Celiac Disease – A Short Reading List: Reviews
Reviews
The Thoroughly Indispensable Guide to Negotiating Life Without Wheat
by Jax Peters Lowell, New York, Holt & Co., 2005
Life without wheat – can we survive? Will a wheat-free, i.e. gluten-free, diet heal the damaged digestive tracts of sick patients? Author and fellow celiac, Jax Peters Lowell answers these questions as she explains how we can thrive without gluten. She restores our hope for living well with celiac disease. By administering heaping doses of information, Lowell’s comprehensive and lively book encourages gluten-free adventures.
Her previous book, Against the Grain, brought an outpouring of response from readers. As Lowell describes it, she received “friendship and gratitude from gluten-challenged friends and fans in every city and town in America and Canada.” So many readers dubbed her book agluten-free bible thatLowell adopted their title. In her introduction to The Gluten-Free Bible, Lowell reassures us that she “tackled the tough issues, [and] consulted with experts. . .” She teaches us “how we [can] grow up gluten-free, how we [can] remain gluten-free in an emergency, manage our medicine, survive dating [and]. . . negotiate the twists and turns on the gluten-free path.”
Using her celiac recovery as a teaching tale, Lowell tells us “how she saved her own life and ate happily ever after”. Her self-confessed cheeky writing style encourages readers to take their diagnoses in stride and live gluten-free. 'Spunky' might be another word for her coping style; 'in-your-face' would be too strong. Lowell used her cheekiness and spunkiness when she had to resolve her celiac problems. Readers with celiac disease will appreciate her approach. Here’s why. After years of misdiagnoses and mistreatments, many people get worse. Deteriorating, sick and tired, they get discouraged. They could use a wake-up call and a guide to help themselves recover and live well. By explaining how she reframed her attitudes, Lowell gives readers that guidance. The Gluten-Free Bible shares her resources, references and self-help tactics.
Lowell’s success coping with celiac disease will inspire readers to take care of ourselves. In these examples of her writing, you can see how well Lowell understands and connects with celiacs. Her book offers “comfort, strategy and a take-no-prisoners attitude for everyone who has ever faced a howling hunger, an empty plate, a noncompliant waiter or worse, a family member who just doesn’t get it.” and “I can still remember in piercing detail the aching sense of loss that accompanied my own diagnosis. How sick I was, how thin I got, I secretly and guiltily grieved for all the foods I could never taste again and did what most people in total denial do, I cheated.” [Eventually] “I discovered richly satisfying risotto, Thai rice noodles, and the fiery Indian pancake called papadum . . . certain foods led me out of danger”.
The Gluten-Free Bible has so much detailed information that this book does get complicated in places, just like living with celiac disease. Newly-diagnosed celiacs might find it easier to start with a simpler book but they would be wise to buy this one too. They will see that The Gluten-Free Bible has more content and broader coverage with detailed instructions for living well without gluten as well as a satisfying selection of recipes, web sites, references and resources.
Lowell’s progress and success coping with celiac disease empowered her to, as she puts it, “throw down a gauntlet to a glutenous world.” The Gluten-Free Bible presents her “case for choosing joy over sorrow, self-assertion and resourcefulness over fear and negative thinking, pleasure over regret.” Celiacs, family members, caregivers and health professionals can use The Gluten-Free Bible to understand celiac disease, adapt to gluten-free living, recover from episodes (after eating wheat) and feel alive and healthy again.
How Gluten Sensitivity May Be Sabotaging Your Health
by Shari Lieberman, PhD, CNS, FACN, New York, Rodale Inc., 2007
Full-blown celiac disease develops in 1% of people, but not overnight. Every time they taste gluten, their immune systems react and their intestinal villi flatten. The more gluten they eat, the less nutrition they absorb. What about the rest of us? How many of us only have a sensitivity to gluten? Will we also get diagnosed with celiac disease, or celiac II?
Author Shari Liberman opens our minds to the reality that 30% of people have some degree of sensitivity to gluten. What would a nutrition scientist know about gastroenterological disorders? It turns out that Shari L. knows plenty. As a “private practitioner, [Share] is frequently the professional of last resort. People come to [her], often through medical referral, after they have unsuccessfully tried other, often easier, remedies for their health problems. . . . through these cases of last resort [Shari] became intrigued with gluten sensitivity, also known as gluten intolerance.”
