncharacteristic.

Gluten intolerance is an autoimmune reaction in the small intestine. The gluten that occurs naturally in grains such as wheat, barley and rye hampers the intestinal villi, triggering problems with nutrient absorption and potentially other problems too.

Gluten intolerance, an inherited predisposition, plays a vital role in the onset of the condition. The only known effective treatment is a lifelong gluten-free diet.

Academy Research Fellow Päivi Saavalainen, who initiated the research into the hereditary risk factors for gluten intolerance, quoted: "Some of the genes we have identified are linked with human immune defense against viruses. This may indicate that virus infections may be connected in some way with the onset of gluten intolerance".


Here is another great article about a new drug that could even help repair intestines damaged by gluten.

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How Is Your Appendix?

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Do you still have your appendix? If yes, you lucky dog, you.

Mine is missing. It was taken out in 2000 after it ruptured. I am a stubborn soul and my right side hurt for several days until I was finally bedridden on a Saturday. I screamed anytime I had to get up but laying down felt okay so I informed my husband that I would wait until Monday to see a doctor. Even back then I was suspicious that I was not getting the best medical care possible and I was no fan of doctors, mostly because I had been seeing an endocrinologist for several years who assured me I had no thyroid condition and it was all in my head. He was wrong on two counts as it was not in my head, it was in my neck, and I most certainly did have a thyroid condition.

Luckily for me, my husband is a wise man and he literally forced me into the car to go to the ER. Whattya know, my appendix had burst. Had my stubbornness prevailed, I would probably not be here now because when the appendix ruptures, you are likely to get some ugly gangrene spreading inside you.

As I was being wheeled down to the operating room, the ER doctor came out to meet me and I started grilling him on his experience. He was not happy about my giving him the third degree, but I didn't want any body part that was remotely necessary to be removed unless it positively had to go. The surgeon said that it was the most common procedure performed and he had done it hundreds of times. He also informed me that nobody needs their appendix. I thought that was an odd statement -- why did I have one if I didn't need it? It seemed like all of my other internal body parts served a very real purpose.

My husband added, "Honey, let's not piss off the man wielding the scalpel right now." Okay, okay, I said, let's get this thing out already. So it was removed and it had ruptured but thanks to my husband, it was caught before gangrene had set in.

For years afterward, I would try to find any information regarding the appendix because I wanted to know why we all had one if it was obsolete. I felt it must serve some purpose. I never found an answer, until now.

I picked up a fantastic book at Sprouts titled "Gut Solutions -- Natural Solutions to Your Digestive Problems" by Dr. Leonard Smith and Brenda Watson, N.D. They have an entire chapter devoted to the appendix. They write "In the past, medicine has not been able to assign a particular function to the appendix. Today, however, it is becoming more apparent that the appendix and surrounding lymphatic tissue probably serve an important role in immunity."

IMMUNITY. I have several autoimmune conditions: hypothyroidism, weak adrenals and the loss of female hormones. The only medicines I take are for hormone replacement. I am low in very important hormones because I ate foods for all of my 44 years that were toxins for me. Could the loss of my appendix have helped my autoimmune conditions take root? Why did it burst in the first place?

Here is what the authors of "Gut Solutions" have to say: "Obstruction of the appendix can occur due to solid pieces of stool or as a result of the stool becoming hard like stone."

I remember talking poop in college with a girlfriend and I was shocked to learn that she had bowl movements EVERY DAY. This was news to me as I went once a week. Where did all that poop go? Apparently some of it was turning to stone in my appendix.

Now that I have become self-educated on digestive issues as a sheer necessity to staying alive and thriving, I can see that I have had lifelong gut issues . . . but no one put them together until I was 44 years old.

I hope each of you will take stock of your gut. Ask yourself a lot of questions and keep asking until you find the answers. Pay attention to how you feel after you eat anything. If you have ANY autoimmune condition, look closely at what you are eating and consider blaming your diet for helping your condition along.

Most important of all -- listen to your gut.

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Apology to My Gut

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Dear Gut,

I owe you an apology.

I am sorry that I pumped foods into you for 44 years that made you congested, bloated and very unhappy.

