Researchers Pinpoint Cause of Gluten Allergies 177
An anonymous reader writes "When patients with celiac disease consume foods containing gluten — a protein present in wheat, barley and rye — their immune systems send out an alarm, triggering a response that can damage their intestines and prevent them from absorbing certain nutrients. Now, scientists have pinpointed the culprits most responsible for this harmful reaction: three small fragments within the gluten protein that spark chaos in the gut."
Here's hoping they can track down peanut allergies (Score:4, Interesting)
I've always wondered what was the deal with food allergies. I say peanut allergies because it often provokes such an insane reaction. Is it genetic and those genes were always around but we never made the connection between food and symptons or is it something that developed as we changed or our environment changed?
There's other examples of our change of habitats. Heartburn/gastic reflux/stomach cancer is one I remember just off the top of my head.
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The deal is simple
Over cleanliness, over "fear of germs", soccer moms, etc, etc
let the kids play in dirt and eat stuff, no allergies
Re:Here's hoping they can track down peanut allerg (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Here's hoping they can track down peanut allerg (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right, but the parent was talking about allergies, peanuts, etc not celiac disease :)
still: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/04/westerners-gut-micro.html [boingboing.net]
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All allergies are autoimmune diseases. The problem isn't so much the allergen as it is the bodies reaction to it.
Re:Here's hoping they can track down peanut allerg (Score:4, Interesting)
So let your kids play out in the back with the horses and hay but don't be surprised if they get celiac disease. That's apples and oranges. Or Yugos and Hummers. (Added to preempt the inevitable request for an automotive analogy.)
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You're right
Anyway, celiac disease is not an allergy (and it starts at a very early age), so yeah, eating dirt probably won't make it better...
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There is some differentiation here as to gluten reactions. Celiac as described in the lit is an auto-immune reaction which causes damage to the lining of the gut. There are some other indications that there is, for some people, a lack of ability for the gut to properly break down gluten before it enters the blood stream. Theory goes that the gut allows the gluten fragments to enter the bloodstream where they act like a toxin. Other proteins in this category are casein and soy.
People with gluten sensitiv
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That is, the lack of pseudo-symbiotic hookworm infections?
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The deal is simple
Over cleanliness, over "fear of germs", soccer moms, etc, etc
let the kids play in dirt and eat stuff, no allergies
It's a working theory, and possibly a good one, that exposure to infections prevents allergies developing. But the evidence is a long way from conclusive. The most recent review I can find of the evidence (published in 2007) concluded that the studies to that date were inconclusive. So, you might be right, but even if you are the effect you have on the chance of developing a
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Over cleanliness does not lead to gluten or peanut allergies. They are genetic. In the case of peanut allergies, you have them from day one. That is why they tell you never give peanuts to children under a year - it's instant death if they have the allergy.
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> The term coeliac derives from the Greek (koiliaks, "abdominal"), and was introduced in the 19th century in a translation of what is generally regarded as an ancient Greek description of the disease by Aretaeus of Cappadocia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease [wikipedia.org]
Yeah, those 1st C Greeks and their goddamn germ fetish
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Trolls... if they had something important to say they wouldn't be anonymous
Also they would give a better answer, like everybody else
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"if they had something important to say they wouldn't be anonymous"
Citation needed.
What?! I'm tired of arguing, so I thought I'd just give a non-argument, rudely... show off the fact that I've read wikipedia, but haven't learnt to string whole sentences together yet. What wrong that?? Personal validation needed!!!!
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The parent mentioned allergies, and celiac disease is not an allergy
Re:Here's hoping they can track down peanut allerg (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, no. There is some evidence to support that position. Including both epidemiological and biochemical data. I'm not going to look it up for you, but there was a story on Slashdot a while ago.
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Is that what makes their hair look rusty?
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Historically, grains were a much poorer source of gluten than they are now. Through selective breeding and through milling processes that refine flour, wheat flour is now 13 to 23% gluten, depending on a number of factors, with whole grain flour being nearer the lower end of that range.
