Coeliac disease: play in advance. Don’t be caught unprepared

Coeliac disease or celiac disease or celiac sprue.

     Aretaeus of Cappadocia (120–200 AD.) was the first to use the term «koiliakos» with the meaning of «one who suffers in the bowel». Celiac disease, especially if they identified with the name of celiac illness, frightens us, but fears are originate from the fact that many people ignore it. In classical literature the Pillars of Hercules (current Strait of Gibraltar) indicated the extreme limit of the known world and, consequently, of knowledge. Beyond this limit were bud men fears. But then, the audacity of the explorers had crossed them. So we can do the same thing with celiac disease.

     This is a permanent intolerance to gluten, a vegetable origin protein contained in some cereals: wheat, barley, rye, oats, spelled, kamut. Its manifestation is like love, has no age. The most common symptoms (diarrhea, weight loss, anemia, vitamin deficiencies, bone loss, hair loss) resulting from lack of protein, vitamins, fats, minerals, and this deficiency is linked to the atrophy of intestinal villi, deputies to the absorption of nutrients. The incidence of this intolerance is rising more and more, but the diagnosis are less than the real number of people with celiac disease, who are forced to remove even the smallest traces of flour from their each flat. They should follow a gluten–free diet to guarantee a perfect health state that otherwise would suffer serious or irreparable damages. All this implies a strong commitment to education food, but the privations are always less: cereals such as rice, corn, millet, soybeans and other are going to replace those prohibited. In addition, food industry have set up a wide range of gluten–free foods, from flour to frozen pizzas, from stuffed biscuits to ice creams. In this way, a celiac diet is varied and balanced despite the gluten absence.

     If you have symptoms associated to those described, talk to your doctor who may, and has already happened, forget about it and hopelessly wrong diagnosis or bring you  in the operating room suspecting a tumor in the stomach or intestine. Remember that you aren’t alone and not the only one. Time ago, has arisen the AIC (Italian Celiac Association); you can also visit the websites www.aicpuglia.it and www.celiachia.it.

     Now I turn to the categories of readers: if you are a parent you can take care of your son/daughter, and if you are a teenager your only problem will be the age of transition, if you are a restaurateur you can insert into the network of facilities that prepare «gluten free» food. So you can increase your clientele and... your finances; and if you aren’t celiac, today you learned a new word.

     Source "La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno", an italian newspaper, February 20, 2013, p. 20.