The Difference Between Celiac Disease and Gluten Sensitivity

Man 1:  You mentioned Celiac disease. Is that the same as gluten sensitivity?

Man 2:  No, no very different.  Very different.  And we thought of gluten sensitivity as only being Celiac until the last two years.  And the reason is it was first identified as a gut disease.  Gluten sensitivity was identified as a gut disease.  IN the 1950's they came up with the test and endoscopy.  A tube down the throat looks at the small intestines and they found that when you have this gluten sensitivity the shags...your intestines are a long tube.  The inside of the tube is lined with shag carpeting.  It's called microvillae. This shag is where calcium is absorbed, this shag vitamin C, the shags over here are proteins, the other shag's good fats.  All the shags absorb different nutrients.  Celiac disease is when your shags wear down and you have Berber.  And if you have Berber you don't absorb calcium.  You get osteoporosis.  It's not rocket science.  That's why in the archives of Internal Medicine in 2006 they said every osteo product patient should be check for Celiac disease as Celiac disease could be the cause of their osteoporosis.  So I show that study in my seminars.  I say, so docs given that the archives of internal medicine say that every osteo product patient should be checked because it's so common, which one will you not check?  And it's not that every osteo product patient has a gluten sensitivity but it's so common that the experts say every one of them should be checked for it.  

So what conditions?  Any condition.  So the endoscopy.  So the shags wear down.  The shags wear down and it's called villous atrophy.  The villi, the shags atrophy.  T Hey wear down.  That's Celiac disease.  And in the 1950's that was identified.  You put those people on a gluten free diet the shags grow back in about a year.  So they gave them gluten again the shags go away.  Say, oh that's it gluten sensitivity is when the shags wear down.  So until very recently if people thought they had a gluten sensitivity the doctor would do the endoscopy, if the shags weren't worn down they say, no you don't have a problem with gluten see your shags are all good.  And the patient would say, but I feel better if I don't eat gluten.  Or even if the blood tests the doctor did show that there was a sensitivity to gluten the doctor would say, no the endoscopy's normal you're fine.  Well now we know that's just one manifestation.  It could manifest in...here's how I say it in seminars is that, if the first test they had come up with, the first test, was not a tube going down the throat to look at the stomach but rather a tube going up the carotid artery to look at the brain we would have thought gluten sensitivity Celiac disease is a disease of the brain.  But the first one we saw was in the gut so everyone focused on the gut.  

Now we know and just in the last two years it's been accepted by all of our researchers, all of our scientists, even National Celiac's Symposium.  They finally agreed.  They finally agreed.  Yes there is this thing called non Celiac gluten sensitivity.  So what they've asked is that, can we have the same language please?  Can we all have the same way of referring to this?  And so they requested that all scientists, all researchers, all clinicians, all practitioners, all patients use the same language.  That is, the umbrella term that covers it all is a gluten related disorder.  If you have the genes and you have problems in the intestines and the villae are wearing down it's Celiac disease under the umbrella.  If you do not have the shags wearing down then it's non Celiac gluten sensitivity.  So those are the two categories.  Celiac disease and non Celiac gluten sensitivity.  And they've asked please stop using the word gluten intolerance because that's very confusing to patients. Patients have heard about lactose intolerance and they know that if they take the enzyme lactase they can then have lactose, have dairy and they won't have a problem.  But that's not true with gluten.  If you have a gluten sensitivity you can not eat gluten.