In addition, wheat generally and gluten specifically have become ubiquitous in the foods we eat. For example, soy sauce, which can easily be made gluten free, is often mainly wheat nowadays, especially the Japanese varieties
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Such illnesses probably remained sub-clinical in people in previous centuries but now, aided by enhanced severity, we better understand what's happening and we are better able to diagnose the trouble.
It's still sub-clinical. 97% of Celiacs are going undiagnosed and leading lives of increasing misery because gluten is in e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.
As you so well pointed out, wheat is being used increasingly in heavily processed food because they have have hybridized the wheat kernel so much that they kernels are large and stuffed with gluten and is incredibly cheap to produce. But there is no reason that wheat has to be used other than it helps in making processed foods. The fact is there are other starch sourc
Re:Here's hoping they can track down peanut allerg (Score:4, Interesting)
I have Celiac's disease and I'd like to comment on wheat substitutes as I have first-hand experience with many. I will say up front, there really is no substitute for wheat. The combination of taste and texture cannot be matched at any cost. The substitution used depends on many factors, and the alternatives may involve adding 4-5 ingredients to replace the wheat.
Gluten is what gives wheat it's spongy/elastic texture. If you tried to make bread from rice or potatoes, it will crumble because these starches lack gluten. Any potato or rice bread you buy in the store or bake will invariably include a flour containing gluten(except those specifically designed to be gluten-free). There are really only two options here:
* Xanthan gum. This is a replacement protein used widely in gluten-free products. It is not cheap nor does it have any flavor.
* Guar gum. Similar to Xanthan but slightly cheaper and is a laxative.
Wheat has a certain taste. There is *NO* substitute that compares here as one cannot get wheat without gluten. The appropriate substitution here depends on the application.
* A common use for wheat flour is dusting so the product doesn't stick. There really isn't anything cheaper then wheat for this application but rice flour is as effective and has a very weak flavor.
* Breads can use a mix of flours based on tapioca, rice, potato or beans. All of these do not taste like wheat. Beans are a laxative and much more expensive. White rice and potato flour are not as nutritious.
Some gluten-containing starches have desired chemical properties.
* Almost all beer is made from barley or wheat and therefore contains gluten.
Wheat has a good shelf-life.
* Anything potato or rice based baked good must be refrigerated and even then only lasts about half as long.
* All the aforementioned flours need to be stored refrigerated whereas wheat flour does not.
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In Australia the labeling is heaps better than it used to be so it's actually not that hard to avoid gluten here compared to 5 years ago. And maybe because of the labeling there are products that you'd think would have wheat or other gluten grains in it but don't, presumably just to expand their market a little bit - sticking 'gluten free' on the front of the packaging makes it an easy choice. But yeah, any substitute for gluten in a product that depends on it's properties is a poor substitute.
Wheat flour i
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'corn flour made from corn.'
All the wheat based cornflour i've seen recently is fairly clearly branded as 'wheaten cornflour'. We probably don't get such a wide brand selection in central Victoria though.
The supermarket around the corner is reasonably expensive but has a huge range of gf foods for a supermarket its size (which are obviously more expensive again).
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I have Cecilia's disease. It's breaking my heart. It's shaking my confidence daily.
Not all diseases are named after people, you know.
Re:Here's hoping they can track down peanut allerg (Score:4, Insightful)
[citation needed]. Gluten is wheat protein, right? When I buy flour, the protein content is stated and typically ranges from roughly 10-12% (12% being the "strong", high-protein variety, such as this flour [sainsburys.co.uk]). If you're going to claim twice the protein content in wheat flour, please back those claims up with evidence.
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His numbers are crap, you are closer to the mark.
I know Red Wheats, its what I grew up farming. It ranges from 8 to 16% protein.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat [wikipedia.org]
http://www.eolss.net/ebooks/Sample%20Chapters/C10/E5-21-04-04.pdf [eolss.net]
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/crops/00555.html [colostate.edu]
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_c587d5a6-a1e0-11df-abc5-001cc4c03286.html [billingsgazette.com]
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"When coupled with the malabsoprtion syndrome that accompanies it, since an inflamed, damaged intestinal system absorbs poorly, vitamin deficiencies (especially vitamins E, D and K) gluten allergies cause real illness in many people."