Nutritionist Shari Liberman identifies herself as a ‘dietary sleuth’. She learned that gluten sensitivity is an intolerance reaction, not an allergy. She explains food intolerance as a “food immune reactivity” – “a delayed reaction from eating some foods or ingredients.” Shari learned that “an F.I.R. is more complicated than an allergic reaction”. Symptoms may suggest an allergic response, but reactions are delayed; no histamines are released; and an FIR can produce long-term effects on several organs. Liberman compares food reactivity and allergy symptoms, antibody production and long-term effects and explains that gluten sensitivity can affect health in many ways – permanently damage organs, inflame tissues, hyperactivate the immune system and prompt the body to produce antibodies that can affect the balance of inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitters.
While helping patients eat right and restore their health, Shari Liberman learned that gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye, can trigger an autoimmune reaction in people who are sensitive to gluten but don’t have celiac. Maybe the first few reactions don’t produce noticeable symptoms, “but autoimmune reactions are often cumulative”. Can gluten, the culprit behind celiac disease, trigger sensitivities for years before people develop celiac disease? Liberman explains what can happen. Her last resort cases enlighten readers; we learn that one third of people react to gluten, way more than the 1% who eventually get sick enough to qualify for a diagnosis of celiac disease.
Gluten-Free Girl
How I Found the Food that Loves Me Back . . . and You Can Too
by Shauna James Ahern, New Jersey, Wiley & Sons, 2007
Shauna’s remarkable book says “yes” to living without gluten. Like many of us in the “processed-foods generation”, the author grew up eating products heavily laced with white flour and white sugar. Even at age ten, Shauna felt “vaguely unwell, slightly run-down and easily tired.” In spite of ongoing health issues, she studied hard and became a high school English teacher and a writing instructor. As the years passed, Shauna ate the usual foods, but she felt worse and worse.
Within three years, she endured pneumonia, an operation and a car accident, little knowing that she also had another problem - full-blown celiac disease. Knowing that a number of conditions could give her such serious symptoms, Shauna’s doctors checked her for kidney stones, colon cancer, stomach ulcers, endometriosis and ovarian cancer but their tests came back negative. When Shauna was thirty, two friends called after they saw a TV show about celiac. Shauna ‘googled’ to clarify their friendly diagnosis and then she started a gluten-free diet. On her third day without gluten, Shauna’s brain fog lifted.
After many years as a processed-food girl, Shauna James faced a dilemma. Could she adjust to a life without gluten – without bread, without beer, without baked goods and without many other processed foods (which come with gluten)? At her turning point, Shauna realized that while she could not keep eating gluten, she could say ‘yes’ to all sorts of foods that she had never considered before. Living without gluten, Shauna’s world bloomed open. “Buoyant with energy after years of being flattened from exhaustion, [she] spent more and more time in the kitchen, teaching [herself] to cook with whole foods instead of prepackaged foodstuffs”. Hoping to network with friends, Shauna started a website called www.glutenfreegirl.com where she blogged and posted her progress, problems, recipes and resources. So many people logged on and enjoyed her site that, in 2006, it won Best Food Blog with a Theme.
Shauna James Ahern became passionate about living without gluten. She rose to the challenge of coping with celiac disease. She ‘yes’ to living gluten-free; she said ‘yes’ to a succession of healthy foods; she said ‘yes’ to writing about her joyous new life; she said ‘yes’ to sharing her recipes and photographs on her web site and she even said ‘yes’ to the man of her dreams. Shauna’s wonderfully well-written book shares her heartwarming story and her inspiring life as a gluten-free girl.
Principles and Practices of Naturopathic Clinical Nutrition
by Jonathan Prousky, ND, MSc, CCNM Press, Toronto, 2008
With a wealth of clinical information, well organized and clearly explained, this insightful text recommends restorative treatments and offers research evidence along with many medical journal articles as back-up. During ten years of clinical experience, seeing patients with various health problems including gastrointestinal disorders, author Jonathan Prousky, ND, MSc learned about the healing capabilities of nutritional regimens for GI problems including celiac disease, GERD, ulcers, irritable bowel and pancreatitis.