I am sorry that I was a sugar addict and might have permanently endangered your structure.

I am sorry that I like alcohol and you have to deal with that as well.

I am sorry that I am a carb Queen and that I never met a potato that I didn't love.

I am sorry for all those times I sat on the bed watching a TV show and eating Cheetos.

I am sorry that I never liked vegetables much.

I am sorry for all the pastries.

I am sorry for the chocolate, too. I really love chocolate.

I am sorry most of all that I ignored my "gut instinct" for too long.

I hope you will forgive me and that you are willing to give me a do-over.

If you are, I promise you that I will:

• eat whole, real foods

• eat no food that has more than 5 ingredients in it

• never knowingly eat gluten, corn or dairy casein again

• give you daily probiotics and Omega Oils

• boycott sugar, in all her forms

• avoid alcohol and caffeine

• spoil you with ginger and green teas

And my most important promise, I will listen to my gut.

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What's for Dinner?

Here is what we had for dinner last night. It was FABULOUS! One of the best meals I have ever eaten. It does help to marry a man who is an excellent cook but if you are already married and your spouse doesn't cook at all (like me!), then this dish is worth learning to cook for. If you are not yet married, listen carefully: find a spouse who is a very good cook!!

I adapted the original recipe somewhat as we did not use the salmon or the red peppers it called for, mostly because I do not care for salmon:

Sauteed Seafood and Bell Pepper

From: 500 Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpenter

• 2 tablespoons Olive oil

• 2 Mahi Mahi fillets

• 1 Yellow Bell Pepper, deseeded and thickly cut

• 8 ounces large fresh shrimp, shelled and deveined

• 8 ounces sea scallops (we didn't add these)

• 4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon or lime juice

• 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper or dried hot red pepper flakes

• salt and pepper

• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro or parsley, finely chopped (we used parsley)

1. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet -- do not crowd the ingredients -- over medium heat. Put the Mahi Mahi fillets in the skillet, skin side down. Scatter the yellow pepper slices around. Cook for about 6 minutes on a medium heat, turning once halfway through.

2. Add the shrimp, garlic, lemon juice, red pepper, salt and pepper. Fry for 2 to 3 minutes more, until the shrimp are opaque.

3. Move to serving dishes. Scatter the parsley over and serve.

YUM!!!

I Am Watching what You Eat

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That's right, I am watching what you eat. I can't help it!

Today I went to two grocery stores (Sprouts for produce and meat and great gluten-free items and HEB for everyday stuff like household cleaners) and I looked at what the people around me were buying. The folks at Sprouts had a lot of healthy, yummy things in their baskets, but that is to be expected if you are at a health food store, right?

HEB was a different matter entirely. My lane's checker was mighty s-l-o-w so I got a good stare at the person's choices in front of me. I noticed right off that she had a puffy look to her, like I did when I was really ill. I can barely keep my mouth shut any more when I see people with that telltale puffy face. I want to give them Food Education 101 on the spot, but I try to be good and stay quiet. She also had lost the outer edges of her eyebrows, which points to a thyroid problem.

This lovely but puffy person had some of these items in her cart: hot dogs, sausage, white bread, corn chips, whole milk, Egos, potato chips, rice, ears of corn, oranges and grapes.

The only thing remotely healthy she choose was the fruit, though some even call that unhealthy if it isn't organic. If I were able to take away all the suspected items that might be causing her puffiness, she would have only walked out of the store with the oranges and the grapes and the rice since it wasn't white rice. I don't mean that they were unhealthy because I somehow knew that she had allergies to those products, I mean I do not think those items are healthy for anyone.

When I traveled to the Texas Coast last week, I noticed what everyone at our table got when we ate at a pizzeria. I made two trips to the salad bar and I didn't even miss the pizza. I was the only one who did that in the entire restaurant, but I guess most folks don't go to a pizzeria to get salad, now do they? Maybe they should, though, maybe they should.