There are some far reaching implications of this. Nerotransmitters are made in the gut, some of these (ie, GABA) regulate mood. If the gut is compromised enough so few are made that mental problems can be the result. Some parents of autistic children have found that withholdi
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Another one is B12. That can lead to depression and anxiety, among other things, and is actually fairly hard for the gut to absorb. (Thus it's fairly easy to damage/overload it enough to create a deficiency.) The liver normally stores huge amounts of B12 relative to the body's needs, though, so symptoms may not show up for months or years.
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Nerotransmitters ?
Is that where red matter comes from ?
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Re:Here's hoping they can track down peanut allerg (Score:5, Interesting)
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And yet, exposure can also damp down and finally eliminate an allergy. We seem to be missing something here...
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Age of first exposure. From Wikipedia:
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Oh, forgot to link to the relevant article [wikipedia.org].
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Although you are right that prolonged breast-feeding is associated with a lower incidence of Celiac, it is important to note that most infant formulas do not contain Gluten [surefoodsliving.com].
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I didn't say that they did. I didn't even imply that. Longer breast feeding has two benefits. First, it boosts the child's immune system. Second, it is a good indicator for how late the child will begin consuming solid food, for two reasons:
Admittedly, that's more correlative, not causative; the causative factor is th
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Hypersensitive and allergic reactions have been understood in medicine in varying degrees since ancient times but as a medical student I can tell you that we still know very little. What we do know? Few if any true allergies are truly genetic. Rather, some genes predispose to gathering many allergies and most allergies are gained well after birth. Any honest researcher in the field will share your wonderment about allergies, because we still have much to learn.
Actually, stomach cancer is MORE common in less
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It's a combination of things including really bad medical advice from "experts", people thinking their floors need to be suitable for operating on and a statistically small number of genuine immune abnormalities.
For example, pregnant women, particularly in the UK, were advised to avoid peanuts in case the baby turns out to be allergic (who knows why, I've never heard of that causing a problem). It turns out that lack of peanut protean exposure in-utero results in MORE peanut allergies and more serious peanu
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My kids have it and believe me it's a huge disruption. If they eat gluten by accident it turns them as white as a sheet and there is a good chance they'll puke their guts up for a day. The only known "cure" to coeliac disease is
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Move to Australia. The ingredient labeling over here seems to have improved incredibly in the last 5 years or so. It's very rare we'll find a product that doesn't list any wheat or other gluten containing grain that ends up actually containing it.
Eating out and take-away foods are still a bit of a problem. Even for eateries that claim to have a gluten-free product line it's so easy to accidentally contaminate the product with a small amount of gluten that it just seems to be not worth it, and most workers j
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The cont
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Honest question. Do you mean something that would _typically_ contain gluten, or not? If not, why should it list gluten free?
I can't remember the specific examples, but there have been cases in the U.S. of products saying "fat free" or "cholesterol free" on the package, when such products would never contain that. I think they got in minor trouble with the FDA over labelling laws. (If someone has specific examples, great.)
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From what I understand there is a very high incidence of peanut allergies downwind from where peanuts are grown, and the same things tend to occur with other allergens too. It's only in the last few hundred years that crops like that are grown on the scale they are today and all in one place etc.
Btw, Coeliac Disease isn't an allergy like a peanut allergy. You can get very sick from having gluten (my daughter will be quite unwell within an hour from even the tiniest bit) but it's a completely different respo
Gluten free fad (Score:3, Interesting)
In addition to allowing gluten to be made more tolerable to those with Celiac disease, I wonder if the discovery of the proteins responsible will lead to a quick and easy test for immune reaction. Something similar to the TB skin test would be great.
A quick, easy to interpret, cheap test may serve to stem the tide of people self-diagnosing as gluten intolerant. I guess as fads go this one is fairly innocuous, with the only real downside being slightly higher prices to subsidize the "gluten free" versions of foods on menus at restaurants. Of course some sites promote it as a cure for all diseases, but that's always the case with any diet. It must be a godsend to real Celiac sufferers though. All of a sudden the gluten-free products they can eat are much more accessible.
