Thomas DeLauer breaks down the science behind Celiac Disease, Wheat Allergies, and Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity on the latest #ScienceSaturday
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Transcript by Rev.com
- Hey, are you tight with your tissue transglutaminase and your gut lymphoid tissue and also your glutenin and your gliadin? Okay, it's a Science Saturday which means we're going to sciencetown. And what I'm gonna do for you today is I'm gonna break down the differences between celiac disease, non-celiac gluten intolerance, and wheat allergies. To help you understand that maybe the bloating that you get when you eat some carbs could actually be a real thing and not just in your head. So let's get down to the science my Jigsaw friends.
A lot of of people seem to think that this gluten thing is just a fad, that people are going gluten free because it's popular right now. But the reality is that there's some true science and some true physiology that proves that we're starting to have a bigger issue with gluten as a whole. And it all comes down to how our bodies respond to it in the first place and how wheat has changed over the years. But what I wanna do is I wanna help you understand the link between what is gluten intolerance, what is true celiac disease and then what is a wheat allergy. Okay, they're all interrelated to some degree but if you understand what's happening, you might not be so hard on that friend that says that he has an issue with gluten even though he's not celiac.
Okay, so let's break it down.
You see, first off we have to understand why we're having so much of an issue with gluten these days. Is it the fact that is just more so in the mainstream and we're hearing more about it? I'm sure to some degree that's true. I'm sure there is some psychological effect that is causing more people to have a gluten reaction when they don't really have one. That's always gonna be the case. But the reality is that we have changed as humans. The over consumption of wheat has led us to develop different processes in the body that causes us to have more reactions to wheat. When you consume one of the same foods for a long time over and over, you do start to cause an issue within your body. But that's not even the issue I'm talking about today.
The other issue is the hybridization of wheat. Now say what you want about GMOs, like 'em or not, I don't really care, the fact is this hybridization of wheat in particular has elicited a specific change in the proteins. You see, wheat now has new proteins in it. Approximately 5% of modern day wheat is entirely new proteins that our bodies don't even know how to assimilate or utilize. We don't really have the enzymes to break those proteins down so that truly is causing an issue. We've hybridized wheat to make it a little more drought resistant, make it bug resistant but also we end up doing specific things like spraying roundup on it to dry it out faster so you can have more harvesting cycles. This causes some issues within our guts.
But all that aside, let's talk about what's happening when you have a gluten intolerance. The first one I wanna talk about is non-celiac gluten intolerance.
Okay, these are the people that whenever they consume bread or whenever they consume gluten starches, they just feel sick, they feel bloated, they feel like, just really lethargic and they just don't feel good. So they say, I don't feel good when I eat gluten. And you know what? Honestly, there's some serious, serious cloud to that, so let's talk about what's actually happening. You see, when you have a non-celiac gluten intolerance, when you ingest gluten, it goes down into your intestinal track as usual. When it gets down into your intestinal track, it reacts with a very specific enzyme.
This enzyme is known as tissue transglutaminase. And this is a very important enzyme for the rest of this video. This tissue transglutaminase takes gluten and it breaks it down into what it's called glutenin and gliadin, okay? And then we have a very specific immune system that is specifically located in our guts, okay? We're not talking about the full overall immune system. We're talking about the gut-associated lymphoid tissue. This gut-associated lymphoid tissue is a specific immune response that is located only within the gut. What happens is that enzyme that broke the gluten down into gliadin ended up triggering a reaction to the gliadin.
So gluten intolerance is a reaction to the specific protein, the gliadin. So what's happening is you're getting some bloating, you're getting inflammation, you're getting an immune response. And that immune response very viably can make you feel like crud. It can make you tired, it can make you lethargic. And it can, most of all, make you bloated. So yes, if you feel like after you have some gluten, you are completely bloated, you could very likely just have a gluten intolerance where you still have an immune response but just without the systemic damage that usually occurs with the true celiac person. So now with that being said, let's talk about what happens in someone that has celiac disease.
Okay, celiac disease is one step further above gluten intolerance. You see, remember that enzyme I talked about, that tissue transglutaminase, so you consume gluten, that tissue transglutaminase breaks down the gluten into gliadin and glutenin, but this time with celiac, the immune response isn't to the gliadin, the immune response is to the enzyme itself. That is why it's known as an autoimmune condition. An autoimmune condition is where your body is fighting something off that you already have. A more broad scale example is like Hashimoto's where an autoimmune condition triggers your body to attack your thyroid. It's attacking something that already exists. So with celiac patients, you are attacking your own enzyme. So whenever you have gluten and your body creates this enzyme to break it down, your immune system fights the enzyme. That's why it's more of a systemic issue with people who have celiac. They can get really sick and really in bad situations they can even die. So what we're talking about is two different things but at the same degree, very, very similar. What ends up happening is this same enzyme, tissue transglutaminase is responsible for holding our gut together. We have a small amount of this enzyme at all times. But it gets increased when we have gluten in the equation. So if we fight off the tissue transglutaminase, we end up fighting off the ability to hold together the intestinal villi. This is what allows our intestines to absorb nutrients and when the intestines get brittle and don't have that micro-ability to absorb, well, then we're not absorbing nutrients. That's how celiac patients, if they consume gluten, can get very, very ill 'cause they won't absorb new nutrients. Okay, now let's move into wheat allergies.
Wheat allergies is a whole different ball game. Okay, wheat allergies are where you actually have an immunoglobulin E response. What is called an allergen specific IGE response. Much like a histamine reaction, much like if you're allergic to shellfish, you're gonna go into anaphylaxis, okay? Gluten and a wheat allergy is different, that's a histamine response. However, you can have a wheat allergy and not have a gluten intolerance. Two different worlds.
Lastly, I wanna make a point to talk about prolamins and other grains. Often times, you'll talk to someone that has celiac disease or a gluten intolerance and find that they also have issues with rice and other grains. Well, they're not crazy. This can actually happen. There's something called prolamins. Prolamins are the master proteins, they're like the carrier storage proteins of gluten and all grains. And a lot of times, within these prolamins, you have carryover proteins that crossover. So we also need that tissue transglutaminase to break down a lot of these prolamins and these prolamins are hard to break down in the first place. But when you have a crossover, some of the prolamins that are in gluten could be in rice or could be in corn starches. So what ends up happening is you still have the same gluten response with these other grains as you would with gluten. Not always, it all depends on the specific strain. And sometimes, it's hard to tell. So it can be dangerous sometimes for someone with celiac to even consume rice.
But my point in saying this isn't to freak you out and tell you not to eat grains at all. It's just gonna help you understand that grains can sometimes cause that same inflammatory response that gluten can to a smaller degree. So if you feel cruddy when you eat grains, it's not in your head, it could really be happening. But you just have to test it out and see what works for you.
And as always, if you're looking to relax your belly a little bit, make sure you're taking in some magnesium because as we all know, magnesium is responsible for over 300 different enzymatic functions. But it's also responsible for relaxing the smooth muscle tissue that's in our intestinal track. Which means it could potentially help you out if you have a little bit of a gluten or grain sensitivity. So go ahead and click on the link and learn a little bit more about magnesium SRT from Jigsaw. I'll see you soon.
