A proper diet for celiac disease suffers is essential to symptom control. There several ways to accomplish this goal.

To understand the needs for a diet for celiac disease patients you must first understand what the celiac disease is. Celiac Disease (CD) is a digestive disorder that affects both children and adults. This is a lifelong disease. Essentially when foods containing gluten are eaten the body has an immune-mediated toxic reaction that causes damage to the small intestine. This does not allow food to be properly absorbed. This reaction will occur even if there is only a small amount of gluten present.

Gluten means the proteins in specific grains that are harmful to people with celiac disease. You can find these harmful proteins in all forms of wheat and related grains such as barley, triticale and rye. This means ALL of these must be eliminated from the patient’s diet. One important thing to understand is that celiac disease is not a food allergy. It is an autoimmune disease. One out of one hundred thirty three people in the United States have celiac disease.

Celiac diseases is a multi-system, multi-symptom disorder and symptoms can surface after physical stress of some sort, from surgery, viral infection, severe emotional stress, pregnancy or childbirth. A possible sign of celiac disease in young children and infants may be a failure to grow, vomiting, bloating and behavioral changes.

Some symptoms of the disease could be recurring bloating, gas and abdominal pain, chronic diarrhea or constipation or both, unexplained weight loss or weight gain, pale, foul-smelling stool, unexplained anemia, bone and joint pain, behavioral changes, depression, vitamin K deficiency, delayed growth, fatigue, weakness or lack of energy, missed periods, infertility in male or female, spontaneous miscarriages, canker sores inside the mouth and tooth discoloration or loss of enamel.

The only treatment for celiac disease is to adhere to a lifelong gluten free diet. This requires some lifestyle changes. The celiac disease patient must read every label and learn how to identify gluten products. Some potentially harmful ingredients include unidentified starch, binders, fillers, excipients, extenders, malt. Gluten is also sometimes used in pharmaceutical products as a binder. You may need to consult with the pharmacist or manufacturer to be sure of the product ingredients.