Everyone at our table had several slices of pizza and some calzones. I wished I could have done a poll in a few hours to see how everyone felt after a meal like that. I REALLY wanted to stand up on the table and yell out that everyone was eating very unhealthy and in many ways, life-threatening food (if you ate enough of it, or say, ate it throughout your lifetime) but once again, I was a model of self-restraint. I know, I am so thoughtful to others eating what I used to eat just last year, aren't I? :)

After dinner, we all did talk about our many health issues and every single woman there had a major problem from diabetes to fibromalgia. The men weren't in any better health and had faced cancer and heart attacks. One woman walked with a cane and had very swollen ankles. If I had had one more glass of wine that evening, I would have stood up on the table and shouted over and over and over: what you are eating is killing you!

But alas, I kept my opinions to myself.

At least until I could spill them all here. . . .

Can the Weight Loss Continue?

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As you may have read here yesterday, I lost 8 pounds in ONE DAY. I did it (I think) by using commando eating tactics to nearly guarantee I was not ingesting any gluten, dairy (casein) or corn. I am going with the theory that one of my not fun reactions to ingesting any of those items makes me bloat up and feel fatigued and some might even say grouchy. I am trying to get to an ungrouchy and thin state of being, or least get to a non-bloated state of being.

I have to say that my energy is OUTSTANDING today! I feel healthy! The scary thing is that who knows how long that feeling will last since it seems that I have a pattern of gaining energy and then losing it all too quickly. I also wonder how long I can continue to be this disciplined with such a strict diet. I will never knowingly consume the foods that I know I have an allergy to but I do have some yummy gluten free treats in the pantry that are calling my name!

I did not lose another pound overnight, but I don't see the need to get greedy. :-) I also didn't gain any weight. I did add in a few brown rice crackers and a brown rice protein bar last night. I am now starting to wonder if anything like rice or potatoes will cause me to swell up?

Don't worry, I won't bore you with telling you what I eat every day but so many of you have asked and I am on a quest to figure out once and for all what is making me feel so bloated and if it helps you on your path to healthyville, I am happy to share this struggle.



Here is what I ate yesterday:

Breakfast

• big Red Delicious apple

• almonds

Snack

• gluten-free deli turkey

• black olives

• almonds

Lunch

• Chicken Stir fry with onions, green peppers, water chestnuts, and pineapple. YUM!

Snack

• applesauce

• gluten free deli turkey

• almonds

Dinner

• big Red Delicious Apple

• almond butter and brown rice crackers

Snack

• Pure organic Wild Blueberry bar

• ginger tea

Corn Is Evil

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We stopped trying to eat gluten in our house 10 months ago. We made many mistakes since the gluten-loving food industry sneaks gluten into products you would never expect to find gluten in, such as soy sauce. Just last night I ate a delicious gluten-free meal at P.F. Chang's and they brought me out some gluten-free soy sauce and it tasted so much better than the "normal" gluten-rich soy sauce. Why oh why would someone even think to add gluten to soy sauce?
After I started gaining a small measure of my energy back sans gluten, my husband and I decided to remove all caseins (the protein source in dairy) from our diets. I have learned the hard way that if you have an issue with gluten, you are very likely to have an issue with caseins as well. We did. Good-bye dairy.

We both slowly started feeling healthier than we had in years but still we both felt bloaty and still tired, especially in the afternoons. I happened to gain a significant and life-changing chunk of wisdom from an Austin pharmacist whom I called when I became concerned that my adrenal medicine might have dairy in it.

The pharmacist listened to my concerns and then asked me about corn. Was I still eating corn, he asked? I wasn't just eating corn, I was shoving in it as fast as I got my hands on it since it was serving as the one source I used to replace bread. I was eating corn tortillas like they were going out of production the very next minute.

The kindly pharmacist told me that corn is mostly genetically modified these days and most people have trouble digesting it. He recommended that I stop ingesting corn immediately. We did, and that meant another clearing out of the pantry. My God, what doesn't have corn starch in it????

We removed all the corn and corn-like products from our house and from our menus.

And then something miraculous started happening. It happened to my husband first. He was downright jolly in the afternoons, when we would normally be sagging and tired. He was singing and dancing in the kitchen and he started going on long walks again with our dogs. I noticed his increase in energy and I was very happy for him, but I wasn't there yet.

