Saturday, March 1, 2008

Celiacs Disease

A quick overview of what Celicas Disease actually is:

Like I said before, Caliacs Disease is an autoimmune disease (...your body's immune system attacks itself) triggered by gluten. Gluten is a protein found in Wheat, Barley, and Rye. Gluten wears down the protective defenses of the small intestines as an "allergen" and subsequently the entire immune system, but also destroys the villi. The villi are the small finger-like projections that line the small intestine and absorb all the nutrients that you ingest. Without villi, you don't absorb vitamins and minerals. this leads to malnutrition (and weight loss) and high susceptibility to diseases of vitamin/mineral deficiency, such as osteoporosis (calcium deficiency) for example.

Like most autoimmune diseases, there is no cure. Fortunately, unlike HIV/AIDs (the most well known in this class of diseases!), the disease can be managed and the debilitating immune attacks can be staved off, by diet.

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