Today marks the first day of Coeliac Awareness week. Despite the growing number of gluten free food products that we find walking up and down store aisles, many people still don't realize that Coeliac Disease is not a food intolerance, but a serious autoimmune disease.
I also just learned today that it is ME/Fibromyalgia Awareness Week as well. CFS/ME is an extremely controversial illness because of how vastly different it is from person to person. There are a number of reasons why a person might be affected by ME, but I do find it astounding to see such a strong correlation between undiagnosed Coeliac Disease and ME. In fact, it's amazing to me how many autoimmune diseases are negatively impacted by the consumption of gluten even without being Coeliac.
I think many people struggle to accept how important the food we eat actually is sometimes. Anyone who has ever owned a pet knows this intuitively. If your dog gets sick and starts acting out of character one of the first things you might ask yourself is 'what did they eat?'. How many times have we done that with ourselves? Sure, if you come down with a bad stomach ache, you might piece two and two together, but no one stops to think why they might be feeling tired and achey.
I don't mean to turn this into a gluten-is-the-root-of-all-evil thing, though in Mike's case that might actually be true. I just hope that people will read this and look within themselves to discover what things could be impacting their wellness.
Sources:
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Coeliac-disease/Pages/Causes.aspx
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1790189-overview
http://www.glutenfreehelp.co.uk/medical-research.html
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