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There already are tests for celiac disease that are fairly quick and easy to interpret. it's the same problem as with all the other tests though: someone has to think of doing it. And BTW, the TB skin test you're referring to is in fact a lot more complex to interpret than you think.
Will this discovery lead to a change in the way we're approaching celiac disease? Most likely yes, however I wouldn't hold my breath. Check back in another 5, perhaps even 10 years and we'll see what(if anything) comes out of it
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No, I'm not trolling. Once you get exposed to gluten in childhood and the antibodies are formed, they will be basically present and testable in the blood for a very long time, even if the exposure ceases. The current generation of antibody based tests (transglutaminase IgA antibodies) are good enough that you don't need the prolonged exposure and biopsy anymore.
I see no way the discovery we're talking about can lead to a generation of tests that completely precludes exposure to gluten - in other words, pren
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Actually, in the link [medscape.com] I gave above, it says that the antibodies are present for only 6-12 month. I personally think that this does not come under the definition of "a very long time", but you may think otherwise.
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See my reply below. The intestinal biopsy, while still considered by some the gold standard, is almost never practiced anymore due to availability of much better blood tests recently. There are however doctors out there who don't stay current and recommend outdated tests. And yes, this is an example of test which was cutting edge in 2006 but isn't anymore.
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Well, according to the text books and updated sites [medscape.com], biopsy of the gut is still a criterion standard for diagnosis of Gluten and thus needs to be performed so the presence of the disease is confirmed. I suspect that many times biopsy is not performed because of non-medical reasons - either financial ones or because the patient is unsuitable/unwilling to undergo a biopsy.
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Been there before too eh? One of my kids had the current blood test which came back as 'possible but not likely' but had the biopsy and it's come back definitely positive for Coeliac. She was tiny for her age though (not skinny, just short) so we knew there was something wrong. My wife and another kid have had the blood test (the current one) which showed a 'possible' result but the biopsy showed nothing. They still feel better by excluding gluten - my wife feels very unwell if she has any.
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In addition to allowing gluten to be made more tolerable to those with Celiac disease,
Why should people be forced into eating gluten? When the wheat kernel is eaten, the entirety of the kernel is destroyed. Gluten in the wheat kernel could be an adaptation to prevent animals from eating the seed in the first place.
Even though this researcher found the specific peptides that cause problems for Celiacs, the fact is nobody entirely digests the gluten protein in bread. The only thing nutritional about bread is that it is a starchy carbohydrate and it might have a small amount of fiber. Otherwise
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I would check out this comment [slashdot.org] regarding the benefits and unique characteristics of Gluten.
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They might want to eat it.
Are you sure? Or is it all the sugar, salt, butter, and grease that goes along with wheat products that people really want to eat?
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Beer is an optional beverage that has not been made an integral ingredient to everything on the store shelf. People do not have to buy beer to fix dinner. But they are led to buy a host of other products to fix meals.
But beyond that, beer will induce health problems with long term consumption. This is regardless of whether anyone thinks people should give up drinking it or not.
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Beer is an optional beverage that has not been made an integral ingredient to everything on the store shelf. People do not have to buy beer to fix dinner.
Well, there's still time to fix this!
You can be blood tested (Score:2)
to identify specific markers which then if necessary can be confirmed by samples taken from the digestive tract.
I recently went through a baterial infection which after treatment with Flagyl (sp) cleared the wrong types from my system. Before then two doctors were sure I had celiac but blood tests cleared that off the table. If you test positive to the blood test they take samples from your system to confirm it. For most doctors the blood test is sufficient. In my case while it came back clear I had sim
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The naturopaths already have a cheap, quick test for gluten intolerance. A friend of mine described it as a machine that you're hooked up to that "measures your levels." It's really sensitive too - it seems to detect gluten intolerance in everyone it's used on.
