Does Celiac Disease Give Greater Osteoporosis Risk?

According to a new report, people who suffer with celiac disease are at risk for developing osteoporosis later on in their life. This may be due to the fact that those with the condition do not correctly absorb calcium and vitamin D into their system. These two nutrients are absolutely essential for proper bone function and bone strength.

Celiac disease is an inherited autoimmune disorder that can damage and badly affect the small intestine. It does not allow nutrients to absorb properly when foods containing gluten are ingested and this can be very problematic for the body. Gluten is found in a number of foodstuffs such as wheat, rye, barley and triticale so problems can be very common. Individuals with celiac disease must eliminate foods with this protein or risk further problems in their body. If it is left unmanaged, celiac disease can lead to rapid bone destruction and severe osteoporosis.

This was certainly true for the Bobel family. This family first learned that they were at risk for this debilitating disease when Rebecca Bobel, 72, fractured her pelvis, hip and tailbone when she was only 50 years old.

At this point she was diagnosed with osteoporosis at the time and doctors later learned that she carries the gene for celiac disease. Bobel then went on to develop hypothyroidism and vitamin D deficiencies, which is are known to be very common in people who have autoimmune diseases. Today, she continues to receive treatment for each of these conditions and they have a bad effect on her health and wellbeing.

People with a single autoimmune disorder can be at risk for developing other autoimmune disorders too. This was extremely apparent with the Bobel family, where it was seen that there was more than one disorder in each family member who was treated.

Does Celiac Disease Give Greater Osteoporosis Risk?

Categories: autoimmune, autoimmune disorder, bobel family, celiac, celiac disease, Disease, Family, risk

Eating Too Much Salt Could Trigger Rheumatoid Arthritis

It has been well documented over recent years that eating too much salt can be very bad for you. Salt has been linked the hardening of arteries and to raising blood pressure which can cause a wide range of problems for your wellness. Most healthy-eating diets and nutrition experts recommend eating as little salt as possible and so public awareness for its negative health impact is quite good. However, new research has uncovered a new reason for us to worry about how much salt we’re sprinkling on our food.

A team of researchers has reported that eating a diet laden with salt actually helps the development of autoimmune diseases, where the body’s immune system erroneously attacks healthy cells believing them to be foreign bodies that need to be gotten rid of. Three studies were examined and it was found that salt could indeed increase the risk of multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis.

This has interesting repercussions for how we view the recent rise in the diagnoses of autoimmune diseases as this research suggests that the increase could be down to environmental factors rather than genetics. This research also shows that salt affects the body in ways that we had not yet recognised. This only adds to the body of knowledge that having an excessively salt-rich diet is very bad for your overall health.

But interestingly it was actually an accidental discovery that triggered the researcher team’s interest in salt. They found out that people who ate at fast food restaurants seemed to have higher levels of inflammatory cells than others. While originally assuming that this was down in increased levels of fat it turned out that salt was in fact the culprit and an increasing risk factor for autoimmune diseases.

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Eating Too Much Salt Could Trigger Rheumatoid Arthritis

Categories: autoimmune, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Salt

How Well Do You Understand Diabetes?

How well do you understand diabetes? Most people will recognise the condition’s name and perhaps even understand some of the damage it can do. The issue comes when you start to ask people just how that same damage is done. Contrary to popular opinion it’s not done by blood-sugar itself, the damage is done when our bodies fail to utilise it. This means that the blood-sugar levels spike higher and higher and a diabetics body is unable (for one of two reasons) to make use of it. In a healthy person this blood-sugar is converted into energy by insulin which is then used by most of the cells in the body.

Type two diabetes, which is by far the most common of the conditions, occurs when a patients body becomes resistant to insulin. So the blood-sugar regulating hormone is still produced by the body and still works, just not nearly as well as it once did. This means that blood-sugar levels get higher and higher and the body is incapable of regulating them. Almost three-quarters of type two diabetics are also obese, which is a stark correlation. Of course this doesn’t explain how one-quarter of all type two diabetics contract the condition. What it does do is give some light into how insulin resistance may form. As our bodies get bigger our insulin hormone becomes less capable of filtering the blood-sugar from the blood.

Type one diabetes is very different from type two. It’s caused by what is thought to be a dual reaction, both genetic and environmental. No-one is entirely certain on the direct causes of type one diabetes but it’s a condition you tend to get as a child and much less common than type two diabetes. The condition is an autoimmune disease in which the bodies own immune system kills off the beta cells found in the pancreas. These cells are the body’s only way of producing insulin, without the hormone there’s no way for your body to regulate blood-sugar levels. As such type one diabetics have to take regular injections of insulin to replace what they lack and allow them to regulate their blood-sugar levels.

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How Well Do You Understand Diabetes?

Categories: autoimmune, Diabetes, Insulin