11 Fascinating Facts about Celiac Disease Ep. 107

To kick off Celiac Disease Awareness Month, I'm sharing some interesting facts about Celiac Disease that you probably haven't heard before.

Want to know how I've nailed living with Celiac Disease? Ultimate Celiac System has all my exclusive tips, secrets and insights.
Find out how Ultimate Celiac System can support your Celiac journey here
https://belindawhelantraining.com/ultimate-celiac-system

Wish you could get gluten free meals on the table fast that the whole family will love? Check out Meal Plans Made Easy
https://belindawhelantraining.com/gluten-free-meal-plans-made-easy

 Join my free community and grab your copy of 11 Mistakes People Make Living Gluten Free here www.belindawhelan.myflodesk.com/11mistakes

Check out my Daily Health Tracker here
HEALTH TRACKER | The Healthy Celiac (belindawhelan.com)

And I would love to connect with you on Instagram thehealthyceliac

If you have a spare moment, please pop over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. Thank you!



Music Credit bensound.com 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

All right, welcome back to this week's episode of the Healthy Celiac podcast. We are kicking off the month with Celiac disease awareness month. So welcome back. Welcome to the show. Let's jump on in and share some facts with you about celiac disease. So I've got some notes on my iPad today to share with you because I don't wanna get off track and ramble too much because I've got some really great facts that I wanna share with you just to help spread awareness. Now we're gonna kick it off with number one. And you may or may not know this, but across the world, approximately 1% of the population has celiac disease. So when you think about it, that's a lot of people. So celiac disease is not this little tiny thing that we have. It is so common when you think about it that it affects that many people. All right? Number two, anyone with a first degree relative with celiac disease? So that could be, say your parents, um, your child or a sibling. You have a higher chance of getting celiac disease. So you have a one in 10 chance of getting celiac disease. So for you, let's just say you are the woman with celiac disease, your sibling is more likely to get celiac disease than the next person. So it's recommended that all first degree relatives of celiac disease get tested for this autoimmune disease as well. So if you've got first degree relatives, get them tested, get them on tour as well just to make sure that they've got their health on track and that they're not, you know, living a life of suffering if they don't have to. All right, number three, celiac disease is often misdiagnosis. So some of the most common bi misdiagnosis include ibs, inflammatory bowel disease, and gastro esophagal reflux disease. So there's so many people that have been suffering with symptoms and they go to their doctor and they get misdiagnosed. You may be one of those people that suffered with symptoms for a very long time and you were misdiagnosed and you kept on eating gluten and thinking that it was something else. So if you've now got a celiac disease diagnosis, you totally understand what I'm talking about. And this is why it's so important that we spread awareness and we let more people know about celiac disease because if someone out there is suffering with the symptoms related to celiac disease, they're more likely to go to their doctor and actually request to be tested for celiac disease. It's as simple as that. So the more awareness that we can spread, the more that we can help others. So that's why I love doing what I do as well. It's a big part of what I am able to do and share with others. Number four, celiac disease is genetic, but most people,

Speaker 2: 3:23

They actually need something to trigger that gene. So for most people, something will turn that gene on. For me, it was childbirth. I noticed that after I had my first daughter, that is when the celiac disease symptoms started for me. Whereas prior to giving birth, I had none of those symptoms or whatsoever. So other things that can cause that gene to be turned on are things like, um, stress surgery, um, you know, the loss of a loved one that's also related to stress, even infection. So if you've had some type of infection, that can even turn the gene on. So the more I talk to people, the more stories I hear of what they think actually turned it on for them. So it's very interesting listening to what you know, different people think has triggered that gene for them. So have a think about what might have been happening in your life prior to when you first started getting symptoms. Can you think of an event or, or a thing that was going on in your life that perhaps turned that gene on for you? Alright, where are we up to? Number five. It is believed by some researchers that the balance between microbes and the human immune system is so out of balance, which has increased autoimmune diseases such as celiac disease. And they also think this is due to our current environmental climate being so sanitary. So unfortunately the cleaner the environment it is, the more that messes with our gut microbes. So it's an interesting one on one hand we're, you know, getting rid of various, I guess bacterias and viruses and things like that, but on the other, it's messing with our gut microbes. So if you think of things like, you know, everyone's using hand sanitizer and making sure that they're using antiseptics and things like that, it is actually causing more damage. So it's one of those catch 22, we fix one problem, it can cause another one. So yeah, interesting little fact there. All right, number six, celiac disease can be found worldwide, but the gene associated with celiac disease actually originated in northern Europe. All right, number seven, A D H D is very common in teenagers with celiac disease. And these teenagers also suffer from oppositional defiant disorder. So can we just label that as naughty teenagers? I don't know.<laugh>. And this is basically due to malnutrition. So the malnutrition is caused by the celiac disease and then that causes these ongoing issues. And there is actually some evidence now that shows that on a gluten-free diet behavior can improve. So again, this goes back to getting your family tested. So if you have a teenager and they're behaving in a way that's not desirable, could be due to celiac

