Gluten Presentation

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What is Celiac (Coeliac) disease?

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease, which thinks gluten is attacking your body. People with celiac disease can't eat any foods with gluten because it makes them sick.

A disease is different from an allergy. With an allergy our immune system attacks what you’re allergic to, like shellfish, or nuts, but this goes away without any damage to your body. With a disease, there is damage.

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How do you get it?

No one is sure, but it is a genetic hereditary disease. That means parents can pass it to their children.

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What is gluten?

Gluten is a protein in wheat, barley, and rye. Any foods and drinks made using these ingredients, like bread, pizza, spaghetti, or cake, will also have gluten in them. The word “gluten� sounds like the word “glue", and this is what gluten does. It sticks foods together & makes it stretchy.

Look at someone making dough, or a pizza base to understand.

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What happens?

When we eat, food goes into our stomach, and then into our small intestines. These are a long tube inside us about 6 meters or 20 feet long! They digest our food, and are lined with tiny "villi", which are like little fingers that catch all the nutrients from the food. Nutrients are the good stuff we need to function and grow correctly.

Our immune system is our bodies army, protecting us from disease by fighting anything it thinks attacks us. When you have celiac disease, our immune system makes a mistake and attacks the villi, so we don’t get the good nutrients we need.

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So, it is called an autoimmune disease, and there are lots of these, like “vitiligo” (white patches on the skin caused by loss of pigment), or “type 1 diabetes” (the body can’t understand how to use sugar), or “Sjogren’s syndrome” (you have dry eyes and mouth).

If you have celiac disease and eat gluten you get things like stomach aches, diarrhoea, and feeling very tired. So, people with celiac disease must not eat gluten, in order their villi remain healthy and collect the good nutrients.

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How does it get diagnosed?

A doctor performs a biopsy, to take a small piece of the villi and see if it is damaged. Villi are so small you can't see them without a microscope! If they are damaged, you have celiac disease.

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What you can do if you have it?

You can still live a happy & healthy life, but mustn’t eat or drink anything with gluten. If you go out to a restaurant or party, you need to tell them, just like someone who has a food allergy, so they can help you. There are lots of options for gluten free foods, like bread, pizzas, and pastas. There is always a solution and people can still eat their favourite foods, made with non-gluten ingredients.

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Other things someone with celiac disease needs to do!

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Stay on a gluten-free diet. That means the villi can do their job of making sure your body gets all the nutrients it needs.

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Avoid foods with gluten in them.

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Learn to read food labels carefully. Lots of processed foods contain gluten.

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Look out for gluten-free breads and cakes.

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Don't share someone else's food unless you know that it is gluten-free.