Naturopathic Clinical Nutrition (review cont’d)
Although the author did not address this medical text to laymen, Prousky’s accessible writing style makes scientific and medical information understandable to every reader, no matter what their education. Prousky presents clinical pearls about nutrition and nutrients. He encourages readers to learn about naturopathic and orthomolecular care, cooperate with differential diagnostic workups and take nutritional supplements.
Doctor Abram Hoffer’s preface states that readers can trust Prousky’s reports. Prousky’s book reminds me of Dr. Hoffer’s Orthomolecular Medicine for Physicians (OMP), printed in 1989 and no longer easy to find. Hoffer’s book still reads fresh and clear today.
It was updated in 2008 as Orthomolecular Medicine for Everyone – reviewed on pg. 8) Prousky’s clinical guide adds current information. Fortunate readers of both books will realize that Jonathan Prousky has carefully studied Abram Hoffer’s medical research and clinical findings. Prousky not only learned how to help his patients restore their health, but he also writes about restorative care and he teaches orthomolecular principles and practices to naturopaths-in-training. Prousky’s textbook explains the healing power of complementary naturopathic and orthomolecular practices.
Prousky’s important clinical textbook belongs in the libraries of a wide readership where his excellent information can bring clinical help and hope for restoring health to thousands of patients. If people with celiac disease only get quick and easy shortcuts i.e., substandard care rather than proper diagnosis and effective treatments, they are unlikely to heal as well as patients whose health professionals read Prousky’s comprehensive clinical guide, monitor nutritional and biochemical aspects and recommend a gluten-free diet along with nutritional supplements.
Pages 144 to 148 have information about celiac disorder. Prousky explains that celiacs have problems with maldigestion and malapsorption and they usually need lab tests and a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. Two cases illustrate how naturopathic medicine can help and he explains the benefits of the gluten-free diet. Prousky notes that latent and silent forms of celiac can appear in some patients, without the usual symptoms. He explains that celiac responds to a gluten-free diet as well as supplements of vitamins and minerals, including vitamins D, E and K, calcium and carnitine (a metabolic energy factor). Medical journal references complete the celiac chapter.
Thousands of trusting patients hope that our health professionals will find, read and apply books about restorative treatments which were researched in the 1950s and found safe and effective by Abram Hoffer and other orthomolecular pioneers, decades ago. Readers of Naturopathic Clinical Nutrition can thank Jonathan Prousky for studying orthomolecular medicine very carefully and then writing this thorough, detailed and documented textbook with more than 400 pages of clinical information about the principles and practices of naturopathic and restorative orthomolecular medicine.
(Note to readers – Orthomolecular Medicine for Everyone by Dr. A. Hoffer and Dr. A. Saul,
Nov., 2008 from Basic Health. Order from www.amazon.com; reviewed on pg. 8)
Orthomolecular Medicine for Everyone
Megavitamin Therapeutics for Families and Physicians
by Abram Hoffer, PhD, MD, FRCP(C) and Andrew Saul, PhD,
2008, Basic Health Publications Inc., CA, 375 pages www.basichealthpub.com
Megavitamin therapeutics? Whazzat? Do vital amines have health-restoring capabilities? In this book, two highly-qualified authors, Abram Hoffer, PhD, MD and Andrew Saul, PhD explain how orthomolecular medicine can help people feel better and live longer. In Part One, Dr. Hoffer (biochemist, physician and psychiatrist-retired) and Dr. Saul (health educator) teach us that: (1) vitamins and minerals are important to human health; (2) nutritional deficiencies can cause health problems; (3) many patients can restore their health by taking supplements; and (4) healing with nutrients only happens if each patient receives optimal doses (much higher than anti-starvation levels). After introducing the concepts of nutritional deficiencies and dependencies and biochemical individuality, the authors outline the healing capabilities of vitamins, starting with B-3, an essential nutrient which has three names: nicotinic acid, niacin and niacinamide. Then Hoffer and Saul explain how orthomolecular doctors treat chronic illnesses and maintain health by prescribing regimens of vitamins A, B, C, D and E with trace minerals and other nutrients.
