GF excitement!

[rm]

No, not girlfriend excitement (although she does come home tomorrow).

Gluten-free excitement!

Amy's has just introduced a kid's mean that got GF pasta and a GF apple pie dessert (there's a lot of kids products that are GF lately because it's harder to find ways for celiac kids to feel normal amongst their peers and because of the possible gluten link to autism)! And now there is GF chocolate-chip cookie dough icecream: http://www.turtlemountain.com/products/purely_decadent_cookie_dough.html

If anyone sees this product anywhere in NYC, they must alert me immediately.

Comments

[kiji-kat.livejournal.com]

...because of the possible gluten link to autism!

Wait, what? Gluten has been linked to autism? I didn't hear anything about this.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Many austistic children seem to do much better and have better success learning coping skills and such if they are on gluten-free diets. The evidence is largely, but not entirely, anecdotal, but I too have seen it in action. Because one of the side effects of celiac disease is nerve damage, there's a growing suspicion that one of the triggers of austism may be severe celiac that is untreated and diagnosed.

[kiji-kat.livejournal.com]

That's very, very interesting.

How does one diagnose celiac disease in small children? It seems like one of those diseases that would only really be detectable if the person suffering was able to articulate their symptoms. (I could be completely wrong about that, so please forgive my ignorance.) Are there any outward signs of celiac in small children?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Since celiac is genetic, many peopel have symptoms from birth. The thing is the symptoms are sort of amorphous and can look like other things. Failure to thrive, jaundice, constant gas and intestinal pain are just some the symptoms present in small children. There's a quasi-reliable blood-test for those continuing to consume gluten, although a completely confirmed diagnosis requires one eat gluten for 6 months, have the intestines examined by camera. Go GF for six months, do it again, and then finally, ressume eating gluten to see if the damage has reoccured. Considering the disease has no teatment other than don't eat gluten, my wiligness to sacrifice six months of my life for a dignosis other than "presumed celiac" is about zero. In Italy all children are given the blood test by the age of five, so some basic screening is a routine part of medical care. In this country many doctors either don't know much about celiac or insist it's a psychosomatic woman's disease (despite 40% of sufferers are male and the skew in figures may relate mainly to cultural habits about seeing doctors). It is often mistaken for IBS or gall-bladder problems. It's one of those things that takes a really long time to kill you, but we could seriously be reducing system-wide medical costs if we were looking for this thing, which may affect as much as 1% of the population.