One of the issues in the world of food intolerances is that a lot of the “information” you find is in the immortal words of Calvin and Hobbes “based on one “fact” that you just made up”.
So I wanted to see the research behind the story that celiacs are more likely to be lactose intolerant? I kept seeing this statistic that half of us cannot have dairy because we are lactose intolerant, but I never saw the study cited anywhere. My personal issues with dairy have nothing to do with lactose.
So I went looking for it, and what I found shocked and angered me. No wonder we are still sick after going gluten free.
Half of us can’t have dairy protein without triggering an autoimmune reaction.
Half of us also can’t have any corn without triggering an autoimmune reaction.
And that cornstarch is in so many gluten free products that I could just scream. Like Udi’s bread, and a lot of the cookies.
Now, in fairness. I could not find multiple studies on the topic. PubMed indicated a single study testing celiacs for casein vs lactose sensitivity and another single study testing celiacs for corn sensitivity. Both studies used barely enough participants to be statistically significant and I found no evidence that they had been repeated.
But they both indicated the same thing. Lactose intolerance is not the issue for the 50% of celiacs who cannot have dairy. Its casein that we cannot tolerate. Both were tested and the reaction was to casein not to lactose.
The study results can be found here
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1810502/?tool=pubmed
The reason this is so important is because lactose is not a big issue in cheese or whey protein powder…but casein is. And it was an autoimmune reaction to casein, not indigestibility, so more inflammation and attacking your own cells. Being unable to digest something, however unpleasant, is not necessarily harmful. Autoimmune reactions are frequently harmful.
So no dairy for half of us.
Also interesting was this study which showed that six out of thirteen (about half) of celiac patients tested for an autoimmune reaction to corn had one. Yes it was not as bad as the reaction to gluten but that is not the same as no reaction. There are diseases milder than my reaction to gluten so this is not exactly reassuring.
You can find the abstract for that study here
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15888782
What frustrated me about this is that we just recently figured out that corn is probably a no-no for two out of three residents of our house. Had I known that the odds of it being a problem were about 50% I might have started looking sooner instead of just wondering what was still making me sick and bloated. As you can see by the name of the study, it wasn’t the easiest thing to find.
If you want to get tested you can use Enterolab or one of the other labs that the Celiac Diva recommends. I have posted about her video before, but here it is again.
http://www.theceliacdiva.com/additional-food-intolerances/
In the meantime, note that the Betty Crocker and the Namaste mixes are both corn-free and dairy-free as well as being gluten-free. Namaste is committed to corn-free. Also I tag all my recipes to avoid corn, which I will be avoiding completely in the future.