Part Two details safe, effective and restorative orthomolecular treatments for nine health problems:
(1) gastrointestinal disorders, (2) cardiovascular disease, (3) arthritis, (4) cancer, (5) the aging brain,
(6) psychiatric and behavioral disorders, (7) epilepsy and Huntington’s disease,
(8) allergies, infections, toxic reactions, trauma, lupus and multiple sclerosis and (9) skin problems.
Will a poor diet drain our vitality? If we get sick, can nutrients restore our health? Consider mental illness; most psychiatrists quickly label patients, prescribe combinations of meds (antidepressants, antipsychotics and anticonvulsants, etc.) and talk to their psychoses. Non-responsive patients get electric shocks. Early in his career, Dr. Hoffer saw very few recoveries after patients got labels, meds, talks or shocks. He wondered whether psychotic patients might have metabolic disorders rather than neuroleptic deficiencies. Most doctors don’t pay any mind if patients eat junk food or self-medicate with alcohol, oblivious to the reality that brain cells need decent food. Certain nutrients are essential. Psychiatrists don’t often consider nutrition but Abram Hoffer went to the old school which taught doctors to assess root causes and contributing factors before making a differential diagnosis. As Hoffer evaluated biochemical and nutritional factors underlying psychosis, he discovered that foods and nutrients can affect mental health. Over his long and distinguished career, Dr. Hoffer fine-tuned patients’ diets and prescribed regimens of vitamins, trace minerals, amino acids, antioxidants, energy and enzyme cofactors. These treatments helped many of his patients to stop hallucinating, rejoin their communities, work, pay taxes and live well. Impossible, you say?
Initially, Dr. Hoffer networked with a small team of scientists and health professionals who cooperated to research and develop restorative treatments for schizophrenia. Linus Pauling, PhD, read Niacin Therapy, in which Hoffer reported his first patients who recovered taking niacin for acute schizophrenia. Pauling named it “orthomolecular psychiatry” (Science, 1968). Dr. Hoffer explains the restorative dimension of care: “The practice of orthomolecular medicine recognizes that diseases are due to a metabolic fault that is correctable in most patients by good nutrition, including the use of vitamins and mineral supplements.”
Megavitamin therapeutics proved safe and effective. Many of Hoffer’s acute schizophrenia patients recovered taking optimum doses of a methyl acceptor (B-3, niacin or niacinamide) with an antioxidant (C, ascorbic acid). For more than 50 years, while researching and developing regimens of nutrients to heal psychosis and other mental disorders, Hoffer reported clinical progress and success by improving diets and giving medicinal doses of vitamins B-3, B-6, C, zinc and manganese. Thousands of patients recovered.
Most psychiatrists ignored Hoffer’s double-blind placebo-controlled gold-standard research. Without studying his ideas, experiments, data or findings, ‘modern’ psychiatrists dismissed Hoffer’s reports of a 75% recovery rate for acute schizophrenia. They did not interview his recovered patients. Believing that thousands of patients and their trusting families could benefit from complementary vitamins and minerals, Abram Hoffer somehow found the time to write more than 30 books and 600 medical journal articles and
O-Medicine for Everyone (cont’d)
editorials. For decades, he wrote about the biochemistry of schizophrenia, described the healing capabilities
of vitamins and other nutrients, recommended healthy diets and introduced orthomolecular medicine to patients, families, caregivers and health professionals. Hoffer’s books include The Chemical Basis of Clinical Psychiatry (1960), Niacin Therapy in Psychiatry (1962), How to Live with Schizophrenia (1966), The Hallucinogens (1967), Smart Nutrients (1980) Orthomolecular Medicine for Physicians (1989), and Adventures in Psychiatry (2005). This 2008 book, clear enough for every reader, is a classic example of Hoffer’s thorough research, detailed references, careful observations and thoughtful writing.
