Welcome to The Healthy Celiac Podcast—the go-to podcast for women with celiac disease! This podcast is designed to help you thrive beyond your diagnosis and embrace life to the fullest because you are so much more than just a woman with celiac disease.
Hosted by Certified Health Coach Belinda Whelan, who specializes in follow-up care for women with celiac disease, each episode is a blend of practical advice, personal stories, and expert interviews. Belinda shares valuable insights on everything from navigating a gluten free lifestyle to managing the emotional aspects of celiac disease.
Join me as we explore topics that empower you to take control of your health, and discover joy in every meal and moment. Tune in for practical advice and support as we navigate the challenges of celiac disease and empower you to live confidently.
To find out how Belinda can support you, visit her website www.belindawhelan.com and while you're there be sure to download your FREE eBook '11 Mistakes People Make Living Gluten Free'.
For collaborations, please email me info@belindawhelan.com (no MLM opportunities please. 😊)
Now a question that so many people ask is, can you cure celiac disease? Is there a cure for celiac disease as of recording in March, 2023? Unfortunately, there is no cure for celiac disease if you've been diagnosed with celiac disease. The only treatment for living with celiac disease is to live a 100% gluten-free life. And that may not always be the case. There may be a cure in the future. There are a number of clinical trials that are going ahead. There have been a number of clinical trials that have happened and have been discontinued for whatever reason. There's lots of different<laugh>, lots of different reasons, funding not enough participants, those types of reasons. However, there are some very promising clinical trials that have been happening. Now it sounds very weird, but if you jump on the internet and you wanna learn more about this, I'm not going to go into all the nitty gritty details of it because I'm not a Wikipedia channel, but you can certainly jump online and learn about these clinical trials if you are interested in it. But there's some clinical trials where they're using hook worms, they're using eggs, they're, there's all these different ways that they're trialing treatments to help us and to move forward. And I guess part of me is a little concerned what will happen when there is a cure because it will happen. It's gotta happen in our lifetime, surely. And I don't hold on to hope. I honestly feel that it's not one of those things that I wait every day for the answer of being told there's finally a cure of for celiac disease because I live my life being gluten free. I live my life focusing on being healthy and being the best version of myself that I possibly can. And it's completely up to you if you want to live your life that way. And it's completely up to you if you would prefer to hang on to every waking moment hoping there's a cure so you can go and eat your favorite food. For me, I know I'll probably go and stack on a whole heap of weight straight away if I do actually get a Q, find out there's a cure for celiac disease because I miss chocolate donuts. And I'd probably go a little bit crazy<laugh> eating chocolate donuts to start with. But anyway, so it would be very exciting. Absolutely. But part of me, I guess, is a little bit concerned about the long term effects, the long term of what this cure looks like because it will be a medication, it'll probably be a medication that we would have to take every single day. And as you know, there's always side effects to medications and each person has a different side effect to different things. But from what my understanding is, many of these clinical trials
Speaker 2:
That have gone ahead, the, I guess the process is to suppress the autoimmune response. So to suppress the immune function. So obviously being an autoimmune disease, our body is re reacting to the gluten and our body attacks our healthy tissues and ourselves. So what these medications, I guess we'll call it, we'll call'em a medication. The medication is designed to suppress a part of that immune function. So with that, what else is our immune system not doing? Okay, so our body is designed to fight off infection, it's designed to keep us healthy. And if our immune system's being suppressed so that our celiac disease goes goodbye, then we don't really know what else might happen. We don't really know what the future looks like for doing that to our body. So that I guess, does trigger that question for me. It just, I guess it causes some kind of concern about the long term gain. What is, what is the long-term gain? What is the long-term, I guess, what do we need to be worried about? What do we, what do we need to consider as the long-term effect of what this medication might look like for us with celiac disease? Don't get me wrong, I think it would be an absolute game changer. I think it would be life changing for so many people across the world. It absolutely would. But we will be the Guinea pigs, those of us that decide to take that supplement, uh, that medication rather, will be the Guinea pigs because a clinical trial is only a certain amount of people over a period of time. And then once that, uh, pharmaceutical drug is released and approved, then it's, yeah, it's what what will happen from that long term effect. So it's something to think about. But I guess I just wanted to answer that question today because it is something that comes up very, very often. People ask the question all the time about is there a cure or celiac disease? So it's, it's an awareness. I guess it's, it's knowing that there will be one, eventually it will happen, I'm sure of it, but it's kind of considering what else comes along with that, if that makes sense. So, yeah, I, I would love to open a conversation about this. So head to my Instagram and look for a post where I've discussed this and yeah, join the conversation. Cause I'd love to hear what you are thinking, what your thoughts are on it, what your feedback is, and what would be the first food that contains gluten that you would eat if there was a cure. So head to my Instagram page, which is the Healthy Celiac, and let me know. Okay, talk soon. Bye.
