Food Sensitivities: The Gluten Doctors-Seizures and Gluten Intolerance

[Guest guest]

Hi folks,

Yes, there really is a group of " gluten doctors " who take the

gluten\seizure connection seriously. A lot of us have figured out

that the gluten free diet for celiacs may also work as a treatment

for many folks with seizures, whether or not we are diagnosed with

celiac disease. Today I found the site for the HealthNow Medical

Clinic in Sunnyvale,California. The doctors there recognize and treat

seizure disorders that may be triggered by gluten sensitivity.

Dr. Vikki sen is the clinic director. She is a Clinical

Nutritionist, Chiropractor, and has BA with a major in Molecular

Biology. Dr. sen's book on gluten sensitivity, " The Gluten

Effect, " is due to be published this month.

Dr. sen gave me permission to post an excerpt from her book

about the gluten\seizure connection. Links to her blog and the clinic

web page follow the quote. You can contact them from the site. I'll

be first in line to get the book!

Zoe

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From the Blog:Seizures and Gluten sensitivity:

There are many causes of seizures, some understood better than

others. I wanted to discuss the known association between seizures

and gluten sensitivity. Please understand that I'm making no

assumptions on the part of gluten being a causative agent in Jett's

condition. It's just that seizures are such a tragic event for the

patient as well as their families and any data I can provide that may

help someone is something I'd like to do.

Below is some data from our upcoming book, The Gluten Effect.

It is quite amazing how many other parts of your health can be

actively affected by gluten without the presence of any digestive

symptoms. Of all the other organ systems of your body, the nervous

system is the area most commonly affected by gluten after the

gastrointestinal system. And, because our nervous system handles so

many important functions, symptoms related to the nervous system are

quite varied.

Your nervous system incorporates central structures including your

brain, spinal cord, peripheral structures that are made up of sensory

nerves (which sense pain, hot, cold, etc.), motor nerves (allowing

you to perform movements) and nerves that regulate your involuntary

systems (such as your heart beating, breathing while you sleep,

intestinal movements, etc.). In individuals who are predisposed to

gluten intolerance, gluten triggers an immune reaction that can

interfere with the function of these structures.

Is Your Brain " On Fire " ?

There is an abundance of evidence that inflammatory changes occur

in the brain and nerves that cause a variety of symptoms. These can

range from clumsiness to headaches to numbness to mood disorders to

memory problems. It has been reported that only thirteen percent of

patients with neurologic symptoms from gluten sensitivity may have

digestive symptoms, and, often, neurological symptoms in gluten-

sensitive patients precede digestive symptoms by months to years when

they do occur. For this reason, it is important to keep gluten in

mind as a root cause when dealing with disorders of the nervous

system.

Remember, symptoms are the body's way of getting your attention and

directing you toward the site of a problem. If standard tests and

exams cannot reveal a cause, dietary factors, toxins, lifestyle

issues and other stresses deserve your attention.

This is where gluten should be a strong consideration. Because

gluten affects so many people silently, and because most of those

symptoms are not related to the digestive tract, it needs to be an

early consideration when addressing many health care problems.

Examining the different way in which gluten affects your nervous

system is an excellent way to appreciate the scope with which gluten

results in a variety of symptoms. It also highlights the importance

of your diet in relationship to your health.

Gluten's Relationship to Seizures

An excellent study was evaluated with 171 patients who suffered

seizures and likewise had gluten sensitivity/celiac disease and

calcifications in the brain. The overwhelming majority had gliadin

antibodies in the spinal fluid (which circulates around the brain and

spinal cord), and, likewise, most had the gene for having gluten

sensitivity. Though many were unresponsive to treatment in general,

it was notable that some did respond well to a gluten-free diet.

Why would gluten cause seizures? And are the calcium deposits in the

brain related to gluten? Likely, the answer is " yes " to both

questions. The presence of calcium deposits reflects chronic

inflammation in some tissues. When inflammation has been present for

years, calcium forms scars where the inflammation is located.

Additionally, brain calcifications can form as a result of a folic

acid (a B vitamin) deficiency, which may have been a contributing

cause to the calcium deposits in these patients. Since gluten causes

digestive malabsorption, then, folic acid may indeed have been low

due to that.

The Mechanism Explained

Regardless, the root cause is most likely an immune system attack

triggered by gluten sensitivity. Antibodies that are made to attack

gluten get confused (due to a process known as cellular mimicry) and

attack normal tissue that looks similar to gluten's protein

structure. In the brain, once the tissue is inflamed chronically,

calcium can deposit and form a hardened scar.

Because of this scar, seizures develop and can be difficult to

control with normal seizure medications. Seizures are basically short

circuits of the brain. Suppose there were an electrical pole knocked

down onto the ground. The electrical wires tore and were lying

unprotected, sending out sparks from their broken ends. The

electrical connection had been severed. Calcium deposits and scars in

the brain essentially do the same thing. They send off

electrical " sparks " that can develop into seizures if enough brain

tissue becomes involved. Medication may help the sparks from

spreading, but with gluten-related seizures, medicines work less well.

Case Study: A Lovely Girl Who Leaves Her Seizures Behind

T.S. is a beautiful, vibrant, nine-year-old girl who had begun

having seizures at the age of four. She had undergone standard

medical testing without a cause of her seizures being found. We first

saw her when she was four years old. Not only did we find that she

was sensitive to gluten, but that she also had many intestinal

infections, a Candida yeast infection, and an essential fatty acid

imbalance. The infections were greater in number in her than in most

adults we treat, and some were very resistant to treatment, requiring

two rounds of antibiotics instead of the usual one. She was treated

with fatty acids in addition to a gluten-free diet.

T.S. has had absolutely no seizures for two years. She told her

mother recently that she knows that the gluten created her seizures,

and she is more than happy to keep it out of her diet. It is

noteworthy that her mother, also diagnosed by us as gluten-sensitive,

never ate much gluten until her twenties because as a child, she had

sensed that it bothered her. But, recalling when she was in college

and consumed a lot of gluten, she remembered suffering from " brain

fog " during that time.

Evidence of these inflammatory changes can be seen in some gluten-

sensitive patients via MRI. This was supported in another study

examining patients with gluten sensitivity and seizures, which

demonstrated deep-tissue inflammation in at least twenty percent of

the children studied who had seizures. In addition, none of these

seizure patients had folic acid deficiency, which suggests that

gluten was the primary cause of their problem.

It's Worth Giving Gluten-free a Try

While, thankfully, seizures are an uncommon manifestation of gluten

sensitivity, it is extremely important to recognize it as a cause

because the only effective treatment may be a gluten-free diet. If

you never think of gluten as a cause, then you will never test for

its presence. It would be miserable to have to suffer, or see someone

else suffer, with seizures when a potential cure may exist with a

simple dietary change.

Link to blog on Travolta's son with excerpt from book about seizures

and gluten sensitivity.

http://glutendoctors.blogspot.com/

Link to the HealthNow Medical Clinic in Sunnyvale, CA

http://www.healthnowmedical.com/