While prescribing vitamins for patients, Hoffer took the same daily doses of niacin and ascorbic acid himself (vitamins B-3 and C). How many psychiatrists self-test their treatments? He experienced the niacin flush with two brief side effects: 1. warmth and 2. redness. He had no side attacks or toxic effects while taking vitamins, only side benefits. Abram Hoffer’s decades-long personal experiment shows that the right doses of the right nutrients can help a doctor feel better and live longer. Will you live as long as Dr. Hoffer if you take vitamins B-3 and C? Maybe you will; note that Dr. Hoffer wrote this book in his 91st year.
Anyone can read about the decades of research, study the references and consider the regimens which Dr. Abram Hoffer and his colleagues developed, tested, healed thousands of patients with, took themselves and wrote clinical success stories about, since the 1950s. Abram Hoffer and Andrew Saul wrote this informative, insightful, helpful and hopeful book to educate the public how we can restore our health, get proper medical care, adjust our diets and take supplements. Hoffer and Saul encourage us to eat foods that we can metabolize, and take nutritional supplements (vitamins, minerals and amino acids, antioxidants, energy and enzyme co-factors and essential fatty acids). If we suffer from metabolic problems, deficiencies or dependencies, we can ask our health professionals to complement standard treatments with nutritional regimens. If our doctors don’t know about restorative care, we can ask for second opinions.
As you read this fascinating book, you will learn how to restore health and live well by eating nutritious foods and asking health professionals to recommend nutritional supplements. Ortho-molecular medicine has helped thousands of patients including patients with celiac disease and gluten sensitivity. Optimum doses of essential nutrients tested safe and effective. You can help yourself recover, feel better and live longer; then tell your friends and families!
review by Robert Sealey, BSc
author of Finding Care for Depression, Mental Episodes & Brain Disorders
90-Day Plan for Finding Quality Care
free excerpts, reviews, recovery story, articles and links www.searpubl.ca
Intnl Society of Orthomolecular Medicine - ask for their free book list
Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine - quarterly, free archives on the web
Nutritional Medicine Today - annual conference
16 Florence Ave (near Yonge St. & Sheppard, close to the subway)
North York, ON M2N 1E9 Ph 416-733-2117 www.orthomed.org
[Historical note – Decades before Hoffer’s time, malnourished and psychotic patients recovered from episodes of pellagra by taking niacin and tryptophan and improving their diets. Ref. Dr. J. Goldberger. Divided doses of vitamin B-3, as niacinamide, were also used to heal arthritis. Ref. Dr. W. Kaufman. In the 1950s, Dr. Hoffer applied his PhD in biochemistry to research schizophrenia, neurotransmitters and metabolic pathways. One evening he had a Eureka moment spotting a common chemical basis, an indole, in hallucinogenic compounds. He wondered if the human brain produces indoles and if so, might those metabolites cause hallucinations or perceptual distortions during episodes of schizophrenia. Dr. Hoffer found indoles by tracking the metabolic pathways of catecholamines, especially when the oxidation of adrenalin shifts irreversibly to adrenochrome (an indole). 1 or 2% of people, schizophrenics, hallucinate that way. Hoffer tested various doses of niacin and ascorbic acid (vit. B-3 and C) and had more Eureka moments as megavitamin therapeutics restored normal brain function in patients with acute schizophrenia.]
The Art of Happy, Healthy Gluten-Free Living
by Danna Korn, New York, Hay House, Inc., 2002
Danna Korn also wrote Kids with Celiac Disease: A Family Guide to Raising Happy, Healthy Gluten-Free Children. Her son was diagnosed at 18 months after months of
classic celiac symptoms, misdiagnoses and mistreatments. His nightmare inspired Danna Korn to talk with thousands of parents and learn what families go through when a child has a celiac condition or a wheat sensitivity. She founded R.O.C.K. (Raising Our Celiac Kids) as a national support group. Korn learned that children with celiac have different “needs, issues, concerns and challenges” compared to adult celiacs.
She shares her son’s story in the introduction to this book. Then she gets serious about celiac. Wheat-Free Worry-Free has three parts:
Part I: Is This Diet for You?
Part II: Weaning from Wheat and Bootin’ Gluten: How, What and Where to Eat
Part III: Wheat-Free Isn’t Always Worry-Free:
Dealing with the Emotions Behind the Diet
Tech Talk: Medical, Nutritional, and Scientific Details and a Resource Directory
Korn researched her book thoroughly and wrote carefully and objectively so patients, families, caregivers and health professionals can benefit from its wealth of information, help and hope. You will not be disappointed if you add this book to your library.