Speaker 3: 6:21

Disease, how insane is that, that their behavioral issues could be linked to celiac disease. So if you have a teenager acting out and you've never had them tested for celiac disease and they show no other symptoms, it's still worth getting them tested. And this kind of leads me into number eight. So approximately 20% of people diagnosed with celiac disease are asymptomatic, but they're still at risk for long-term complications. So basically what this means is they don't show any symptoms. So many people that have got celiac disease, you might be one of them. I definitely am. I suffer from gastro problems. So I get very uncomfortable if I accidentally get gluten, you know, diarrhea, stomach, bloating, gas, all of these horrible pains in the belly and ongoing issues with that region. I also suffer from vomiting, body aches, brain fog, so many things. But so many people have none of these issues. Like to me, I, I've talked about this in another episode, I think that would be the hardest version of celiac disease being asymptomatic because it would be so hard to be strict with the diet because you're not suffering from any symptoms. Whereas with me, I don't wanna feel like that. I never wanna feel like that. So I do every single thing in my power to make sure that I'm avoiding gluten at all costs because I don't wanna feel that way. Whereas if I never felt that way and I got a fluke diagnosis, because let's be honest, these people aren't going out seeking a celiac disease diagnosis, they probably got a fluke diagnosis perhaps because of anemia or something that was a side effect of you know, the malnutrition or whatever. But if you didn't have symptoms, don't you think it would be a lot harder to be strict and sticking to a gluten-free diet? So I think they've got it the worst to be honest, because why would they want to eat gluten-free and why would they want to make sure that they're being healthy and looking after their bodies if they don't understand that it's still doing the same problems on the inside as it is to you and I. So you and I might suffer from all these other implications. And these people that are asymptomatic because they don't have it, it's a completely different can of worms. Does that look saying<laugh> kettle of fish? It's, it's completely different for them because they don't have the same side effects. They, well, they don't have the side effects. So yeah, I'm rambling now, but they still have that risk of long-term complications. They still have a higher risk of getting osteoporosis. They still have a higher risk of getting cancer. They still have a higher risk of getting all these other autoimmune diseases that are linked to celiac disease. So it's not that they're better off as such, I think they're worse off. So it is important that even if people are asymptomatic, they still need to adhere to a 100% gluten-free diet. And when people say to me, oh, are you really bad? Like, are you a really bad celiac? Do you react really badly? Well, yeah, I do, but do those people that get asked that question and they're like, no, I don't get any symptoms. Oh, I'm just gonna have a bit of gluten today. Oh, I don't really care. I think that's, that would be hard. I think that would be harder than how I have it to be honest. So anyway, that's my 2 cents on that one<laugh>. Alright, number nine. Celiac disease is the only autoimmune disease that we know has a trigger and that is obviously gluten, but this was only discovered in 1952 that gluten was the actual trigger for what was causing people to suffer from celiac disease. And this is basically when the gluten-free diet was born. So the gluten-free diet has only been around since 1952, which is not very long really when you think about it. So I think we are living at a very special time. We are very lucky that we get access to so much gluten-free food. And even since I was diagnosed back in 2009, I have seen it come along leaps and bounds. I can easily go out and eat a gluten-free meal at a restaurant or a cafe now without people looking at me like I have two heads when I'm asking all my questions, I can easily go to the supermarket and buy safe gluten-free food. It's not very often that I miss out. So I do feel for those people back then that were diagnosed with celiac disease and didn't really know all the ins and outs of what we do now. And obviously the education that we have access to and all the different resources. So yeah, we've definitely come a very, very long wait. Now having said that, that kind of leads me into number 10. Oh my god, this just blows my mind. You may or may not not have heard about this and it's basically about the diet of bananas. Have you heard about this? So one of the very first ways that they treated celiac disease was on a banana diet. So there was this doctor that treated babies with celiac disease for their symptoms basically. And these babies, their parents had to been told by other doctors that they were on their deathbeds. They were, they were going to die basically. And this particular doctor, so these parents would take their, their babies, their toddlers to this doctor and he would cure them<laugh> so he didn't cure them. Just side note, you can't cure a C disease, but he would claim to cure these babies by getting the parents to feed them bananas. And that was their main diet. So these parents basically fed their baby's bananas, milk, cottage cheese, fruits and vegetables and meat and that was their diet. And obviously on a diet like that, it's naturally gluten free, isn't it? So these babies and toddlers, they would, they would recover because they were eating gluten free. Not that he realized that he didn't realize that that wa

Speaker 4: 12:17

Was why, because this wasn't discovered until many years later. But because these little children and these little babies were eating gluten free, their bodies healed, their bodies started to recover, they started to thrive. And so he believed that he cured these babies and many of these children went on to live a very long life. Um, and some of them did discover years and years later that they actually did have celiac disease and then that's when they learn about eating gluten free. So it's very interesting that back then, you know, this was how it was treated as such. So yeah, don't try that diet<laugh><laugh>, it's not what we wanna focus on. However, saying that it was gluten-free, so it's incredible. But we do need more than what he was just recommending. Uh, sorry, we do need more in our diet than what he was recommending. So, alright. And then last one that I have for you is, in the last 60 years, celiac disease has increased by more than 10% and these numbers continue to rise and increase because what reason, why do we think that that could be? For me personally, I think the reason for that is there's more of an understanding of what celiac disease is. So if you think 60 years ago people didn't really know what celiac disease was. Heck, even when I got diagnosed, not many people knew what celiac disease was. So I think it's due to education, I think it's due to more awareness and I think it's due to more doctors actually testing for it these days and people pushing for more testing. So is there something that's causing more people to get celiac disease? Maybe it could go back to what we were talking about with the gut issue, but I think the main reason is definitely due to awareness and more testing and people knowing more about celiac disease. So that's my 2 cents on why I think<laugh>, that more people are getting diagnosed with celiac disease. But for me, that's what I'd like to believe, that it's due to more awareness and sharing more information and more people knowing what celiac disease is. So if you enjoy this episode, please be sure to share it. And if you've got a few moments, head to Apple podcast and leave me a review. I'd love a five star review if you're down for that<laugh>. But otherwise leave me a review. It helps to get the show out there because Apple likes to share their podcasts that have got good reviews. So please do your fellow Celiac a favor and me by helping me get it out there. So thanks so much for listening and tuning in and I'll look forward to talking with you again soon. Happy Celiac Awareness Month and I'll talk to you next week. Take care. Bye.