Saturday, March 14, 2009

A little insurance for Celiacs on the road?

I saw a recent posting on a Celiac site about a study from Finland. It said that:

"Bifidobacterium lactis inhibited the gliadin-induced increase dose-dependently in epithelial permeability, and, at higher concentrations totally eliminated the gliadin-induced reduction in transepithelial resistance."

OK - all fancy words that basically say that a probiotic kept gluten from getting through gut cells (in a petri dish).

Now, I think that's really hopeful news and here's how I'm going to use it. First, a petri dish is not a controlled human study. I am not going off the gluten-free diet to give it a try, and I think anybody would be nuts to do so. But from time to time, a restaurant will do that for me without my knowledge. We've all been there and done that, right? So I think that I'll just start taking a probiotic with B. lactis in it during times when I'm at higher risk (like on the road for a race or eating out a lot, for example).

I've had some pretty good luck using probiotics after a course of antibiotics and never had a bad reaction, so this seems to me to be a pretty good and relatively inexpensive way to keep ahead of the cross-contamination issue. Peaking correctly for a race or event is hard enough as it is, and this approach might just be some reasonable insurance on the diet side.

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