The WRAP Story [WRAP = Wellness Recovery Action Planning]
First Person Accounts of Personal and System Recovery and Transformation
compiled by Mary Ellen Copeland, Ph.D, 2008, Peach Press, Vermont
The WRAP Story, an anthology, has 82 stories written by people who recovered from mental illnesses: depression, anxiety, ADD, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. These heartwarming accounts share strategies for recovering which Vermont psychologist, Mary Ellen Copeland, PhD studied, researched, developed, wrote about and taught, even though she had her own problems with depression and a bipolar diagnosis.
Story #1, in the first chapter, explains where WRAP came from. When Mary Ellen Copeland was ill, she struggled with symptoms. As her life unraveled, her family did not know how to help. After several hospitalizations and trials of strong and stronger medications, Mary Ellen asked her psychiatrist, ‘How do people recover, get well and stay well?’ Her doctor said there was no such information, but he learned that you do not say no to Mary Ellen Copeland. She wanted recovery information so badly that she developed it herself. She kept going when people said that her research methods would not work. She continued when people said that she could not get published or put on a workshop. She wrote and taught so well that patients started to recover and tell other patients. Her latest book, an astonishing compilation of recovery stories, shares Mary
Ellen’s own recovery as well as her research and development of self-help tools and recovery strategies. She encourages patients to pay forward what they learned.
My story appears as #7 in the chapter about using wellness recovery tools. After decades of problems with a bipolar II mood disorder, migraines, anxiety and other diagnoses, I was sick, suffering and deteriorating. My health professionals offered quick labels and easy meds, but their shortcuts did not help. I was victimized by substandard care, misdiagnoses, mistreatments, lies and smiles. As a trusting patient, I wanted an accurate diagnosis and restorative treatments. Then I needed tips and tools to rebuild my shredded life. Mary Ellen Copeland’s books about living with depression and bipolar disorder proved exceedingly useful. Her WRAP concept encouraged me to develop a wellness recovery action plan. My wellness ‘toolbox’ includes: bibliotherapy (reading to heal), orthomolecular medicine, networking and volunteering. My written recovery plan identifies trigger factors and early warning signs and outlines daily activities to maintain wellness. If a crisis looms or a relapse starts, I review my plan, adjust my daily doses of vitamins, minerals & amino acids (brain ‘fuels’), check my medications, call my health professionals and connect with my support network.
The recoveries in The WRAP Story anthology speak to the problems of psychiatry and offer self-help solutions which patients found safe and effective. Rather than trusting the tradition of nihilism in psychiatry [careless doctors who do nothing to heal], patients can develop their own wellness recovery action plans. Eighty-two people explain how they took responsibility for educating themselves about diagnoses, found effective treatments, identified vulnerabilities and sustained commitments to self-help. They recovered. While modern psychiatry focuses on quick labels and easy prescriptions, Mary Ellen Copeland offers self-help strategies to help sick, suffering and vulnerable patients recover and live well. Her Wellness Recovery Action Plan helped thousands of patients – the stories in The WRAP Story anthology tell readers that Mary Ellen’s wellness recovery action planning concept has performed well under pressure and proven itself practical, safe, adaptable and flexible enough for everyday use by patients and health professionals.
The single-minded determination of Mary Ellen Copeland, a recovered patient herself and now a PhD psychologist in Vermont, powered her series of 16 self-help books and WRAP plans, videos, workshops, trainers and facilitators across the United States. Thousands of recovered patients, worldwide, can thank Mary Ellen for teaching us how to recover using self-help tips and tools. If you or someone you know gets sick during episodes or has a chronic health problem, please remember that The WRAP Story comes with Mary Ellen’s intriguing wellness recovery action planning concept and 82 inspiring stories by patients who used WRAP tools to plan, cope, recover and stay well.
Celiacs can use wellness recovery action planning too. www.mentalhealthrecovery.com
Compiled for the CCA - Toronto chapter
- by Robert Sealey, BSc, CA www.searpubl.ca
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