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If it were only so simple. There are a few problems. The first is that not everyone presents with the typical symptoms of stomach aches and diarrhea. Some are found to have iron-deficiency anemia as the only presenting symptom. This type of anemia can be due to many causes - from celiac, to excessive menstrual bleeding to colon cancer (and many other reasons). You want to be sure before you tell someone they cannot eat Gluten for the rest of their life (including not eating pizza and beer).
The second thing
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It's great that you manage to keep a Gluten-free diet so easily. I have a friend that also manages quite well. Sadly, many people with Celiac do not manage so easily, especially those with less severe symptoms (Pavlov's dog at work).
Celiac disease is not an allergy (Score:2)
Re:Celiac disease is not an allergy (Score:4, Informative)
You are both right and wrong. It is an autoimmune disease, but it's triggered by an environmental factor. Actually quite a few reactions that are traditionally classified as "allergies" follow the same pattern. Serum sickness is another example. Most medication allergies 9true allergies, not adverse effects) are in the same category.
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I think you got some of the terms confused. Let me sort it out.
Autoimmune disease - a disease in which the body's immune system attacks its own tissues. Most autoimmune disease are cause/triggered by a variety of factors including genetic disposition and environmental factors (e.g. exposure to substances and viruses).
Autoimmune disease are classified according to the basic Hypersensitivity reaction [wikipedia.org] underlying them. You can read the Wikipedia article, but to summarize, there are 4 types (the article talks ab
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I'm a bit perplexed at this comment, I thought that McDonalds had a fairly large gluten free menu though I'm not a celiac myself.
Sure it does. If you want a salad or a soda! Almost everything on the Maccas menu has wheat in it, from the burgers to the nuggets. It's all bread or flour based, at least around here. It might be different in other localities.
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McDs really doesn't make much effort for coeliacs. They can eat fries (only if the fry stations are not also used to fry twisty fries, onion rings), meat patties (no dressing, no bun), some ice creams (some contain biscuits, candy or sauces that contain wheat), some drinks (some shakes are offlimits), and some salads (no dressing, meat). Pretty much everything else has wheat in
Celiac is not an allergy (Score:4, Informative)
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cool news (Score:2)
I had never even heard of this until a few weeks ago when i found out a friend had it.
Cool news
My daughter (Score:3, Insightful)
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Gluten is a major component in several grains. Grain has formed a major portion of most humans' diet since the dawn of agriculture. It's not surprising you find gluten in almost everything.
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Same situation for us, although it turns out some of my kids were temporarily gluten intolerant during a certain phase of development.
We found that once you work out a GF menu, it's not really too bad. The main starch becomes rice rather than wheat, and for things like soy sauce people have generally worked out lists of GF brands that you can buy. Overall our menu mostly became more like an east Asian menu, which wasn't the end of the world.
The tough part is when you want one foot in both worlds. For exa
Gluten Insensitivity .vs. Intolerance (Score:2)
There is a misperception that is being abused that the protein fragments which cause people to become sick are NOT the problem. This article goes on to further confuse the notion that gluten sick people need only de-sensitize themselves to the allergen in wheat, oat, barley or rye. The findings isolate gluten protein peptides as the culprit.
The problem has been the fact that wheat is not a naturally occurring food. Wheat is a hybrid, the result of 8000 years ago in the Mesopotamia combining of a grain an
the cause of gluten allergies is ... gluten! (Score:2)
Fantastic work there, scientists. Hopefully they'll be able to determine if peanuts are what causes peanut allergies, though I dunno - seems like that would be a pretty big coincidence.
Given American Pharamceutical Companies (Score:2)
Given American Pharmaceutical Companies, if this discovery leads to anything, it will not be a cure. More likely they will develop a drug that will let people eat gluten as long as they keep buying a pill.
Re:double standard (Score:5, Interesting)
The percentage of people who are harmed by arsenic (100) vs. the percentage of people who are harmed by gluten (small).
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The percentage of people who are harmed by arsenic (100) vs. the percentage of people who are harmed by gluten (small).
For pure arsenic, that's true. It still has its uses in medicine, such as oncology where it works better than iodine for locating tumors.
