About gluten

The coeliac disease is an autoimmune disease that is often described as a digestive disorder due to the damage of small intestine walls. However, this is something like an allergy to gluten; as a result of it the organism begins to produce antibodies to this substance and, trying to fight gluten, damages the intestinal cells as well. Gluten is a complex protein that is a part of the grain of many cereal crops, such as wheat, rye, oats and barley.

The problem was first described in 1888 by S. Gee, who noted three main symptoms of disease:

1. Protracted diarrhea
2. Progressive body weight decrease
3. Large flabby abdomen

For a long time the cause of disease remained unexplained. Only in 1950 W.K. Dike and his co-workers found that the external factor causing celiac disease is protein gluten from wheat, rye, oats and barley. So far, the different terms have been used to denote the coeliac disease, including nontropical sprue (from the Dutch a “sprue” means foam, since the defecation of the patient sometimes resembles the foam), gluten enteropathy, Guy – Gerter infantilism, etc.

Today, in addition to the diagnosis of celiac disease, there is a diagnosis of celiac disease syndrome. This condition is clinically similar to celiac disease, but developing as a result of any acute illness, stress. However, this state disappears after the end of provoking factor.

According to one theory, the cause of celiac disease is a deficit of a certain intestinal enzyme, which normally splits gluten (enzymatic theory). This leads to accumulation in the intestine lumen of unsplit products and toxic reactions on the surface of the mucous membrane. But currently this enzyme hadn’t been isolated. According to the immune-allergic theory, the change in the intestinal wall is related to a number of immunological reactions, which are caused by gluten-exchange products.

Proponents of the receptor theory believe that in coeliac disease there is a congenital change in the sensitivity of epithelial cell receptors to gluten.

According to the virus theory, the gluten digestion disorder and changes in the mucous membrane properties of the small intestine are due to the negative effect of viruses on cells.

But a combination of all mentioned theories and features of disease formation is also possible.

The genetic factors play an important role in the development of coeliac disease. On average, 14% of parents suffer from this pathology in a latent form.

When studying this disease, it turned out that in addition to severe forms, many people have mild forms of gluten intolerance, which are not so pronounced, and a person can live for a long time without knowing why he/she constantly has skin problems, anemia or swollen intestines or flatulence.

The native coeliac disease is an autoimmune disease that triggers inflammatory processes throughout the organism; they provoke an insulin resistance, which causes weight gain and diabetes development, as well as more than 55 other disease states, including autoimmune diseases, irritable bowel syndrome, permanent belching, depression, cancer, osteoporosis, etc.

In patients with coeliac disease, the immune system recognizes gluten as a xenogeneic one and attacks it with all available means. The trouble is that not only gluten comes under attack, but also those tissues in which it was met by immune cells. The walls of the small intestine are damaged first.

In addition to the alimentary tract, the brain, heart, joints and other organs are affected.

According to some estimates, every third person has certain immune reactions to gluten.

Symptoms of coeliac disease are diarrhoea, exhaustion, anaemia, developmental delay in children, stomatitis, short stature, osteoporosis, infertility.

The Holy Bible says: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Eating bread is almost a religious setting, but the bible flour of our ancestors is a completely different substance, we never eat one like this.

Instead, we eat a product that has passed through many stages of genetic manipulation, hybridization, selection. The product, which is obtained from a plant that yields much more and more modified, colossally more stable grain… Modern wheat gives starchy and gluten-rich grain, and gluten in modern wheat has a different chromosome structure, including different new, previously non-existent proteins.

A man learned to make white wheat flour only 200 years ago, and our body does not quite know how to digest cereals, there are not enough enzymes for this. Our ancestors ate completely different wheat, but in the last couple of centuries they have bred varieties that contain more gluten, as this was a sign of quality, and white bread is a luxury. It is not surprising that over the past 200 years, the frequency of celiac disease in the human population has increased by 400%.

In bakeries the 4-6% of gluten is added to improve the structure of bread; and while making other types of bakery products, such as cookies, muffins, wafers and biscuits – from 20% to 40% of gluten is added.  In the structure of fillings of flour products and confectionery products up to 50% of the flour mass is gluten.

In addition, gluten as a preservative has been widely used in the enrichment of ready-made breakfast cereals, which our children love so much, in long-term storage yogurts, steaks, cutlets, frozen foods intended for subsequent frying, cheeses, crab meat, artificial caviar, melted cheese, canned fish tomato, chocolate and chewing gum.

There is no remedy for this disease, but you can completely get rid of the symptoms if you exclude products containing gluten from your diet. Completely.

Nowadays, according to preliminary estimates, there are approximately 500,000 people in Ukraine, who suffer from undiagnosed coeliac disease, which is the reason for a significant decrease in the quality of life of a sick person; it directly reduces (in some cases leads to a complete loss) the working efficiency and is a factor of severe life-threatening complications development.