Weeks went by before I sat up one day and realized that I am never tired in the afternoons anymore. I even started singing and dancing and while fun, I am tone deaf so my apologies to anyone who has to listen to me sing. Next thing I knew, I was working out with a DVD I months ago with a trainer deemed "the toughest trainer in America." I haven't had the physical strength to work out for a decade.

Your energy level fades away slowly and you don't really notice it leaving, especially if you do what I did, and that is to prop yourself up with caffeine and sugar in the afternoons. Just as my energy level sagged over the past 10 years, it is now slowly creeping back in. I would do anything to feel vibrantly healthy again and to reclaim my long ago status as that of an athlete. Adding corn to the "will never eat again" column was easy.

Good-bye corn. I do not even miss you.

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We Got Caseined

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Instead of those omni-present Got Milk advertising campaigns, I would one day love to see people asking instead: Have you been caseined?

We got caseined over here recently. We were at a local, small town restaurant and I pulled the waitress aside and said we could not eat gluten, dairy or corn. How I wish I had said PLEASE don't give us anything that has casein in it. PLEASE.

What is casein?

Casein is a protein that is found in milk and used independently in many foods as a binding agent. You stand at least a 50% chance of having an issue with caseins if you have an issue with gluten. Isn't that special that they run in the same crowd?

My husband has felt for years that he was lactose intolerant so we removed lactose from our diets . . . but didn't yet know about caseins, which were still present in the lactose free milk and in many, many other suspicious foods we were still consuming.

I stopped ingesting caseins to support my husband and I was convinced that I did not have an issue with "dairy." I was wrong. I knew I did when I finally added some dairy back in my meals. I felt awful for days. It wasn't pleasant.

When we ate at the locally owned Mexican restaurant, I ordered chicken fajitas and ate them with no tortillas. Jeff had a wonderful grilled shrimp salad. If you can get through a Mexican meal and not touch a single corn tortilla chip placed on your table, you know that your will power to stay healthy is growing. We had no chips and felt good about our food choices.

A few hours later, Jeff's stomach was in knots and he did not feel well at all. I felt okay which may mean something or it may mean nothing at all in terms of my ability to digest caiseins. I called the restaurant and the hapless person who answered it listened to my questions about gluten, corn and dairy. She put the phone down and I could hear her yell to someone "HEY! do we put gluten in anything these people had for lunch here? They had chicken fajitas and the shrimp salad." She came back to phone and informed me that nope, we had ingested no corn, gluten or dairy. I didn't feel right about her "researching" my questions and by the way Jeff was feeling, I knew he had gotten something bad for his system, but what? It's the not so fun game of trying to figure out what you ate where that was now poisoning you. That game gets old in a hurry.

Then my phone rang suddenly. It was the restaurant owner! She wanted to tell me to ask for her next as she knew exactly what the ingredients were in every meal. She then asked me a question I will never forget to ask in the future: "did you tell the waitress to leave out the dairy or did you tell her about caiseins?"

I did just say dairy! Wow, someone in the teeny small Texas town we live in knew about caseins! She told me that they dip both the shrimp and the chicken fajitas in BUTTER before they grill them. Butter has caiseins! Our food sleuthing worked this time, not that it helped Jeff in the short term but it will for all of our future food restaurant dining. That restaurant is now our favorite little restaurant in town and we send them customers by the boatloadfull. (Though I do think it would help to have all of their waitresses well versed in casein-ology)

After that meal, I look the waiter in the eye and say clearly: we have some SERIOUS food allergies, please help us to not anything that might possibly contain wheat, gluten, corn dairy or anything that is made of a dairly substances such as butter.

Then I ask my honey if he brought that epi pen with him. Okay, I don't always ask about the epi pen but I will say that if I feel the waiter is not paying attention. Usually the threat of my throat closing up tends to make them perk up a bit and listen. Not that my throat would swell up but that sounds so much prettier to say than my guts will swell, don't you agree?

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10 Things I Like About Being Gluten, Dairy and Corn-free

1. Give me a minute, I am sure I will be able to think of something.

2. You can't eat mindlessly anymore.

3. I am eating healthier than I ever have in my entire life.

4. Most things with gluten in them are just empty calories with no real nutrition.

5. Okay, there are only five things.

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