Oh, and have you eaten fish lately? You probably consumed a milligram of arsenic. But, since you're reading this, I'll assume you're still alive and well.
Gluten (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, as mentioned, arsenic is a poison because it's deadly to pretty much everyone (though supposedly you can build a tolerance), and additionally it's not exactly common in the stuff we eat (except where we've poisoning land with heavy metal from discarded electronics).
Gluten, on the other hand, is in pretty much f***'ing everything. Preservatives in canned food, wheat-products, tons of stuff. It also has this tendency to follow family-lines. However, since the full tests usually involve fun things like biopsies, a *lot* of people don't know they have it. However, the numbers of those with gluten-intolerance isn't as small as one might think.
Maybe it's just IMHO, but I think that trying to eliminate a condition which causes a smaller group of people to not be able to eat 80% of the food out there, vs one where it's just "don't eat poison", might not be such a bad thing. Of course the GP is probably a troll, but a lot of people don't seem to realize how serious celiac'ism is.
1 out of 117 has celiac (Score:2, Insightful)
I saw this stat somewhere but I can't cite it unfortunately. But more precisely, it's 1 out of every 117 caucasian - it's quite a lot, but most people don't get tested or only experience the symptoms after years of gut damage in their middle-age.
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Re:Gluten (Score:5, Interesting)
In the case of gluten allergies, two reasons:
Thus, it is neither a significant positive nor negative evolutionary pressure, so the percentage of expression should rise and fall almost randomly through history.
If you want to know the actual reason for the increase in gluten and peanut allergies lately, we have a pretty good idea:
Nothing evolutionary about it. It's predominantly societal and geographical.
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Thus, it is neither a significant positive nor negative evolutionary pressure,/quote.
As far as you know. If you're sick with Celiac and remain undiagnosed, you will tend to produce fewer offspring. Because of the ignorance of those offspring, they in turn will produce fewer children. The fact is that there is more than one vector here. If Celiac was distributed equally across the planet, then you might would have a point. But if different societies have different percentages of Celiacs, then it's safe to say that a negative pressure is being exerted.
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I was reading an article in Scientific American a while back that found that during WW II Nordic countries (where gluten intolerance and celiac's disease appears to be more prevalent) had a large drop in infant mortality rates that corresponded to a shortage of wheat which caused the countries to switch to rice and other grain substitutes so it is just not a cumulative effect over your life.
The up side to all of this is that it is providing scientist with a very easy to study auto-immune disease where the t
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There is evidence that children exposed to gluten, peanuts, etc. too early in life are significantly more likely to develop an allergy to them.
I've been hearing the opposite recently, that they recommend exposing children to peanuts, shellfish, etc. at a young age, and even think the delay in exposure may be part of the cause for increase in allergies.
I don't personally have a strong feeling either way, just wanted to point out that early exposure to peanuts and other potential allergens is apparently no longer considered dangerous. Although I think all would agree it's prudent to closely supervise first exposures to these in case of allergies.
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Well, I have seen some studies that suggest that consuming peanuts and shellfish and things while pregnant/lactating reduces the risk. I would point out, however, that during that period of time, a child's immune system is being significantly bolstered by that of the parent. During that time, exposure might have a positive effect by getting the child used to it during a time when the child's immune system is not in high gear yet. I would expect the opposite to be true after that period, up until some oth
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I think this is the article I read recently, although it seems awfully speculative and actually amounts to "different regions have different allergy rates, and we have no clue why" :P
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/08/03/food.allergies.er.gut/?hpt=C2 [cnn.com]
Another theory is that children need to get exposed to common allergens, such as nuts and shellfish, from a much earlier age, to avoid developing allergies. [...]
An oft-cited 2008 study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology compared peanut allergies among Jewish children living in Israel and the United Kingdom. Peanut allergies were more common among the children in the U.K. than in Israel. This was associated with the fact that 69 percent of the Israeli children received peanuts by 9 months of age, compared with 10 percent of the infants in the U.K.
This pitfall, however, is that it was not a controlled experiment [...]
