Understanding the Root of Inflammation and Coeliac Disease

To understand how food and allergies are related to inflammation, it helps to understand how digestion occurs in the gastrointestinal tract. Every time we eat, the food is first ground up by our teeth. It then travels down the esophagus to the stomach and is further broken down, by enzy mes and acids, into a soft paste-like substance. The food then travels into the small intestines where the nutrients are absorbed. The remainder of the digested food travels into the large intestines and the most of the last remnants of salt and water are absorbed before the waste is eliminated by the body. This process can take between 24 and 72 hours depending on the general health of the intestines.

This description is very basic, and the entire process is far more involved than what I’ve described here. The point is that when every thing is working in a healthy manner, proteins are broken into single amino acids and fats are metabolized into fatty acids, and carbohy drates are broken up into simple sugars. When every thing is in good working order, these nutrients are properly absorbed, without causing an allergic reaction. However, if the cells lining the intestinal tract are hy persensitive, there may be a resulting imbalance and a strong possibility that the food cannot be properly digested.

Food Allergies and Coeliac Disease 

As I’ve mentioned, this is an overly simplified explanation. However, the point that I want to stress is that there is a direct link between food allergies (particularly in this case to gluten) and many health conditions like asthma, arthritis, eczema, and heart diseases. Since more than 70% of the cells that support the immune sy stem are located in the lining of the digestive tract, it isn’t surprising that when food isn’t right for y our needs, y our sy stem will be thrown into a mode of attack. While many foods are healthy, foods that y ou are allergic to are responded to like toxins, harmful invaders. Blood flow increases and the intestines become inflamed.

Coeliac disease (or celiac disease) is one of the conditions that can result from the body ’s inability to stop the inflammation process in the digestive tract. The resulting pain and fatigue are sy mptoms of the small intestine’s difficulty in absorbing proper nutrition. When this happens they react to certain food particles as foreign substances. One of the primary causes for the disease is gluten sensitivity or, in other words, gluten intolerance that can often be remedied with a gluten free celiac diet.

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What is Inflammation?

Let’s get right to the heart of the matter. Inflammation is now considered to be a ‘silent killer’. We all know that inflammation is y our body ’s way of responding to injury. Whether y ou fall and scrape y our knee, fight a bad head cold, or come out in hives (as our daughter did), the resulting inflammation is y our body ’s way of combating the attack to the sy stem.

Inflammation of any ty pe is like a ‘Band-Aid’. Basically, it is the body ’s way of protecting itself from any assault. It serves a useful purpose as a way of repairing itself from the damage that bacteria, fungus, virus, injury, and toxins can cause. Inflammation is a process that allows our body to heal.

Whenever any part of our body is damaged, our sy stem immediately engages and starts to fight the enemy. Most of the time, the assault is so minor (acute) that we aren’t even aware our body is in an attack mode. As soon as the threat leaves, our sy stem returns to its normal state.

However, when our bodies are required to fight off an assault over an extended period of time, the condition becomes chronic. After a while, the inflammatory reaction fails to cease on its own. This causes stress to the body , ultimately resulting in a weakened state of health.

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