Did you know that May is Celiac Awareness Month? Only a few states are officially recognizing it. The purpose is to bring awareness to celiac disease, (and also to gluten allergies and gluten intolerance). There are a lot of people, both adults and children, who cannot safely eat foods that contain gluten.
What is celiac disease? It is a type of autoimmune digestive disease. When people who have celiac disease eat foods that contain gluten (from ingredients like wheat, rye, or barley), their bodies cannot properly digest it. This causes damage to the villi of the small intestine in people who have celiac disease. That damage means that the person will be less able to gain nutrition from the foods that he or she eats (including the ones that do not contain any gluten).
It is a serious disease. If left untreated it can cause a person to become malnourished. A person who suffers from untreated celiac disease can develop other autoimmune diseases, osteoporosis, thyroid disease, and cancer. There are around three million Americans who have celiac disease. Only around 5% of them have been accurately diagnosed.
Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity has been refereed to as “Celiac Light”. Around 18 million Americans have non-celiac gluten sensitivity. That is around 6 times the amount of people who have celiac disease! People who have it are unable to properly digest gluten, but, it isn’t actually causing damage to their intestines. It is similar to having an allergy to gluten.
Adults and children who cannot safely eat foods that contain gluten have to be super careful about all of the ingredients in every food that that they are considering eating. It is fairly obvious that foods like pasta, bread, and pretzels contain wheat, (and therefore gluten).
Did you know that gluten is also in things like soy sauce, Rice Krispies, and the light version of the frappuccinos from Starbucks? IHOP puts their pancake batter into their omelets. Some cosmetics and medications contain gluten. Those hidden dangers can make people who have celiac disease or a gluten intolerance really sick.
Another thing to watch out for is cross contamination. Some restaurants are making pizzas that have a gluten-free crust. This might work for people who have a slight gluten-intolerance. However, there is the potential that someone will accidentally put the gluten-free dough on the counter where a regular pizza dough was sitting seconds before. They just made that gluten-free pizza unsafe for a person with celiac to eat.
If more people learned about celiac disease, and gluten intolerance, the world would be a somewhat safer place for the people who suffer from these diseases. Only a few states, (California, Illinois, North Carolina, Maryland, Minnesota, and New Hampshire) are officially recognizing May as Celiac Awareness Month this year.
Image by Samantha Celera on Flickr