A person needing to follow a Gluten Free Diet to regain their
health often sees their enforced diet as a formidable list of
"Can'ts & Don'ts".
This web page aims to help people
realise that the diet doesn't mean the end of good eating or variety
in their food.
This page is produced by Beverley Matthews
bevjmatt@internode.com.au
Last Updated : January 2007
Gluten is the Protein found in the four cereals - wheat, barley, oats and rye.
WHO NEEDS TO FOLLOW A GLUTEN FREE DIET ?
There are three basic conditions requiring a Gluten free diet:
Coeliac Disease (pronounced SEE-LEA-AK) is a condition in which the digestive system reacts abnormally to Gluten. Gluten is toxic to a person with Coeliac Disease and results in a "flattening" of the lining of the small intestine, and a decrease in the surface area for the absorption of the nutrients from food.
Coeliac Disease can affect both children and adults, but in children is more commonly apparent during the first two years of life, in particular, at a time when solids are first introduced to the diet.
Symptoms can include anaemia, weight loss, diarrhoea, lethargy, abdominal fullness and discomfort with pain or vomiting. An adult may lose weight and a child fail to thrive. In adults the symptoms may take many forms. Diarrhoea is not an essential feature of the condition.
IS THE COELIAC CONDITION FULLY UNDERSTOOD ?
No. It is only in the last forty years that the condition has firstly been acknowledged and recently more correctly diagnosed. Coeliac Disease can surface at any age. Until recently it was identified mainly in children. The rate at which adults are being diagnosed is increasing dramatically. Regrettably many doctors still consider the disease as occurring only in children.
The only form of treatment is a lifelong diet with meticulous removal of foods containing gluten. Reintroduction of gluten in coeliacs will cause a relapse - this may or may not be accompanied by obvious symptoms - but is nevertheless damaging. Children placed on the diet generally revert to normal growth, while adults can expect to return to normal health.
HOW IS THE COELIAC CONDITION CONFIRMED ?
A definite diagnosis is made by a small bowel biopsy. This is a minor surgical procedure, causing a little discomfort.
Dermatitis Herpetiformis (DH) is related to the coeliac condition. It is a form of gluten-sensitive entropathy in which the skin is the major organ involved. A large proportion of DH suffers also have asymptomatic entropathy of the gut.
WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF D.H. ?
The rash of DH usually appears as patches of itchy small bisters, or itchy smooth slightly elevated lesions. They most commonly appear on elbows, buttocks, knees, and head. They are not uncommon on the face and neck.
DH is commonly treated with a drug - Dapsone. As there are common side effects with Dapsone, persons taking this drug should have periodic blood tests taken and be regularly monitored by their doctor.
The condition can be controlled by adherence to a very strict life-long adherence to a qluten free diet.
Neither form of Gluten Enteropathy is contagious. It is familial, i.e., genetic in origin, passed to a child through the genes of the parents.
The word 'allergy' was defined first in 1906 by Clemens von Pirquet as 'a specific, altered capacity to react to physical substances on the part of the tissues of the body.'
With an allergy to wheat or gluten your body reacts abnormally when exposed to any of the grains involved.
WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS ?
Symptoms of allergy depend on which part of the body is reacting abnormally, and can include almost any organ. Common symptoms can involve the skin, eyes, nose and sinuses, nervous or digestive systems. Irritability, headaches, anxiety and depression are common in gluten intolerance.
HOW IS ALLERGY DIAGNOSED ?
Food allergies are notoriously hard to diagnose as standard allergy tests may not detect the condition. Gluten or wheat allergy is frequently diagnosed during an elimination diet.
A person on a Gluten free diet must avoid any foods containing even traces of the four cereals (wheat, barley oats & rye), their derivatives or hybrids, including malt, glucose, semolina and triticale. This means taking care to check the labels of all processed foods and avoiding any battered or crumbed products as well as the 'normal' foods obviously made from wheat flour.
WHERE IS GLUTEN USED in FOOD PROCESSING ?
Gluten or wheat flour is a common additive in smallgoods, packaged convenience foods, gravies, and many canned products. It may also present in excipients in some pharmaceutical preparations, particularly vitamin and mineral supplements.
All fruits, vegetables, dairy foods, eggs, meat, fish & poultry as well as bread, cakes , biscuits and pasta made from the flours and grains of:
* rice, sago
* corn & maize, tapioca
* buckwheat, millet
* soya, potato & pea flour
These flours and grain products can be used to bake at home and the number of commercial products available is extensive & growing all the time.
The most important feature of shopping for any diet requiring elimination
of any food or Additives is to get into the habit of reading labels.
In Australia there is a bit more of a problem, as the labelling
laws allow generic names such as flour, starch, cornflour
, vegetable protein etc.
Many manufacturers are making efforts to improve, but meanwhile
this means that extra care must be taken when shopping.
Perhaps if more people contacted the manufacturers to complain,
there is a chance that this situation may be redressed.
When shopping for gluten free food avoid any foods where the ingredients list includes the general words 'thickener', 'flour', 'cereal' or 'vegetable protein'. If in doubt about the contents - DON'T BUY IT.