Celiac Disease is an auto immune disorder where your body’s allergic reaction towards a protein called gluten leads to damage to your small intestine. Gluten is a protein that is found in wheat, barley and rye. For reasons not known as of today, the presence of gluten causes an allergic reaction in the small intestine. The body classifies gluten as a threat to its health and automatically releases antibodies to destroy the gluten. The antibodies do not destroy just the gluten but also end up severely damaging the villi present in your small intestine.
Villi are small projections that absorb nutrients from your food and pass the same into your blood for consumption by the body. Damage to the villi makes it difficult for the body to absorb the nutrients from the food. Hence, celiac disease, caused by the allergic reaction of the body to gluten, leads to severe damage to not just to your small intestine but to your entire body.
Allergic reaction of the small intestine to gluten leads to the ‘leaky gut’ syndrome where your intestine expands to allow not just the nutrients but also toxic substances to pass into your blood. Once the toxic substances enter the blood, the body responds to the threat and ends up damaging itself in its bid to destroy the threat to its health.
This disease is one of the most common diseases in the world. Yet strangely, it is often misdiagnosed and those suffering from this disease spend decades facing some symptoms or the other without actually understanding that they are afflicted by this disease. Why is this disease not identified quickly?
The primary reason is that a mere flaw in the genetic setup is not sufficient for this disease to get activated. A person who is allergic to gluten may consume gluten without any allergic reactions for a long period of time. Then suddenly, he or she may suffer from a severe allergic reaction due to the autoimmune reaction of the body. What triggers the allergy? It is suspected that environmental factors are very important in the onset of the disorder and the reaction.
Hence, a person may show all symptoms of celiac disease and yet may not be found suffering from the same. Similarly, a person may show different symptoms over a period of time and may, in reality, be suffering from the celiac disease.
Celiac disease is found all over the world and affects people of all races and nationality equally. The symptoms vary and two persons suffering from exactly the same condition may display two completely different symptoms. This is what makes diagnosis very difficult.
The symptoms of this disease can be classified as gastrointestinal symptoms and non gastrointestinal symptoms. Further, kids display a completely different set of symptoms which includes inability to concentrate and even delayed puberty.
Further, Dermatitis herpetiformis, a skin infection is closely related to celiac disease as those who suffer from this condition invariably suffer from celiac disease as well. What is the correlation between a skin infection and an allergic reaction in the small intestine is not known.
Further, this disease can strike you irrespective of whether you are young or old, rich or poor, healthy or unfit. Those persons who have undergone a traumatic experience like a surgery, accident, pregnancy or even events like divorce which leads to emotional stress are at high risk because these are the environmental triggers that are supposed to set off the reaction.
As on date, there is no cure for this disease. If left unchecked, this disease can quickly assume very serious proportions. Diarrhea is a very common symptom of this disease. This condition occurs due to the inability of the small intestine, particularly the villi in the small intestine to absorb the nutrients from the food. If left unchecked, this condition alone is enough to threaten your life.
Despite the fact that the celiac disease is so common and despite the fact that it can cause serious harm if left unchecked, it is not very difficult to bring this disease under control. All one needs to do is completely stop consumption of gluten and the body will get back to normal.
While this solution may sound simple in theory, implementing this remedy involves drastic changes in one’s lifestyle. This simple remedy can severely affect your finances, working lifestyle, home atmosphere and your social relations. You may be treated as a person who is being unnecessarily fussy about the presence of gluten in his or her food.
This problem is compounded by the fact that not much is know about the celiac disease. People are under the misconception that it is a rare disease that is not very dangerous. The truth is that this is a common disease which affects one out of every 133 American and can severely impair the life of the person suffering from this condition. Do your bit to battle this serious disease. Learn as much as possible to protect yourself and your family from this condition.