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Look at the rate of autoimmune diseases in 3rd world countries or anywhere where everything isn't so god damn sterile. I guarantee that you will not find the same rate, not even close.
We just evolved as a civilization way faster than our bodies a
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Given that people are fairly unlikely to actually die/not reproduce because of a gluten intolerance, the pressure exerted will be small, but even if the rate of reproduction is only a little under the norm in sufferers then (over a sufficient span of time) it'll exert a selective pressure.
That 'sufficient' span of time might well be quite a lot longer than what has already passed though, in which case we wouldn't expect to be seeing the effects yet.
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Does capsaicin kill you?
Yes; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin#Acute_health_effects [wikipedia.org]
While the LD50 isn't quite that small, it's still possible to get a lethal dose that's not too bulky.
Besides I remember reading that hot pepper powder was used as a method to execute prisoners in one of the ancient Middle Eastern societies (I forget which one - Persia?) and even in the 19th-20th centuries it was still used by murderers in SE Asia.
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Only if you extracted and purified it. I find it pretty unlikely for a "reasonable person" to do so.
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You having a hard time with reality doesn't mean the rest of us have to.
Re:double standard (Score:4, Insightful)
An alergy is simply something that causes you little to no direct threat (it doesn't destroy tissue or organs or block neural pathways etc) BUT your body misrecognises it as something that does, and triggers for example an immuno-response like closing your airways to stop the threat. The problem is the response, not the substance.
Things aren't "a poison" or "not a poison", things are "poisonous" at different amounts... some things are more "poisonous" than other things. I don't think there has to be a line.
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It's like what is discussed later on - arsenic kills you because of direct effect [wikipedia.org] of arsenic on the body. OTOH, gluten does nothing to the body, It is the body's reaction to the substance (AKA hypersensitivity reaction; AKA autoimmune disease) that causes the disease. So arsenic directly causes damage -> poison. The body reacts aberrantly to a substance and cause an immune reaction against it -> disease.
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In Austria there lived the so called "arsenic eaters", who ingested doses far beyond the lethal dose of arsenic trioxide without any apparent harm. Arsenic is thought to enable strenuous work at high altitudes, e.g. in the Alps. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_trioxide [wikipedia.org])
Re:People Forget (Score:4, Insightful)
Celiac has been around for centuries. Dante Alegheri, poet who composed The Inferno. suffered from it. Peanut allergies have been around as well-it's just that until recently, helicopter parents didn't try and insist that every lunchbag within 5 miles of little Johnny be screened for peanut traces. The increased awareness has fooled you into thinking it's a recent phenomenon-kinda like how fundie churches try to argue that homosexuality didn't exist until the 60's.
I know it's trendy to hate chemicals because they have long scary names, but we value science a little bit more on this website.
Re: (Score:2)
fundie churches try to argue that homosexuality didn't exist until the 60's.
Really? The bible mentions homosexuality meaning it's been around for a while, and yet some folks believe same sex love is a recent phenomena? Do you recall who actually said that? I mean I know dumb Christians, but that's just a bit too dumb.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Coeliacs have always been around but, one of the reasons why it is a lot more prevalent now is that, since a couple of centuries ago, the type of wheat that is predominant in our diet contains a lot more gluten than before, which probably caused a sharp increase in the number of people who reacted to it.
If you think about it, it makes sense that this wheat become so popular; the gluten content in the foods seems to be closely related to the texture. Try a gluten-free bread and you'll notice that the texture
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People forget peanut allergies and celiac's disease were almost nil until the mid-eighties. What happened in the 80's? Genetically modified food was introduced to the market. Today you can't hardly buy grain/fruit/vegetables that aren't GM and both allergies and celiac's are now considered normal. The fact is it's companies like Monsanto and Cargill that are causing this.
Everything above is an outright lie.
(Not to mention bad science post ergo hoc propter hoc is not a valid argument to draw conclusions on, as it is necessarily incomplete and therefore flawed.)
Celiac was not diagnosed because medical universities didn't teach about it, so doctors encountering it were essentially ignorant of the disease.
Re:People Forget (Score:5, Insightful)