Article: Gluten Cross Reactivity

Hello Earthlings,

Today, while reading through an issue of Gluten Free Living, I came upon a brief article on something called Gluten-Cross reactivity. Intrigued, I did a little digging and found a more in-depth explanation of what “cross-reactivity” means. Here’s the article I found:

http://www.thepaleomom.com/2013/03/gluten-cross-reactivity-update-how-your-body-can-still-think-youre-eating-gluten-even-after-giving-it-up.html

Written by a Ph.D.-turned-gluten-free advocate, the article gives an in-depth look at the science behind gluten cross-reactivity. To be honest, at 1 A.M., the thoroughness of the article overwhelmed me, so I thought I’d try to simplify it for my readers. In short, if you have an auto-immune variety of gluten-intolerance (i.e. Celiac’s Disease), your body develops identify-and-attack cells called antibodies that are always on patrol for gluten. Once an antibody stumbles upon a gluten-protein, it sounds the alarm for all antibodies to converge on the spot and eliminate the invader. In people with Celiac’s, the attack-of-the-antibody brigade becomes over-zealous, and damage to the intestines results.

Why does this matter? Well, if you’re sick enough, your antibodies’ structure could become generalized enough to attack not just gluten-proteins, but any proteins similar to gluten as well. This is called Cross Reactivity, or the immune response that occurs when anti-bodies developed to attack gluten-proteins become generalized enough that they begin attacking proteins found in other foods as well. So, it’s possible that you could entirely eliminate the gluten-protein from your diet and still continue to have glutenated symptoms when you eat foods with similarly structured proteins.

My reaction to this was “Oh my goodness, seriously? I mean really? Come on world, cut me some slack.” As you might have guessed, if you suspect you’re experiencing cross-reactive symptoms, you’ll need to cut all of those foods out of your diet as well. Here’s a list of cross reactive foods (this list is taken from the link above):

Oats (2 different cultivars)
Buckwheat
Sorghum
Millet
Amaranth
Quinoa
Corn
Rice
Potato
Hemp
Teff
Soy
Milk (Alpha-Casein, Beta-Casein, Casomorphin, Butyrophilin, Whey Protein and whole milk)
Chocolate
Yeast
Coffee (instant, latte, espresso, imported)
Sesame
Tapioca (a.k.a. cassava or yucca)
Eggs

There is some good news! Most of these only need to be eliminated temporarily. However, the bad news is that corn, potato, milk, yeast, and rice are the ones that need to be eliminated permanently. Over time, your antibodies become less aggressive, and you can likely re-introduce all but the five aforementioned ingredients. Some more good news? Only 20% of Celiac’s suffer from cross-reactivity according to a small number of studies, so this likely doesn’t affect the vast majority of Celiacs.

I can’t say I exactly understand the specifics behind how this applies to Non-Celiacs-Gluten-Intolerant sufferers. I haven’t been diagnosed either way yet (have to wait 3 months to see my gastroenterologist..). I do know that I react to corn, potato, and milk. Milk provokes gluten-like symptoms, while corn and potato bring on hives along with some gastro-intestinal upset. Gluten-Intolerants are classified separately because it is believed that they do not experience an auto-immune reaction (as Celiacs do). However, their condition is also not considered a mere allergy. It’s sort of a confusing distinction for me (perhaps I’ll do some research to better define how these labels are distinguished from one another).

I hope this article is helpful for those who still experience symptoms despite going gluten-free. Good Luck!