Celiac Disease (CD) is an inherited autoimmune disease that affects 1 out of 133 people in the United States. It once was considered to be a childhood disease that one could recover from, but it is now known that the disease can strike at anytime and that it remains throughout life.
Untreated, CD can become very painful and may contribute to other diseases. When a person has CD, proteins found in wheat, barley, and rye (gluten) trigger an immune response when ingested. This immune response attacks the intestines, damaging the villi, making absorption of nutrients difficult.
Symptoms are as varied as those who have the disease but include; diarrhea, constipation, fatty stools, painful gas, abdominal pain, and bloating. Complications from CD include; anemia, failure to thrive in children, osteoporosis, infertility, and delayed menarche (menstruation). Dermatitis herpetiformis, a disease that causes severe rashes to appear on the skin, is also associated with CD.
The only known treatment of CD is eating a gluten-free diet. This can be difficult especially for someone who has just been diagnosed with the disease. Over the past few years, as more information has become available, more corporate food companies are making many of their products gluten free. General Mills is one of those companies. Chex brand cereals have made many of their cereals gluten free, making it easier for those with CD to adjust to a gluten free diet.
